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The rally solely attracted about two dozen marchers, who strolled up downtown avenues in a block-long group with music enjoying at excessive quantity from a transportable participant carried by a Proud Boy. Various them carried banners—yellow “Don’t Tread On Me” Gadsden flags, Proud Boys banners, pro-Trump banners (one learn “Jesus Is My Savior, Trump Is My President”), together with a number of commonplace American flags—and there have been no counterprotesters, aside from a handful of hecklers alongside the sidewalks, separated from the marchers by Olympia police on bicycles.
It was billed on social media as a protest in protection of the Jan. 6 defendants. Among the many dozens of individuals presently in jail and awaiting trial on expenses associated to the assault on the Capitol are six members of the Proud Boys management, together with nationwide chairman Enrique Tarrio, indicted on conspiracy and obstruction expenses, whereas at the very least 17 Proud Boys have been recognized by the Anti-Defamation League as individuals within the riot.
Furthermore, the chief of the Western Washington chapter of the Proud Boys—Ethan Nordean of Auburn—was the de facto chief of the Capitol siege that day, organizing the primary assaults on the boundaries across the constructing in addition to the mob siege on the steps and touchdown on the west aspect that led to the primary breaches of the Capitol. He and different Proud Boys “Elders”—together with Joe Biggs and Zachary Rehl—are presently awaiting trial alongside Tarrio.
The Proud Boys had been designated a “normal hate” group in 2018 by the Southern Poverty Regulation Heart, which famous that the group “performs a duplicitous rhetorical sport: claiming to reject white nationalism whereas espousing a laundered model of well-liked white nationalist tropes”:
The Proud Boys’ actions belie their disavowals of bigotry: Rank-and-file Proud Boys and leaders frequently spout white nationalist memes and keep affiliations with recognized extremists. They’re recognized for anti-Muslim and misogynistic rhetoric. Proud Boys have appeared alongside different hate teams at extremist gatherings such because the “Unite the Proper” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Former Proud Boys member Jason Kessler helped arrange that occasion.
Lastly, the Proud Boys’ total raison d’etre is violence: As we have experienced here within the Pacific Northwest these previous 5 years, they provide up a completely fungible number of ostensible causes for his or her rallies and protests, starting from free speech to gun legal guidelines to COVID denialism to males’s rights, all of them folded into the Proud Boys’ “Western chauvinism” as what Choe would describe as “their trigger and their mission.” However these have all been mere pretexts for the true purpose—usually explicitly said—that these males universally take to the streets: the chance to beat the shit out of liberals, leftists, Black Lives Matter, and “antifa.”
It’s unclear whether or not Choe was conscious of any of this, although it appears unlikely that one of many prime reporters for one of many Seattle space’s largest and most distinguished information operations can be ignorant—or at the very least would fail to carry out due diligence earlier than masking them independently (he was not assigned to report on the occasion by KOMO, which had no protection of it) and posting about it on Twitter whereas tagging his employer within the tweets.
It’s additionally potential that Choe was unaware that the music he used because the soundtrack for his “That’s a wrap” video—apparently performed through the march—is a infamous white-nationalist anthem referred to as the “Männerbund,” or “By God We’ll Have Our Dwelling Once more,” carried out by a white nationalist band referred to as Pine Tree Riots, that includes lyrics complaining that “In our personal cities we’re foreigners now, our names are spat and cursed.” Proud Boys have adopted it as their anthem and sing it at public events. It’s much less clear, nevertheless, why Choe would use such a music in his video with none thought of its origins.
KOMO’s information operations has come beneath sharp criticism because the station was bought by Sinclair Broadcasting, the corporate with right-wing possession that has prompt a white-nationalist agenda beforehand in its dealing with of the Unite the Proper protests and its edicts for anchors to learn scripted pro-Trump editorials. To their credit score, the workers and anchors at KOMO have brazenly resisted a few of these initiatives.
Choe particularly has performed a distinguished position in demonizing homelessness in Seattle, producing an limitless collection of stories on squalid circumstances at encampments that had been a part of KOMO’s execrable “Seattle is Dying” protection. In latest months, he’s assiduously focused key downtown areas—significantly at Third and Pine, a traditionally crime-ridden space—that sensationalizes the issues and plastering over any underlying causes. In Seattle, as in different massive West Coast cities, out-of-control revenue disparity is the largest driver in homelessness and crime, however Choe has by no means managed to report on that subject.
Wealthy Smith at The Stranger notes that Choe had been courting a dismissal for awhile, having appeared on right-wing radio host Dori Monson’s present with out approval, which prompted a staffwide electronic mail from the information director reminding everybody that KOMO coverage prohibited reporters from doing interviews exterior the station with out being cleared to take action. Choe’s more and more antagonistic tweets afterwards produced one other reminder from the boss that reporters needed to comply with the identical guidelines on social media that they did when reporting.
“We’re not within the opinion weblog enterprise or on a mission constructed round any explicit trigger. We’re journalists and we inform tales. And we’re not ever the story. In case you are reposting or retweeting posts on our platforms that don’t share our skilled requirements, that’s unacceptable,” the information director wrote.
Each day Kos’ sources at KOMO, like Smith’s, point out that Choe seemingly needed to be fired and candidly advised folks that. With “cancel tradition” the new matter on media from the Breitbart to The New York Occasions, it’s clear that Choe has noticed his subsequent gravy practice. A well-timed firing would possibly set him up for all times.
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