Miami’s own homegrown extremist, former Proud Boys national chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, has been indicted on grounds he directed his group during the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, another indication of the Republican Party’s terrifying tolerance of white supremacy and extremism. And Florida is once again at center stage.
The Proud Boys are a male-only extremist group that promotes far-right ideas and former President Donald Trump. This is the group that gained prominence during the presidential debates when Trump told them to “stand back and stand by.”
Tarrio wasn’t at the U.S. Capitol on the day of the attack and has said in the past that his group played no part in the violence. But let’s be real: He couldn’t go to Washington. He’d been ordered to stay out of the city because he was on bond for a criminal case involving burning a Black Lives Matter banner stolen from a historic African American church in Washington during a pro-Trump rally in December 2020. He later pleaded guilty to burning the banner and attempted possession of high-capacity magazines, offenses that earned him five months in jail.
There’s no doubt, though, that Tarrio’s group was represented on Jan. 6 in that violent crowd that swarmed the Capitol and chanted for the vice president to be hung because he wouldn’t do Trump’s (illegal) bidding. Several Proud Boys members have been charged with conspiracy in the attack. Tarrio himself claimed credit for the assault on social media after the attack and in an encrypted chat room, federal authorities said.
Investigators have long been focused on the role that Proud Boys and another extremist group, Oath Keepers, played in organizing the assault. They have reasons: When another Proud Boy, Matthew Greene of Syracuse, New York, pleaded guilty to conspiracy in December, prosecutors said he and others in the group had agreed beforehand to communicate through programmable radios and were intentionally dressed to hide their membership in the organization.
Tarrio’s indictment is just the latest in a series of extremist connections to Florida, and to Republicans. As of January, more Floridians had been charged in the Jan. 6 riots than from any other state. National figures with strong political connections are from Florida, including Roger Stone, a Donald Trump pal who has associated with both Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
Gov. Ron DeSantis participated in the Republican Party’s attempt to sanitize Jan. 6 by refusing to call the attack an insurrection because, “a year later, nobody has been charged with that.” (Two days later, they were.) He followed that by refusing to publicly denounce neo-Nazis who openly demonstrated in Orlando.
And just last month, a white nationalist conference that was held in Orlando featured two Republican members of the U.S. Congress: Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar. Eventually, Republican leaders, some who were also in town for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, came out against their appearance there, but it was too late. Once again, the message of tolerance was no doubt received.
So now prosecutors have added Tarrio’s name to the list of five other Proud Boys charged under this latest Jan. 6 indictment. Republicans will, no doubt, continue to deny they have a white supremacy problem. And we can add this episode to the shameful list of extremist connections already distinguishing Florida.
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