Last week, with the help of online detectives who have spent the past year and a half painstakingly tracking the identities of participants in the Jan. 6 insurrection, the FBI arrested five members of the group America First for their role in the Capitol riot. Using video footage the insurrectionists had taken themselves, along with news photos and social media clues contributed by internet sleuths, the FBI submitted an affidavit charging that these five young men helped trash House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office and assault Capitol police officers.
The affidavit blandly describes America First, an ardently pro-Trump group, as motivated by "a belief that they are defending against the demographic and cultural changes in America." The deeper truth is this group — whose members call themselves "groypers" — is among the most shamelessly fascist of the many far-right gangs that invaded the Capitol that day. Their leader, Nick Fuentes, has declared that "Trump was awesome because he was racist," engaged in Holocaust denialism and heaped praise on various historical dictators, including like Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. Indeed, he did the latter at a conference attended by Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona, signaling how far Fuentes' fascist worldview has crept into the Republican Party.
