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Far-right groups are sharing violent messages ahead of the “No Kings” protests this weekend to coincide with President Donald Trump’s military birthday parade.
Accounts associated with extremist groups are also sharing detailed information about protest organizers, including names and where they work, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Protests in more than 2,000 cities are scheduled to take place Saturday.
“Shoot a couple, the rest will go home,” one meme circulating on a Proud Boys Telegram channel said.
Another meme posted in the channel depicted four armed men. “HANG THE TRAITORS, EXPEL THE INVADERS,” it said.
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The Northern Illinois Proud Boys shared a meme on their Telegram channel falsely claiming the LAPD was seeking support from vigilantes ahead of the protests this weekend.
Other far-right groups are frequently sharing memes in support of the Trump administration’s efforts to increase raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Experts on extremism in America are alarmed by the posts because they could inspire “lone-actor violence” or persuade someone to “get off the couch, pick up a gun and go out to one of these cities,” Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, told The Journal.
University of Pittsburgh sociologist Kathleen Blee also told the outlet that white nationalists are uniting against nonwhite immigrants. Far-right beliefs are resonating in the mainstream media with these groups more than ever before, Blee said.
“It’s by far the worst. It’s scarily the worst. It’s flashing red,” she said. “It’s a very precarious time right now.”
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A faction of the Proud Boys group also shared an anti-immigration poster originally put out by the Department of Homeland Security.
In the image, Uncle Sam is depicted nailing a poster to a wall. “REPORT ALL FOREIGN INVADERS,” it says.
At least two far-right X accounts claimed to have had some involvement in creating or disseminating the image before the department shared it, according to CNN.
Elisabeth Fondren, a journalism professor at St. John’s University, told the network that the poster “fits within a long history of anti-immigrant rhetoric and, yes, state propaganda.”
In response, DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said that “every American citizen should support federal law enforcement in their just effort to deport criminal illegal alien invaders from our country.”
As organizers across the country gear up for Saturday’s mass demonstrations, Trump was asked for his take on the “No Kings” demonstrations this week.
“I don’t feel like a king,” Trump said, and proceeded to complain that he must “go through hell” to get anything done. “No, no, we’re not a king. We’re not a king at all.”
Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was released earlier this year from his 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy following Trump’s pardons and commutations for January 6 rioters.
