Thursday, October 08, 2020

YOUR RIGHT-WING RELATIVES WILL TRY TO TELL YOU THAT THE WOULD-BE WHITMER KIDNAPPERS WERE LEFTIES (updated)

I'm sure you know the big story of the day:
Federal agents said Thursday they thwarted a plot to violently overthrow the government and kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer....

The alleged plot involved conspirators who met during a Second Amendment rally at the Capitol in Lansing in June and reached out to members of a Michigan militia known as the Wolverine Watchmen for reinforcements, according to state and federal officials.

The court filing alleges the conspirators twice conducted surveillance at Whitmer's personal vacation home in northern Michigan and discussed kidnapping her to a "secure location" in Wisconsin to stand "trial" for treason prior to the Nov. 3 election.

"Several members talked about murdering 'tyrants' or 'taking' a sitting governor," an FBI agent wrote in the affidavit.
I wondered how right-wingers would try to explain this away, so I went to Jim Hoft's Gateway Pundit. Surprisingly, GP's version of the story is fairly straightforward...
The FBI announced on Thursday during a press conference that it thwarted a plot by a so-called “right-wing militia” to kidnap and kill Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and overthrow the state government.

Early Thursday morning, federal agencies raided a house in Hartland, Michigan and arrested six men: Adam Fox, Barry Croft, Ty Garbin, Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris, and Brandon Caserta.
... up to a point:
... One of the men arrested in the plot is an anarchist.

Brandon Caserta is one of the ringleaders of the group of men arrested for a plot where the group planned to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

Caserta has an anarchist flag behind him and in YouTube videos trashes police.

He’s not a Republican/right-winger, he’s an anarchist.

WATCH:



So that's what your right-wing relatives will tell you about this: One of the conspirators posed before an anarchist flag, therefore he's a leftie, therefore they're all lefties. They were probably paid by Soros!

Except that he's not a leftie.
Brandon Caserta posted several videos on TikTok, including one in which he is wearing a Hawaiian shirt, the trademark clothing of members of the antigovernment Boogaloo movement.



The ideology of some Boogaloo Bois has points of overlap with leftist and anarchist ideology, but they're not leftists.
The boogaloo meme began emerging in both white power and antigovernment spaces online in the early 2010s, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"In both of these communities, 'boogaloo' was frequently associated with racist violence and, in many cases, was an explicit call for race war," the SPLC said....

There are mainly two wings of the boogaloo movement, but their objective of overthrowing the government and sparking societal collapse remains the same.... One side is made up of some neo-Nazis and white supremacists, whose plan for destroying the government is by starting a race war....

Another side is characterized as radical libertarian, notably men carrying weapons and wearing Hawaiian shirts....

The libertarian side of the movement is split between members who see antifa as communists, whom they want to dissociate from, and members who see them as "brothers-in-arms," [JJ] MacNab [of George Washington University's Program on Extremism] said.
But which side is Caserta on? Josh Russell found this on his now-unavailable Facebook page:
I think we have our answer.

Russell also found this pro-Kyle Rittenhouse, vaguely QAnon-y image:
So no, this guy is not on the left -- no matter what your uncle's email forwards tell you.

*****

UPDATE: And now this narrative is on Fox. (Hat tip: Karoli.)
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