A NYT column refers to "Fuck around and find out" as "the unofficial Proud Boys motto."

I'm reading "America Is Used to Hiding Its Wars. Trump Is Doing the Opposite" by Charles Homans.

[T]he capture of Venezuela’s president, an oil blockade and intimations of regime change in Cuba, weeks of open deliberation over invading Greenland and finally the Iran war. These episodes followed the logic of content more than conflict, not so much ending as just kind of receding down the feed, replaced by bigger and better explosions. The White House social media team leaned trollishly into the idea, posting videos to X that spliced airstrike footage with movie and video game clips and a reference to the unofficial Proud Boys motto, “[expletive] around and find out.”

I'm interested in the larger theme of this column, but I got stuck on the aggressive intrusion of the Proud Boys. I would have thought "Fuck around and find out" was part of the ordinary discourse. But let's look. What's the origin and history of the phrase?

"As for Jan. 6 itself, it was a 'national embarrassment,' [Enrique] Tarrio said, adding, 'I am not a political zealot.'"

"Some of the other Proud Boys sentenced so far were similarly contrite in their remarks to Judge Kelly — only to reverse themselves outside the judge’s presence. Last week, not long after telling the judge that he was 'a changed and humbled man,' [Dominic] Pezzola raised his fist as he was being led from the courtroom and shouted with a smile, 'Trump won!' Days after weeping at his own sentencing, [Joseph] Biggs called into a vigil being held outside the municipal jail in Washington that houses several Jan. 6 defendants, describing his punishment as 'insane' and declaring, 'We gotta stand up and fight — don’t give up.' In an interview with his former boss, the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, Mr. Biggs also said he expected that Mr. Trump, if re-elected, would pardon him...."

From "Ex-Leader of Proud Boys Sentenced to 22 Years in Jan. 6 Sedition Case/The prison term for Enrique Tarrio was the most severe penalty handed down so far to any of the more than 1,100 people charged in connection with the Capitol attack" (NYT).

"[T]hree different sets of jurors have concluded that Jan. 6 was no spontaneous riot. It was planned, organized, incited..."

"... and led by individuals and groups in a conspiracy against our democratically elected government... Evidence at the trial showed that three of the men convicted Thursday of seditious conspiracy — Ethan Nordean, Joe Biggs and Zachary Rehl — led a group of about 200 Proud Boys away from the Ellipse rally and toward the Capitol even before Trump had finished speaking, or ranting. The defendants themselves did not participate in the worst of the violence at the Capitol; Tarrio wasn’t even in Washington that day. But prosecutors argued — and jurors agreed — that Tarrio, Nordean, Biggs and Rehl were the leaders who sent other Proud Boys to commit some of the most violent acts of the day.... Trump... complains that the Justice Department is persecuting patriotic Americans who were doing nothing more than exercising their right to peacefully protest. That is an outrageous, disgusting lie.... Jurors are getting it right. Leaders of the insurrection should face the most serious charges and suffer the most severe punishments. Now we wait to see whether the man without whose incitement Jan. 6 never would have happened — Donald Trump — is made to face his day in court as well."

Writes Eugene Robinson in "The Proud Boys jury got it right on Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy" (WaPo).

I did not sit through the trial and don't know what evidence was presented, but Robinson asserts that the "[e]vidence at the trial showed" the defendants led a large group — known to be members of the Proud Boys — to the Capitol where and that group went beyond vocal protesting and committed acts of "violence." I still have the question: What evidence proved that this was "sedition"? I'm trying to understand how political protests come to be understood as "sedition." 

Here's a post of mine from January 2022, quoting Jeannie Suk Gersen in a New Yorker article asking whether a sincere belief that the election would undermine the charge of "sedition":

Things that must be done "within one yard of a woman."

I'm reading "'Must be within one yard of a woman': Proud Boys trial reveals group’s strict 'no wanks' rules/The group's official handbook places strict conditions on masturbation, testimony reveals" (Salon).

Here's the text of the rule: "A Proud Boy may not ejaculate alone more often than once every thirty days. That means he must abstain from pornography during that time and if he needs to ejaculate it must be within one yard of a woman with her consent. The woman may not be a prostitute."

"His book feels somewhat hasty. Clichés tumble over one another... interwoven with over-the-top claims: that the Proud Boys turned Berkeley, Calif., 'into an almost perpetual war zone' and altogether have organized 'some of the most gruesome acts of political violence in modern American history.'..."

"The Proud Boys have four 'degree'” of membership. For the first degree, one merely takes an oath; for the fourth and highest degree, writes Campbell, 'a Proud Boy must commit a significant act of political violence or get arrested.' A more unexpected, and revealing, requirement faces second-degree hopefuls: They must swear not to masturbate more than once a month. This comes from McInnes’s belief that pornography-induced masturbation drains away the testosterone that would otherwise make men better fighters for the beleaguered white race.... Although Campbell does not explore it, far-right paranoia about pornography goes all the way back to 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.'... These anxieties reflect a greater fear: that what’s being lost is not just testosterone but masculinity itself.... A researcher who studied 43 McInnes videos that drew more than a million views each on YouTube found that only three had to do with race, while 26 concerned women, gender or feminism. One, entitled 'Single Moms: Stop Talking About How Brave and Cool You Are,' drew 2.1 million views....."

Writes Adam Hochschild in "The Proud Boys and the Long-Lived Anxieties of American Men," a review of the new book "WE ARE PROUD BOYS: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered In a New Era of American Extremism," by Andy Campbell.

"We’re never going to be the ones to cross the police barrier or cross something in order to get to somebody."

Said Enrique Tarrio, the chairman of Proud Boys, in a recorded video conference on Dec. 30, 2020, quoted in "Proud Boys Ignored Orders Given at Pre-Jan. 6 Meeting/The directives, given during a video conference, included obeying police lines and keeping away from ordinary protesters. But members of the far-right group played aggressive roles in several breaches at the Capitol" (NYT).

"The Drag Queen Story Hour website describes the program as 'just what it sounds like - drag queens reading stories to children in libraries, schools, and bookstores.'"

"'DQSH captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models. In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish, where dress up is real.'"

From "Proud Boys storm drag queen event for children at Bay Area library, deputies say" (ABC7 News).

"The men made homophobic and transphobic remarks against a member of the LGTBQ+ community who was hosting the event," [Alameda County Sheriff's Dept. Lt. Ray Kelly] wrote in an email. "There was no physical violence. Deputies responded to the disturbance and are conducting follow up to identify the group of men and their affiliation....We will initiate our hate crime protocol and will also address the annoying and harassing of children. More details to follow.... The men were reported to be members of the Proud Boys organization."

"But statements from the informant appear to counter the government’s assertion that the Proud Boys organized for an offensive assault on the Capitol intended to stop the peaceful transition from Mr. Trump to Mr. Biden."

"On the eve of the attack, the records show, the informant said that the group had no plans to engage in violence the next day except to defend itself from potential assaults from leftist activists.... Then, during an interview in April, the informant again told his handlers that Proud Boys leaders gave explicit orders to maintain a defensive posture on Jan. 6. At another point in the interview, he said that he never heard any discussion that day about stopping the Electoral College process.... According to the records, the informant first began to tell the F.B.I. what he knew about Jan. 6 in late December after a pro-Trump rally in Washington that month turned violent.... [T]he records contain no indication that the informant was aware of a possible plot by Proud Boys leaders to purposefully instigate those normal Trump supporters — or what members of the group refer to as 'normies'— on Jan. 6."

From "Among Those Who Marched Into the Capitol on Jan. 6: An F.B.I. Informant/A member of the far-right Proud Boys texted his F.B.I. handler during the assault, but maintained the group had no plan in advance to enter the Capitol and disrupt the election certification" (NYT).

ADDED: My hypothesis has been that if there had been a plan, the FBI would have known about it and it would have been defended against. If the government has evidence of a plan now, my question is why didn't they know in advance and defend the Capitol properly? The simplest answer is that there was no plan. 

"Many of the political cartoonists whose commentary was taken down by Facebook were left-leaning... [Facebook] said it made room for satirical content..."

"... but only up to a point. Posts about hate groups and extremist content, it said, are allowed only if the posts clearly condemn or neutrally discuss them, because the risk for real-world harm is otherwise too great.... In 2019 and 2020, Facebook often dealt with far-right misinformation sites that used 'satire' claims to protect their presence on the platform.... For example, The Babylon Bee, a right-leaning site, frequently trafficked in misinformation under the guise of satire. 'At a point, I suspect Facebook got tired of this dance and adopted a more aggressive posture'....  'Removing someone from social media can end their career these days, so you need a process that distinguishes incitement of violence from a satire of these very groups doing the incitement'.... 'You just wake up and find you’re in danger of being shut down because white nationalists were triggered by your comic'...." 

From "For Political Cartoonists, the Irony Was That Facebook Didn’t Recognize Irony/As Facebook has become more active at moderating political speech, it has had trouble dealing with satire" (NYT). 

The headline is misleading as you should be able to tell if you read my excerpt carefully. It won't work for Facebook that has a rule against right-wing satire but allows left-wing satire.

The quote "At a point, I suspect Facebook got tired of this dance and adopted a more aggressive posture" is from Emerson T. Brooking, "a resident fellow for the Atlantic Council who studies digital platforms." He's guessing that Facebook stopped accepting satire as a cover for disinformation and incitement. That worked against The Babylon Bee, as intended. Then, it had to apply the same rule to left-wing satirists. It's not that Facebook "didn't recognize irony." The "trouble dealing with satire" wasn't that it was humor-deaf and couldn't distinguish satire from serious things. It was that satire worked too well as an excuse to justify publishing things Facebook wanted to exclude. 

What kind of left-wing material got swept up in Facebook's censorship? The NYT describes a cartoon by "left-leaning cartoonist" Matt Bors. Titled “Boys Will Be Boys,” it "depicted a recruitment where new Proud Boys were trained to be 'stabby guys' and to 'yell slurs at teenagers' while playing video games." I don't think the Times has a link to it, but I found it easily: here. And you can read more of Bors's cartoons here. I read his newest cartoon, and it begins with a false statement: "Minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 for 45 years." But the minimum wage has only been $7.25 since 2009. In 1976, the minimum wage was  $2.30. Yes, but the cartoon is set in the future. Get it?!

"The group, whose total membership is unknown but believed to be in the thousands, has never articulated a specific ideology or dogma...."

From "Police Shrugged Off the Proud Boys, Until They Attacked the Capitol/Two Proud Boys accused of leading a mob to Congress followed a bloody path to get there. Law enforcement did little to stop them" (NYT).

[F]ederal law enforcement officials said, no evidence emerged that the Proud Boys had plotted murders, kidnappings, gun crimes or — apart from Jan. 6 — insurrection. Yet the Proud Boys’ belligerence fit the definition of terrorism, other officials said: unlawful violence and intimidation for political aims. Members raised money to travel across state lines to dozens of rallies with the intent of street fighting....

“If the Proud Boys was not a white male chauvinist club but a Black male chauvinist club, I think that, sadly, we would have seen a different policing posture,” said [Elizabeth] Neumann, the former Homeland Security official....

Critics argued that... arrests were rare because police generally favored the Proud Boys over their left-leaning opponents....

"On Jan. 3, three days before the attack on the Capitol, Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the far-right organization known as the Proud Boys, shared a cryptic post..."

"... on the messaging app Telegram: 'What if we invade it?' The message was sent to his more than 7,000 followers on the app, with the first reply reading 'January 6th is D day in America.'... [Messages on Parler, Telegram and Gab] show the group repeatedly invoking President Trump’s rhetoric in the weeks leading to the Jan. 6 protest.... On Parler, where the group’s official account had more than 340,000 followers before the platform went offline last week, Mr. Tarrio said on Dec. 29 that the Proud Boys would be able to put a thousand 'boots on the ground' and 'turn out in record numbers on Jan. 6.' In December, after Mr. Trump tweeted about the Jan. 6 rally and said to 'be there, will be wild,' the Long Island chapter of the Proud Boys posted that Trump supporters have been 'waiting for the green light from the President.' 'Everyone who said "Mr. President, just say when?" He just did,' the post said. The Proud Boys escalated their social-media activity and appeared emboldened after the Sept. 29 presidential debate... [in which] moderator Chris Wallace asked Mr. Trump if he would condemn white supremacists and militia groups. As part of his reply, the president said, 'Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.' The response within the group... was euphoric. On Parler, members shared designs for a T-shirt inspired by Mr. Trump’s comments. It read: 'Proud Boys standing by.'"

From "Proud Boys, Seizing Trump’s Call to Washington, Helped Lead Capitol Attack/Far-right group invoked the president’s rhetoric to build momentum toward violent showdown, a Wall Street Journal review shows" (Wall Street Journal, seemingly open to nonsubscribers).

"There was an eerie sense of inexorability, the throngs of Trump supporters advancing up the long lawn as if pulled by a current."

"Everyone seemed to understand what was about to happen. The past nine weeks had been steadily building toward this moment. On November 7th, mere hours after Biden’s win was projected, I attended a protest at the Pennsylvania state capitol, in Harrisburg. Hundreds of Trump supporters, including heavily armed militia members, vowed to revolt. When I asked a man with an assault rifle—a 'combat-skills instructor' for a militia called the Pennsylvania Three Percent—how likely he considered the prospect of civil conflict, he told me, 'It’s coming.' Since then, Trump and his allies had done everything they could to spread and intensify this bitter aggrievement. On December 5th, Trump acknowledged, 'I’ve probably worked harder in the last three weeks than I ever have in my life.'... Militant pro-Trump outfits like the Proud Boys—a national organization dedicated to 'reinstating a spirit of Western chauvinism' in America—had been openly gearing up for major violence. In early January, on Parler, an unfiltered social-media site favored by conservatives, Joe Biggs, a top Proud Boys leader, had written, 'Every law makers who breaks their own stupid Fucking laws should be dragged out of office and hung.' On the Mall, a makeshift wooden gallows, with stairs and a rope, had been constructed near a statue of Ulysses S. Grant.... I followed a group that broke off to advance on five policemen guarding a side corridor. 'Stand down,' a man in a maga hat commanded. 'You’re outnumbered. There’s a fucking million of us out there, and we are listening to Trump—your boss.' 'We can take you out,' a man beside him warned." 

From "Among the Insurrectionists/The Capitol was breached by Trump supporters who had been declaring, at rally after rally, that they would go to violent lengths to keep the President in power. A chronicle of an attack foretold" by Luke Mogelson (The New Yorker).

If Trump knew there was a plan to storm the Capitol building, then his speech to the crowd was an incitement, even though he never told the crowd to commit any act of violence.

2 days ago, I read Trump's speech looking for any language that could support the claim that he incited the crowd to storm the Capitol. I wrote a post listing the 7 most violence-inducing statements. They're about fighting and showing strength and never giving up, but they're all consistent with an idea of having a big, traditional street protest — with lots of people marching and displaying their passion for the cause through big numbers, determined-looking faces, and lots words on signs and in chants and speeches. 

But what if Trump knew there was a plan to storm the Capitol? Then all those words are transformed! They become an incitement to the violence, especially if the people in the crowd know he knows. The avoidance of references to violence would be part of a shared understanding — like winking. We know what we're going to do. 

Now, at this point, I don't even know that there was a plan. 

Yesterday, I wrote about a New Yorker article titled "A Palm Beach Proud Boy at the Putsch," and, in the comments, Bob Boyd said, "Putsch implies a plan. There was no plan. It was a protest that turned into a riot." 

I replied: "That's your hypothesis. I await investigations. You have no way to know the extent to which subdivisions of the crowd were acting according to a plan." 

I'm not going to assume either way. Was there a plan or wasn't there? If there was a plan, when did it develop and who knew about it? If it was talked about on social media, the record exists. Wouldn't the FBI have seen it in advance and communicated to the President about it? But then, why was the Capitol not fully protected?! The vulnerability of the Capitol raises the inference that there was no advance knowledge of a plan.

This morning, I'm seeing this at Buzzfeed: 

The first glimpse of the deadly tragedy that was about to unfold came at 9 a.m. on the morning of the insurrection for one Black veteran of the US Capitol Police....

“I found out what they were planning when a friend of mine screenshot me an Instagram story from the Proud Boys saying, ‘We’re breaching the capitol today, guys. I hope y’all ready.’” 

Now, that's 9 a.m. on the day of the protest, so it could be a plan that arose at the last minute. But Trump's speech did not begin until 1:11 p.m. That's 4 hours of lead time. Perhaps that Capital Police officer is lying or mistaken or perhaps he doesn't exist at all and Buzzfeed is wrong. But it's a fact that can be checked with Instagram. And I want to see all that there in social media, all the evidence of a plan, and what law enforcement knew about this plan, whether Trump was informed, and why there wasn't better protection of the Capitol. 

I have held off from believing that Trump incited the crowd to breach the Capitol. You can see that in my 7 statements post. But if he was informed of a plan, then I will read all of those statements as an incitement, and I would have to say that he should resign.

"Pickles has a comfortable relationship with nihilism.... 'I grew up in the punk-rock scene,' he said. 'And Trump was like punk rock. It’s, like, anti-establishment.'"

"He attended the University of Florida, where he was an English major and a liberal. 'I’ve taken basket weaving and read about the Black prison experience,' he said, with a snicker. (In his shop, Fat Enzo’s, murals of Mark Twain and Hunter S. Thompson share wall space with Huey Long.) He explained that after his father died, in 2015, he sought out new male camaraderie. The Proud Boys filled a vacuum. He claims to have joined not because they are a hate group (as designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center) but because 'they were seeking something.' He said, 'I came to the realization that Trump was awesome, and that I had been brainwashed.' From right-wing podcasts and YouTube, he said, he has learned that 'the pandemic is a scam,' and that 'we live in an inverted dictatorship run by the Deep State and globalists.'"  

From "A Palm Beach Proud Boy at the Putsch/Bobby Pickles, a purveyor of far-right T-shirts, joined the horde of balding dudes in dad jeans at the Capitol, because Donald Trump, he says, is 'like punk rock'" by Jane Mayer (The New Yorker).

The headline goes for alliteration: Palm... Proud... Putsch... Pickles... purveyor... punk.

I've written about the word "putsch" before. Do you remember the day it hit the news? It was June 26, 2015, the day the Supreme Court issue its opinion on same sex marriage, Obergefell v. Hodges. I wrote about it here:

Justice Scalia expresses astonishment at "the hubris reflected in today’s judicial Putsch." A "Putsch" is "An attempt to overthrow a government, esp. by violent means; an insurrection or coup d'état." That's the OED. "Hubris" is "o’erweening pride; and pride, we know, goeth before a fall." That's Scalia himself.

I think Scalia capitalized "Putsch" because he intended to write it as a German word and it's capitalized in German. But it's an English word, with, as noted above, an entry in the OED. The New Yorker has it capitalized in the headline and the word does not appear in the body of the article, so I don't know if The New Yorker would go with the Scaliaesque capitalization. As for meaning, "putsch" is correctly used. A synonym for "insurrection" is what the headline writer intended. 

Whether the participants indeed had insurrection in their mind is another matter, to be examined in articles like this, interviewing particular individuals like Pickles about what they thought they were doing and what they were able to gather about what other people had in mind. 

Pickles seems confused and disturbed by the craziness and the out-of-control escalation: "It happened in the moment. There was just so much momentum. We felt compelled to storm the Capitol. There’s nothing rational about it when you’re caught up in something like that."

Remember when Trump — asked to tell the Proud Boys to "stand down" — said "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by"?

ADDED: Here's a Wikipedia article, "Punk Ideologies." Nihilism is on the list along with anarchism, animal rights and veganism, apoliticism, Christianity, conservatism, feminism, Hare Krishna, Islam, liberalism, libertarianism, neo-Nazism, situationism, socialism, and "straight edge." 

Asked to tell white supremacists to "stand down," Trump said "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by." Stand by?!

Let's look at the transcript of last night's debate:

Chris Wallace: You have repeatedly criticized the vice president for not specifically calling out Antifa and other left wing extremist groups. But are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in Kenosha and as we’ve seen in Portland.

President Donald J. Trump: Sure, I’m willing to do that.

That's oddly clever. Asked "are you willing," he says "I'm willing." That's very literal, but the question invited him to do it, not to say he's willing to do it. Why not forthrightly take the cue to do it? Say "White supremacists and militia groups: You need to stand down." Just do it. What holds him back? Wallace has to re-prompt:

Chris Wallace: Are you prepared specifically to do it?

He doesn't even say the equivalent of "I'm willing" this time. He could be cleverly literal again and say, "I am prepared" (instead of doing it). But this time he changes the subject to the other side is worse:

Organizers of the Proud Boys rally in Portland said they'd have 20,000 people, the sheriff thought there'd be 1,000 or 2,000, but in reality, there were only 200.

NBC News reports.

The Proud Boys, a group of self-declared Western chauvinists, were denied a permit for the planned gathering due to coronavirus social-distancing concerns, but rallied anyway in what they had said would be a free speech event to support Trump and the police and condemn anti-fascists....

The governor used her emergency powers to give the Oregon State Police superintendent and the local sheriff the power to take charge of public safety in Portland for the weekend, a move that would restore the ability of law enforcement to use tear gas as a crowd-control measure.

The state police superintendent said there would be a “massive influx” of troopers in the city beginning Saturday morning. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat, said on Twitter this week, “Violence has no home in Portland.”

"Madison police investigating possible ambush of 'Proud Boy' by anti-fascists."

The Cap Times reports:

On May 13... a group of young men known as the Proud Boys from Wisconsin and possibly other states gathered to confer on their alt-right agenda. A South Chicago anti-fascist group, aware of the Proud Boys meeting at the Irish Pub on State Street, arrived at the bar that same night, waited until the Proud Boys group left, then ambushed one of them.

Madison police have not verified this account, which was posted by an anti-fascist — or "antifa" — group from south Chicago....

Initiated only last year, the Proud Boys, a quirky far-right association of young men, espouses “Western” values, decries Islam and immigration, extols housewives and entrepreneurs, and bans masturbation. In addition, initiation rites include a ritual beating, a requirement for a “Proud Boys” tattoo and a physical confrontation with anti-fascists.