PerspectiveAs Trump Warns of Leftist Violence, a Dangerous Threat Emerges from the Right-Wing Boogaloo Movement

A far-right extremist movement born on social media and fueled by anti-government rhetoric has emerged as a real-world threat in recent weeks, with federal authorities accusing some of its adherents of working to spark violence at largely peaceful protests roiling the nation. Craig Timberg writes in the Washington Post that at a time when President Trump and other top U.S. officials have claimed — with little evidence — that leftist groups were fomenting violence, federal prosecutors have charged various supporters of a right-wing movement called the “boogaloo bois,” with crimes related to plotting to firebomb a U.S. Forest Service facility, preparing to use explosives at a peaceful demonstration and killing a security officer at a federal courthouse.

Timberg adds:

Boogaloo is more of a violent anti-government ideology than a formal movement, say those who study extremist groups. They say they cannot identify a leader, headquarters or command structure, just loosely affiliated social media pages ranging from explicitly violent to merely commercial, peddling boogaloo-themed merchandise.

But the visibility of boogaloo supporters at recent protests — dressed in trademark Hawaiian shirts and carrying military-style rifles — had alarmed researchers who for months had warned about the danger the groups posed.

Now federal prosecutors in California, Texas, Nevada and Colorado appear to be endorsing those concerns with a series of criminal charges against self-described boogaloo supporters, whose arrests often were accompanied by the seizure of weapons and explosives.

Timberg quote extremism experts to say that the flurry of boogaloo-related prosecutions underscores the growing threat posed by far-right extremists. Some question why Trump and other top U.S. officials appear more focused on antifa groups, a loose collection of leftists whose members have been responsible for few documented crimes during the recent unrest, instead of the boogaloo and other heavily armed groups on the right.

“That question has no legitimate answer, to be honest,” John Farmer, a former New Jersey attorney general and director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers, who has studied the boogaloo extremists and others, told Timberg. “There’s been no sense of urgency. I think it’s political neglect.”

“The numbers are overwhelming: Most of the violence is coming from the extreme right wing,” said Clint Watts, a former FBI agent who studies extremist political activity for the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a think tank in Philadelphia.

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Numerous independent research groups — including the Network Contagion Research Institute, for which Farmer co-wrote a report — have been warning for months about rising signs of boogaloo organizing and other activity on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other platforms. They have grown especially concerned that these extremists had become a disruptive and potentially dangerous element at political protests.