Jake Lang Militia 4

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Nick Fuentes wants to see America taken over by a dictator who will "literally just break the system."

Greg Bovino has now teamed up with neo-Nazi Jake Lang.

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08/21/2026

Peter Montgomery

Right-wing politicians and pundits are intensifying their appeals to anti-Muslim bigotry in an apparent bid to solidify and energize the Christian Nationalist base of the Republican Party as polls show the party’s fortunes fading as we head toward the fall midterm elections.

While last year’s election of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani gave bigots a big new target, right-wing demonization of American Muslims is nothing new. For years, religious-right leaders have undermined their posturing as champions of religious liberty by calling for discrimination against Muslims. Hard-core Christian Nationalists like Doug Wilson, invited by Pete Hegseth to preach at the Pentagon, does not believe Muslims or other non-Christians should be allowed to worship publicly or hold public office.

Sometimes religious-right leaders justify their hypocrisy by falsely claiming that the First Amendment was intended only to protect Christians. Sometimes they do so by falsely claiming that Islam—the second biggest religion in the world—is not even a religion, a fiction that some Republican legislators in Texas are scheming to put into law.

One of this year’s Republican strategies is fomenting fear and anger about the supposed threat that Sharia law is on the verge of replacing the U.S. Constitution—even though American Muslims represent well under two percent of the population.

One energetic practitioner of the Sharia-scare strategy is U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL). “Islamists are RIGGING our elections and planning their takeover of America,” screams a bold-face line in a recent email raising money for Tuberville and the Republican National Committee—with no evidence whatsoever to justify such a claim. It goes on:

Radical Islamists have infiltrated every corner of our country. They are in our government, our schools, and our communities. They are moving forward with their plan to take over America.

And unless you take a stand right now, they will be one step closer to eliminating our Constitution and replacing it with Sharia Law. …

The future of America is at stake.

It’s up to us to end the chaos right now before these Islamists change “In God We Trust” to “In Allah We Trust.”

Not over my dead body.

A different Tuberville-RNC email sent this week puts a harder partisan spin on the fearmongering:

The Democrats are doing it right under our noses.

They’re letting Sharia Law take root on American soil. Right Now. …

This is the red line.

We BAN Sharia Law today, or our children will live under it tomorrow.

MAGA religious leaders like Trump-promoting pastor Lorenzo Sewell are all too eager to lend a hand. The energetically pro-Trump Pentecostal-oriented outlet Charisma on Friday promoted a made-for-social-media tirade Sewell delivered at the Dearborn City Council earlier this week.

“America, we have lost this city,” Sewell shouted. “This is a city that is no longer up under American laws. We are up under Sharia law. We will not have it anymore. Enough is enough.”

“We are not a nation of Muslims,” Sewell yelled. “We are a nation of Christians. We are one nation under God, indivisible—the God of the Bible, the God of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the God in whom we serve.”

Sewell recently hosted and prayed over far-right provocateur and violent Jan. 6 rioter Jake Lang, who is on a “crusade” against American Muslims. Lang who told Sewell’s congregation that Muslims are “mongrel Third Worlders” who are “multiplying like cockroaches.” Said Sewell, “I love you, man.”

In another video Sewell posted this week, the pastor embraces Lang, who asserts that Islam is not a religion but “an insidious parasitical political movement.” Sewell urged Lang to promote an anti-Muslim rally he said he is planning to hold in New York City on the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks that, Lang said, “the Muslims did on our people.”

Earlier this year, Lang was captured on video protesting outside AIPAC and declaring, “White Christian men are not going to sit around while you turn our children into a bunch of n****r lovers.”

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Great Replacement conspiracy theorist and pardoned Jan. 6 rioter Jake Lang brought his racial grievances and “Christian Crusader March” to Dearborn and its city council meeting on Tuesday, where the right-wing provocateur told council members Muslim people are “looking to outbreed” white people and “steal our wealth.”

Dearborn, home to the largest Arab American population in the country, has long been the target of anti-Muslim rhetoric from people outside the community. Lang had spread his anti-Muslim message in the community as recently as August 2, when he was reportedly assaulted by a Dearborn resident. The Arab American News reports the resident, Abbas Abdoush, was later detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“The Muslims are being used by the Democrats to instill socialism in America,” Lang said during the city council meeting as the crowd lingered outside. “Once the Muslims have power in this county, then they will start throwing homosexuals off the roofs.”

The protest before the city council meeting was defined by diametrically opposed groups of Christian nationalist and counterprotesters screaming to drown out the sound of each other.

A line of police in riot gear kept the peace by standing between Lang’s group of provocateurs and the rest of the crowd that had gathered outside the Henry Ford Centennial Library, where the council meeting had been moved for safety reasons. Michigan Advance estimated the crowd size peaked at roughly 2,000 people.

“Here is to staying free from the Muslim Brotherhood takeover” yelled Lang ally Jayden Scott in a megaphone as he stood behind the police line separating him from the crowd. “We must fight back. This is a Christian nation. A Christian nation it shall remain.”

A throng of supporters answered with chants of “U.S.A, U.S.A.,” while a man with a megaphone of his own yelled “Jake Lang, repent”, saying Lang doesn’t follow the teachings of Jesus.

Lang organized the protest with the help of Detroit Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, a supporter of President Donald Trump who was criticized for attempting to enrich himself through a cryptocurrency scheme after speaking at Trump’s second inauguration. Sewell is also a member of the Faith Coalition Leadership Team of Republican U.S. Senate nominee Mike Rogers, who faces Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim, in November’s election.

“Michigan families deserve a Senator who will stand up to hate rather than enable it,” El-Sayed campaign spokesperson Cole Wozniak said in a press statement issued just prior to the rally. “Mike Rogers must immediately disavow this rally, his affiliation with Jake Lang and January 6th terrorists, and explain why his campaign’s faith advisor is rallying alongside out of state agitators against Michigan faith communities.”

A request for comment was made to the Rogers campaign, but was not returned. This story will be updated when a response is received.

Democratic elected leaders including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan Secretary of State and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jocelyn Benson, U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin and U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit) all condemned Lang’s protest as an attempt to stir hatred that could directly harm Dearborn’s Muslim community.

“Islamophobic racists are yet again marching in Dearborn to terrorize a whole faith community,” Tlaib said. “Dearborn is a beautifully diverse place, home to a vibrant, loving Muslim community, and our families do not deserve to be subjected to such hate and bigotry.”

At several moments, it seemed as if the clash between Lang’s Christian nationalist supporters and counterprotesters, mostly Dearborn residents, could turn violent. A small segment of the two groups — almost all men who appeared to range in age from their late teens to early 40s, some wearing masks or hoods to hide their faces — spewed much of the vitriolic rhetoric and tried to provoke each other into physical confrontations while denouncing the other side’s beliefs and defending their own.

“These (are) fake Christians!” One young Dearborn man yelled at a man in a U.S. Navy hat.

“Go back to your country!” The man responded.

Both men ignored an interview request from the Advance.

Muhammad al-thihabawi in his own words.

The unity he describes here is a little pollyanna. There were some real tense moments and anger. But he says he found unity amongst people of different religious and ethnic groups who believe in the “amendments” and that Dearborn isnt bad pic.twitter.com/CK9yGQbum9

— Tyler Scott (@T_Scotttttt) August 19, 2026

A significant portion of the crowd was uninterested in violence. The Advance observed several women urging their male partners to “shut the f---- up,” and stay calm out of concern that “you’re going to get arrested.” Some seemed only interested in observing Lang’s promised spectacle or trying to keep the peace. Most of the animosity seemed verbal. Dearborn police said information about arrests or violent altercations was not immediately available.

At the end of the city council meeting’s public comment period, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, who was recently the target of death threats by an Alaska man, addressed the crowd saying that word of Lang’s return to the city sparked fear across the city, with some businesses deciding not to open Tuesday. Hammoud said he met a young boy who asked “if the crusaders were going to kill him.”

Of the Christian nationalist protestors Hammoud said, “they are attacking the idea that everyone can belong to America at the same time.”

Donna Brandenburg, gubernatorial nominee of the U.S. Taxpayers Party, attended the protest and said the whole event seemed orchestrated to stoke political resentment.

“It seems like a big act,” Brandenburg said. “It’s trying to divide people. People in Dearborn want peace. They don’t want the fighting. I saw more American flags in Dearborn than I did in Byron Center. People need to stop drinking the Kool-Aid.”

Despite the palpable tension and verbal hostility that dominated the evening, Dearborn resident Muhammad Al-Thibabawi said he felt “unity” with people of different ethnic and religious groups and that most of the Christian nationalist protestors were uninformed about what Dearborn is.

“I spoke to a lot of these guys who are like ‘dude we got here and this is just a normal city that practices their amendments to the fullest’” Al-Thibabawi said. “We take pride in what we have. We love America.”

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MMA

### Far-right influencers Nick Fuentes and Jake Lang are fighting over who is “the main pro-white advocate”

03/18/26

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Angry White Men: Stew Peters Accuses Father Of Slain Teenager Of ‘Anti-White Self-Hatred’

Recently, a far-right, racist rally was held in Frisco, TX ostensibly in honor of Austin Metcalf, a white high school student who was killed at a track meet. But when Austin’s father, Jeff Metcalf, condemned the rally and its organizers, Holocaust-denying, pro-Nazi broadcaster Stew Peters was apoplectic.

Edith Olmstead @ The New Republic: Stephen Miller Delivers Chilling Warning to Judges on Deportations

Donald Trump’s adviser had a bizarre and disturbing ultimatum.

Amanda Moore @ Turtle Diaries: Bussin' in the Egoists: Race Rally Edition

The clown show makes a stop in Frisco, Texas.

last week, Jake Lang, a pardoned J6er turned candidate for US Senate, attempted to add race agitator to his ever-growing resume. Lang held a “Protect White Americans” rally at Kuykendall Stadium in Frisco, Texas, claiming that white people are under attack from black people. Lang, who lives in Florida, hitched a ride to Texas on a MAGA themed motor home adorned with images of Martin Luther King Jr, and JFK Jr moments before being shot.

Lang’s promo materials heavily featured Austin Metcalf, 17, who was fatally stabbed by Karmelo Anthony, also 17, at a track meet at the stadium. Metcalf, who was white, has become something of a martyr for some racists, who have baselessly suggested that Anthony, who is black, targeted Metcalf due to his race.

Even before the rally took place, the event was divisive on the right — including among Lang’s fellow J6ers. The night before the rally, Oath Keepers Jessica Watkins and Kelly Meggs mocked the idea that white people are under attack in a Space on X, formerly Twitter

Lang was identified as a J6er fairly early on, as he advertised his presence on social media. According to the Justice Department, Lang obtained a Metropolitan Police Department helmet, which he wore for much of the riot. He was accused of physically engaging with police, swinging a baseball bat at officers.

When I arrived at the stadium on Saturday, a small group, primarily consisting of journalists, was gathered around Lang’s co-organizer, Philip Anderson. Anderson is also a J6er, who is most notable for spending much of 2024 posting on X that he would kill himself if Trump lost the election.

While I was on time for the rally, I missed much of Anderson’s preamble, though I did hear him say that “they” had gotten Trump to pardon all of the J6ers. I tried to ask about Meggs and Watkins, the two Oath Keepers who had been mocking the event in a Space the night before, and the other 12 who were not pardoned, but Anderson either didn’t hear me, or simply ignored me.

Lang and Anderson set up on top of the tour bus they were using, shouting down the 9 or 10 people who were listening to their speeches (they insisted people were driving by over and over to hear the speeches from their cars).

Eventually some protesters did show up, outnumbering actual attendees. At first, the police did little to keep the groups separated, resulting in a scuffle and two arrests. Organizers tried to save the soul of one guy, dressed in a Carmelo Anthony jersey, by getting him to accept Christ as his savior and take off his shirt.

You might be wondering why I flew to Texas and back (the day before Easter!) to watch a few people stand around in a parking lot, or why you’re reading about it now. I was wondering that, too — at least until the rally ended.

A black man in a cowboy hat was one of the few people in attendance who stood and watched Anderson and Lang rant from the roof of the bus for two hours. As it turned out, he was not a supporter, but a man named Bruce Carter, who was there to deliver a message from Jeff Metcalf, Austin’s father: knock it off (Carter told me that Lang and Anderson had not reached out to Jeff at all).

The conversation between Carter and Lang did not go well. At one point, Carter called Jeff Metcalf on speakerphone, who told Lang he was “part of the fucking problem” and demanded that Lang “take my son’s face off your website.” In response, Lang told Metcalf he was weak. Here is the full conversation between Carter, Lang, and Metcalf — I encourage you to at least watch the beginning, when Metcalf is on speakerphone.

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The conversation was so egregious that afterwards, one of the owners of the MAGA tour bus ran up to Carter. “I don’t necessarily agree with him telling, I mean calling the father weak? I didn’t agree with that. At all!” he announced.

Nevertheless, Lang was not deterred from using Metcalf’s death as a way to create content. After everyone left, Lang broke into the stadium and found a rust stain on the ground. In a video posted to X, Lang proclaimed it was Metcalf’s blood. Shortly after, Frisco ISD announced they were seeking charges against Lang (a spokesperson also pointed out that Lang was on the opposite side of the stadium from where Metcalf had been stabbed).

Lang has since doubled down on his stance, proclaiming that Jeff Metcalf is “kicking dirt on his son’s grave.” For reasons that are unclear, Lang has delivered these remarks shirtless.

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On Wednesday, April 2 in a Dallas suburb, 17-year-old high school student Austin Metcalf was fatally stabbed at a track meet by Karmelo Anthony, also 17. Anthony, who admitted to fatally stabbing Metcalf, is facing murder charges but says he acted in self-defense when they got into a fight.

In an article published on April 25, Salon's Amanda Marcotte details the ways in which Jake Lang — who was among the January 6 Capitol riot defendants and is now running for the U.S. Senate in Florida — and right-wing media outlets are exploiting the case and turning it into a racial issue.

"Metcalf was white. Anthony is Black," Marcotte explains. "Lang saw an opportunity and leapt into action. After circulating a flyer with Metcalf's face labeled 'Protect White Americans,' Lang descended on this Texas suburb to lead a rally painting Black Americans as a near-existential threat to white Americans. When Jeff Metcalf, the victim's father, called Lang during the rally, the former inmate now running for State Secretary Marco Rubio's Florida Senate seat, got visibly excited."

According to Marcotte, Austin Metcalf's father, Jeff Metcalf, was not impressed by Lang's "racist stunt" and asked him to stop using photos of his son.

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"Lang is a clown, but he is not an outlier," Marcotte laments. "The whole of right-wing media, including Fox News, has decided to make a spectacle of this case, with endless, breathless coverage painting this single situation as symbolic of what they view as a racist war on white people. It's useful agitprop for MAGA, which desperately needs a distraction from (President Donald) Trump's failures and falling approval ratings."

Marcotte continues, "It's gross, and it's coming at a high cost for the families involved and the larger community, ratcheting up racial tensions and sowing paranoia, all over a case that is already heart-wrenching enough…. Tellingly, the right-wing noise machine can't even articulate the injustice that needs to be remedied here. Anthony was arrested and is being held accountable. There is not a smidgen of evidence that police and prosecutors aren't taking this case seriously…. The deafening outrage is about shutting off the brains of the audience, keeping MAGA audiences in a state of racist paranoia, so they don't think about how Donald Trump's incompetence is hurting the economy and national security."

Lang, according to Marcotte, "did not react well to Jeff Metcalf telling him to step off."

"After the grieving father embarrassed Lang in front of reporters," Marcotte observes, "Lang posted on X that Metcalf is an example of 'White Weakness & Submission' and that Metcalf would 'hand his daughter over to be raped.'"

Amanda Marcotte's full article for Salon is available at this link.}:

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Police in Tempe, Arizona have arrested a man they believe is responsible for a spate of shootings at a Democratic field office in the pivotal battleground state. The alleged shooter's cache of weapons and ammunition suggests he may have been planning a politically motivated mass shooting.

Phoenix-based ABC affiliate KNXV reported Wednesday that 60 year-old Jeffrey Michael Kelly has been arrested in connection with three different shootings reported at the campaign office since September. Democrats have since closed that office and moved operations to an undisclosed location out of concern for the safety of workers and volunteers.

Kelly has since been charged with unlawful discharge, shooting at a non-residential structure, terrorism and criminal damage. He is also accused of "hanging suspicious bags of white powder from several political signs lined with razor blades," according to KVXN.

The Democratic field office was targeted in three separate shootings on September 16, September 23 and October 6. Witnesses reported a silver Toyota Highlander SUV near the scene. No one was in the office at the time of the shootings, and no deaths or injuries were reported in either incident.

According to Phoenix-based outlets KTVK and KPHO, Kelly allegedly used Google Maps to search the location of the field office, and he was also reportedly seen posting "anti-Democratic ideology signs" in several locations near his home.

KVXN further reported that when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms searched Kelly's home, they found a massive arsenal of weapons, including 120 firearms, approximately 250,000 rounds of ammunition and a grenade launcher, in addition to body armor. Maricopa County Deputy County Attorney Nena Bhatia said it's likely Kelly was planning a mass shooting.

"The state and law enforcement believe that this person was preparing to commit an act of mass casualty with the guns he had, and that his progression of violence was escalating," she said.

While the types of guns investigators and caliber of ammunition seized has not yet been disclosed, it's worth noting that an AK-47 in its fully automatic setting is capable of firing 600 rounds a minute. This means that without even counting for time to reload, it would take approximately seven hours to fire 250,000 rounds of ammunition continuously.

Kelly is currently being held on a $500,000 bond, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. His next court appearance is scheduled for Tuesday, October 29.

Click here to read KVXN's article in full.

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Militias Are Recruiting Off of the Trump Shooting

“You can sit and enjoy the show,” wrote the leader of a Kentucky militia on Facebook. “Or you can join it. There will come a time, you will have no choice!”

Militia and anti-government groups across the United States are using the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump as an opportunity to organize, recruit, and train.

“An attack on President Trump was an attack on us, people like us—like-minded American patriots,” says Scott Seddon, the Pennsylvania-based founder of the American Patriots Three Percenters (APIII), in a video posted to TikTok on Sunday. APIII is a decentralized militia network with chapters across the US. “There comes a point in time where everybody in this group needs to start being accountable for what they’re doing to help grow the organization and building a network of like-minded people in their area. Because they’re coming for us.”

Politics Lab Newsletter by Makena Kelly

Not your average politics newsletter. Makena Kelly and the WIRED Politics team help you make sense of how the internet is shaping our political reality.

Seddon goes on in the video to say that he’s looking at coordinating a meeting with other militias around Pennsylvania. “This is not going to just go away. We need to become fuckin’ strong, fuckin’ lions,” says Seddon. “Start reaching out to individuals in your state that are trustworthy, that have the like-minded vision of local strong communities, to hold down the fort, just in case [of] war, or for when shit hits the fan.”

In the aftermath of the shooting at Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania—which left the former president wounded in his ear, one person dead, and two people injured—incendiary rhetoric and calls for retaliatory violence exploded online.

Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project, says that this type of rhetoric has been pretty commonplace in online spaces since 2020, especially since January 6. But she’s particularly concerned about the heightened rhetoric in tandem with aggressive recruitment efforts by militia groups, who historically have opportunistically pounced on moments of national chaos to encourage organizing and training. Paul says the confluence of militia activity and heightened rhetoric could inspire “individuals who are susceptible to online influence and acceleration” who “could be triggered to act on their own.” She also sees militias’ emphasis on organization over knee-jerk calls for retaliatory violence as a sign that the movement is focused on long-term goals and growth.

In the past year, APIII has made a significant recruitment push across major social media platforms, such as Facebook, X, TikTok, and even NextDoor, according to research from the Tech Transparency Project shared exclusively with WIRED. Despite featuring “Three Percenters” in its name—a clear nod to the militia movement—APIII touts a disclaimer on its website insisting that it is not a militia. That’s in line with the broader trend seen since January 6, 2021, when paramilitary activists scrambled to distance themselves from the militia movement implicated in the Capitol riot.

But groups like APIII have increasingly been trying to rebuild the militia movement from the ground up, urging people to get organized in their communities. According to Seddon, APIII and the Light Foot Militia, another decentralized paramilitary group with chapters nationwide, have been coordinating closely. Last month, a video circulated on TikTok and Facebook purporting to show a training meetup with APIII and Light Foot in an undisclosed location. About 100 heavily armed men and women in fatigues are shown standing in formation. Text over the video reads: “Now is the time to join a MF’in Militia, Not a Political Party,” and “We came into this world screaming covered in blood and will be leaving the same way. No retreat no surrender.”

Other militias also led recruitment pushes following Saturday’s attempted assassination. The admin of a Facebook page for the “New Confederate American Family,” which Paul describes as a Confederate militia, claimed in a post that many members had inquired about stepping up into leadership positions since the shooting. “Excellent,” one person responded to the post. “Maybe this is the push that will help fill our ranks when the time comes.”

The leader of a Kentucky militia responded to the shooting with an ominous prediction of more violence to come. “I told you things were going to heat up in July,” he wrote on Facebook. “Come September, many will fall! It’s just getting started.”

“You can sit and enjoy the show,” he wrote in another post. “Or you can join it. There will come a time, you will have no choice!”

Individuals with links to the paramilitary movement also sounded off on Facebook, with some calling for militias to provide security for Trump. “How the hell can [we] trust the Deep State/Police State with the life of candidate Trump?” wrote one individual on Facebook, claiming to be part of the “American militia freedom forces.” Another individual called for the formation of a “citizens militia” at the RNC, though that idea was promptly swatted down by some of their followers.

These conversations are taking place on Facebook, which in theory has had a years-long ban in place against militias organizing on the platform. They are also taking place despite the fact that WIRED flagged militia recruitment on Facebook back in May.

Erica Sackin, a spokesperson for Meta, told WIRED in an email that APIII is banned under Facebook's list of "Dangerous organizations and Individuals." She asserts that Facebook is an adversarial space, where groups often employ new strategies to evade detection and enforcement, and stressed Meta's commitment to enforcement and monitoring.

“Groups like the Three Percenters are already banned from the platform, and the glorification of groups calling for political violence is not allowed,” says Paul. “The outright failure of major platforms like Facebook to address ongoing militia recruiting, unchecked misinformation, and calls to violence has been a problem for years. The issue is enforcement—and that failed enforcement can have real-world consequences with political violence on the rise.”

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A January 6 Rioter Is Leading an Armed National Militia From Prison

As the US election approaches, Edward “Jake” Lang says that the militia will focus on potential “civil unrest” around the vote and will be ready to activate at a moment’s notice.

Years after being accused of swinging a baseball bat at police officers during the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, Edward “Jake” Lang is now using encrypted messaging channels to create a nationwide network of armed militias in all 50 states.

Though he has been in prison for over 1,200 days, Lang is working with a network of election deniers and conspiracists to promote the North American Patriot and Liberty Militia, or Napalm for short. The group officially launched last week with 50 state-specific militia groups on Telegram.

Lang claims that the Telegram groups already have 20,000 members, including pastors, farmers, former military personnel, and currently serving sheriffs. However, multiple experts who reviewed the channels tell WIRED that figure was wildly overestimated, and that the real figure was closer to 2,500 members. But a group this size, they warn, is still large enough to cause a serious threat. And while unarmed members are welcome, the group is, at its core, a pro-gun organization. “We are pro open carry, pro always have it on you, rather than waiting for somebody else to be able to defend your life,” says Lang.

As the 2024 US election approaches, Lang says that Napalm will be focusing on potential “civil unrest” around the vote. “We have to make sure that we're prepared for any real-time scenarios, any eventualities,“ says Lang. “Civil unrest at any given moment, especially around an election time, is something that could come along, and so we have to plan for that contingency as well.”

Tensions around the November vote are already at an all-time high, and many Republicans refuse to say if they will peacefully accept the outcome of the November election. Over one-third of Americans now baselessly claim that President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 was illegitimate. These conspiracies have led to a resurgence in far-right activity, of which Napalm is just the latest facet: Lang, along with all other members of the group’s leadership council, ardently believes that the 2020 election was stolen from former president Donald Trump.

“We've noted considerable energy being put into resurrecting far-right paramilitary activism right now,” Devin Burghart, the executive director at the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (IREHR), tells WIRED. “The growing talk of ‘Second Amendment remedies’ to unfavorable electoral outcomes is a serious cause for concern. Militia groups like Napalm promote political violence and sow the seeds for another potential insurrection.”

In addition to the election, Lang says that Napalm will respond to everything from natural disasters to Federal overreach, political protests, and potential Chinese invasions.

“I thought it was necessary to get organized in case these encroachments, these violations of our civil liberties, our natural rights were to escalate to a point where it'd absolutely be untenable and that we would need to defend ourselves.” Lang tells WIRED from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he is awaiting a trial set for September. “There is a tyrannical wave that has hit America that we've never seen before. And so it's time that people get organized in case they escalate to something that basically puts our very lives in danger.”

Lang, 29, is from upstate New York. He claims to have been an ecommerce entrepreneur and nightclub promoter before getting sober and finding God in late 2020. At the same time, Lang was getting deeper into “truther content” online that claimed Marxists and Communists were ruining the country. This content overlapped with election-denial conspiracies that led to the Capitol riot and inspired Lang to travel to DC.

Days after January 6, Lang was recruiting people into an armed militia on Telegram that would ostensibly fight against the incoming regime of President Biden.

“It was the first battle of the Second American Revolution—make no mistakes,” Lang wrote about the Capitol riot, according to a tranche of thousands of messages obtained by ProPublica. “This is WAR.”

That effort ended days later when Lang was arrested and charged with multiple counts of assaulting law enforcement officers, as well as felony charges of civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding—some of which carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

After he was arrested, Lang became a figurehead for January 6 prisoners who have been falsely portrayed as “hostages” or “warriors” by Trump and his supporters. While in prison, Lang has published a book, helped produce several films, hosted his own podcast, and raised millions of dollars for inmates and their families—all related to the January 6 attack.

“It's important to recognize that Lang is, first and foremost, a grifter who knows that his ‘political prisoner’ schtick is his only shot at relevance,” says Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. “This is someone who has intentionally delayed his own trial date in an effort to remain in the spotlight and who continues to promote violent conspiracies.”

And though Lang’s original attempt at starting a militia on Telegram ended with just a few hundred followers and his arrest, he says that he has spent the past year creating Napalm from his cell with the help of far-right figures from around the country.

Among those who Lang has convinced to join his initiative is QAnon promoter Ann Vandersteel, who is the groups’ national vice chairman. Former New Mexico county commissioner Couy Griffin, who is known as the leader of Cowboys for Trump, is also on the council. In 2022, Griffin refused to certify the results of a primary election vote.

Stew Peters, who will act as the militia’s national communications director, is a Florida-based antisemitic podcaster who shot to prominence in recent years by pushing Covid conspiracies, including a wild claim that Covid vaccines were derived from snake venom. The claim was so outlandish that even other conspiracy theorists dismissed his claims as “trash.” Peters has also pushed QAnon conspiracies and white supremacist content and even called for the death sentence for the “traitors” that he claimed have stolen the elections.

When the site launched last week, which was first reported by Media Matters, one of those listed as a member of the council was Richard Mack, the founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association. When contacted by WIRED, however, Mack said he was not affiliated with the group: “Many groups contact me weekly to work together, but in order for that to happen they must join our mission and philosophy of nonviolence.”

Lang told WIRED that a member of his team had been speaking to Mack about his role with the group, and it was likely just a miscommunication. Hours later, however, Mack’s picture was removed from the website.

Guns appear to be a central aspect of all actions taken by the Napalm militias, even when responding to incidents like hurricanes, wildfires, or earthquakes. “Even in a natural disaster, people that are in desperate scenarios may do desperate things,” Lang said. “And I believe that open carry and carrying a firearm on your body is a natural right of all men, and it's not something to be shied away from.”

While Lang said non-gun-owners would be welcome to join the group: “They would still be trained, and they would definitely be supported in their eventual path to gun ownership.”

Though Lang says all militia activity to date has occurred online, Napalm plans to get into the real world soon. “We will have casual outings at local firing ranges for downrange training, different exercises on what to do if the power goes out, if the internet is shut down, if the water lines are contaminated, [and] wilderness survival training,” says Lang.

All new members have to go through a vetting process, which consists of a five-minute video call designed to weed out potential infiltration from law enforcement.

Once vetting has been completed, members are then placed in a private county-level chat group where they can communicate with other members of the militia. Neither WIRED nor the researchers we spoke to were able to gain access to the private chats.

In the past, a county-level militia cell structure has made it harder for law enforcement to infiltrate extremist groups.

Lang says the vetting process has been established in part as a response to what happened to militia groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys in the wake of January 6. “They had these public group chats, and people said inflammatory things on there, and so we don't have those,” Lang said.

Though Lang claims that the group has signed up over 20,000 members, some experts don’t believe him.

“The best we can tell is that the numbers that the group is claiming are grossly misleading,” Jared Holt, senior researcher of US hate and extremist movements at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, tells WIRED. “This is an aspirational project. It doesn't reflect any sort of organizing infrastructure that's actively been built. It is being promoted by a group of political hucksters and shock jocks. And I wouldn't be surprised if would-be joiners of these groups come to learn that there is some kind of membership fee, some sort of financial component involved here.”

Burghart and his colleagues at IREHR also reviewed the 50 state-level Telegram channels and found a total of just over 14,000 members. However, Burghart also says that he believes that this figure is “significantly artificially inflated, with real membership closer to 2,500.”

Lang did not respond to questions about whether the Telegram channels membership numbers were artificially inflated.

But even with inflated membership numbers and lack of real-world coordination so far, experts still believe attention needs to be paid to groups like Napalm.

“The promotion of this kind of rhetoric and just mobilizing people around this idea could have reverberating effects,” says Holt. “It certainly heightens the tension of the political environment. It could certainly drive individuals who are maybe suffering some sort of crisis into thinking about more violent action or taking more extreme measures in their anti-government worldviews. And even if one of these states materializes into something with a dozen people in it, that could still cause a real problem.”

Updated: 6/12/2024, 11:23 am EST: This story now references a Media Matters article on the launch of the militia site.

David Gilbert is a reporter at WIRED covering disinformation, online extremism, and how these two online trends impact people’s lives across the globe, with a special focus on the 2024 US presidential election. Prior to joining WIRED, he worked at VICE News. He lives in Ireland.

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Tess OwenPolitics Oct 11, 2024 wired no lnx

Leaked Docs From Far-Right Militias Show History of Voter Intimidation Plans

“All the state leaders should be getting their people out … to watch for ballot stuffing,” wrote the leader of the American Patriots Three Percent militia. “Our nation depends on this."

Leaked Docs From FarRight Militias Show History of Voter Intimidation Plans

A trove of leaked internal messages and documents from the militia American Patriots Three Percent—also known as AP3—reveals how the group coordinated with election denial groups as part of a plan to conduct paramilitary surveillance of ballot boxes during the midterm elections in 2022.

This information was leaked to Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), a nonprofit that says it publishes hacked and leaked documents in the public interest. The person behind these AP3 leaks is an individual who, according to their statement uploaded by DDoSecrets, infiltrated the militia and grew so alarmed by what they were seeing that they felt compelled to go public with the information ahead of the upcoming presidential election.

Election and federal officials have already voiced concern about possible voter intimidation this November, in part due to the proliferation of politically violent rhetoric and election denialism. Some right-wing groups have already committed to conducting surveillance of ballot boxes remotely using AI-driven cameras. And last month, a Homeland Security bulletin warned that domestic extremist groups could plan on sabotaging election infrastructure including ballot drop boxes.

Devin Burghart, president and executive director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, says that AP3’s leaked plans for the 2022 midterms should be a warning for what may transpire next month. “Baseless election denial conspiracies stoking armed militia surveillance of ballot drop boxes is a dangerous form of voter intimidation,” Burghart tells WIRED. “The expansion of the election denial, increased militia activity, and growing coordination between them, is cause for serious concern heading into November. Now with voter suppression groups like True the Vote and some GOP elected officials targeting drop boxes for vigilante activity, the situation should be raising alarms.”

The leaked messages from 2022 show how AP3 and other militias provided paramilitary heft to ballot box monitoring operations organized by “The People’s Movement,” the group that spearheaded the 2021 anti-vaccine convoy protest, and Clean Elections USA, a group with links to the team behind the 2000 Mules film that falsely claimed widespread voter fraud. In the leaked chats, People’s Movement leader Carolyn Smith identifies herself as an honorary AP3 member.

AP3 is run by Scot Seddon, a former Army Reservist, Long Islander, and male model, according to a ProPublica profile on him published in August. That profile, which relied on the same anonymous infiltrator who leaked AP3’s internal messages to DDoSecrets, explains that AP3 escaped scrutiny in the aftermath of January 6 in part because Seddon, after spending weeks preparing his ranks to go to DC, ultimately decided to save his soldiers for another day. ProPublica reported that some members went anyway but were under strict instruction to forgo any AP3 insignia. According to the leaked messages, Seddon also directed his state leaders to participate in the “operation.”

“All of us have a vested interest in this nation,” Seddon said in a leaked video. “So all the state leaders should be getting their people out and manning and observing ballot boxes, to watch for ballot stuffing. This is priority. This goes against getting your double cheeseburger at mcdonalds … Our nation depends on this. Our future depends on this. This ain't no bullshit issue. We need to be tight on this, straight up.”

A flier using militaristic language shared across various state-specific Telegram channels lays out how this operation would work. With “Rules of Engagement” instructions, “Volunteers” are told not to interfere with anyone dropping off their ballots. If someone is suspected of dropping off “multiple ballots,” then observers are told to record the event, and make a note of the individual's appearance and their vehicle's license plate number. In the event of any sort of confrontation, they’re supposed to “report as soon as possible to your area Captain.”

“At the end of each shift, Patriots will prepare a brief report of activity and transmit it to [the ballot] box team Captain promptly,” the flier states.

The person who leaked these documents and messages says that these paramilitary observers masquerading as civilians will often have a QRF—quick reaction force—on standby who can “stage an armed response” should a threat or confrontation arise.

The goal of the “operation,” according to that flier, was to “Stop the Mules.”

“These are the individuals stuffing ballot boxes,” the flier says. “They are well trained and financed. There is a global network backing them up. They pick up fake ballots from phony non-profits and deliver them to ballot boxes, usually between 2400 hours and 0600 hours.” (This was the core conspiracy of 2,000 Mules; the conservative media company behind the film has since issued an apology for promoting election conspiracies and committed to halting its distribution).

Fears about widespread armed voter intimidation during the 2022 midterms—stemming from online chatter and warnings from federal agencies—never materialized in full. However, there were scattered instances of people showing up to observe ballot drops in Arizona. These individuals, according to the statement by the anonymous leaker in the DDoSecrets files, were not “lone wolves”—they were part of “highly organized groups who intended to influence the elections through intimidation.”

In one widely-publicized incident, two clearly armed people wearing balaclavas and tactical gear showed up in Mesa, Arizona, to conduct drop box surveillance. They were never identified, though a Telegram video on DDoSecrets shows AP3’s North Carolina chapter head Burley Ross admitting that one of them was part of his unit. Ross says that the individual was Elias Humiston, who had previously been conducting vigilante border surveillance. “I was well aware they were doing drop box observations,” said Ross. “I was not aware they were doing so in full kit.” Ross added that Humiston had since resigned from the group.

Seddon also addressed the “little incident in Arizona,” stressing the importance of maintaining clean optics to avoid scrutiny. “We had pushed for helping to maintain election integrity through monitoring the ballot boxes,” said Seddon, in a video message on Telegram. “We never told anyone to do it like that.”

:{:{The militia movement largely retreated from public view in the aftermath of the January 6 riot at the US Capitol in 2021. The high-profile implication of the Oath Keepers in the riot, which at the time was America’s biggest militia, thrust the broader militia movement into the spotlight. Amid intense scrutiny, stigma, and creeping paranoia about federal informants, some militias rebanded or even disbanded. But as WIRED reporting has shown, after a brief lull in activity, the militia movement has been quietly rebuilding, reorganizing, and recruiting. With AP3 at its helm, it’s also been engaging in armed training.}:}:

Election conspiracies have only continued to fester since 2022, and AP3 has been aggressively recruiting and organizing. Moreover, the rhetoric in the group has also intensified. “The next election won’t be decided at a Ballot Box,” wrote an AP3 leader earlier this year in a private chat, according to ProPublica. “It’ll be decided at the ammo box.”

“Every American has a right to go to the ballot box without fear and the authorities need to urgently learn the lessons of 2022—and the lessons contained in these documents—so they can prevent something even worse from happening in the coming weeks,” the infiltrator wrote in the DDoS statement.

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https://www.wired.com › story › january-6-rioter-leading-armed-national-militia-from-prison

A January 6 Rioter Is Leading an Armed National Militia From Prison - WIRED

Jun 12, 2024Days after January 6, Lang was recruiting people into an armed militia on Telegram that would ostensibly fight against the incoming regime of President Biden. "It was the first battle of the ...

### Militias Are Recruiting Off of the Trump Shooting - WIRED Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images. Militia and anti-government groups across the United States are using the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump as an opportunity to ...

### Extremist Militias Are Coordinating in More Than 100 Facebook ... - WIRED After lying low for years in the aftermath of January 6, exclusive reporting shows, militia extremist groups and profiles have been quietly reorganizing and ramping up recruitment and rhetoric on ...

### The Shitposting Cartoon Dogs Sending Trucks, Drones, and ... - WIRED The North Atlantic Fella Organization, which started as a way to fight Kremlin propaganda, has raised millions of dollars to send vital equipment directly to soldiers fighting Russia.

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Far-Right Militias Are Back - WIRED

Jun 20, 2024Leah Feiger: Welcome to WIRED Politics Lab, a show about how tech is changing politics. I'm Leah Feiger, the Senior Politics Editor at WIRED. Far-right extremists and their militias are back, and ...

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Militias Are Recruiting Off of the Trump Shooting - WIRED

Jul 15, 2024Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images. Militia and anti-government groups across the United States are using the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump as an opportunity to ...

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https://www.investigativepost.org › 2024 › 08 › 20 › far-right-extremism-on-the-rise

Since the Jan. 6 insurrection, far-right extremism has risen

Aug 20, 2024Earlier this month, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise published an investigation on the militia movement in New York, which it found concentrated in the North County. The story noted that militias have a presence in Western New York, as well. ... Finally, Wired magazine in May reported how militias are using Facebook groups to coordinate their ...

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WIRED Politics Lab: Far Right Militias Are Back on Apple Podcasts

Jake Lang was arrested for his involvement in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. From prison, he has organized an armed militia that now has thousands of members nationwide.Today on WIRED Politics Lab, reporter David Gilbert explains how this new militia came to be and its possible parall…

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Facebook is ignoring an alarming rise in militia activity ... - MSNBC

May 7, 2024Wired reports that there are about 200 Facebook groups and profiles that are antigovernment and far-right extremist using the platform's "Groups" function to support or plan militia activity ...

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