Members of local militia join second amendment advocates in a march from the capitol building to the Michigan Supreme Court building on September 17, 2020 in Lansing, Michigan. (Photo: Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images)
If MyMilitia was the only place you got your news, you might be bracing for a nationwide activation of âantifa sleeper cellsâ come November 3, when black-clad leftists will form blockades at polling stations to menace elderly Trump voters.âBe careful going to the polls,â one person responded on the thread. âLeftists are openly planning an election night coup.ââWe need to train, train and train some more for every possibility we can imagine,â wrote another. âThis evil will not stand down. It needs to be knocked down so hard that the commies never dare try this civil war/ communist uprising on America. Ever again.âFor years, Facebook was the go-to hub for militia types to organize and recruit, but now that the platform is cracking down on paramilitary organizing, MyMilitia is taking its place. First registered in 2016 with GoDaddy, the site was sold in April to Josh Ellis, who runs a business repairing water damage and mold in Naperville, Illinois, and also founded âAmerican Revolution 2.0,â which helped coordinate anti-lockdown protests nationwide.In an interview with VICE News, Ellis claimed MyMilitia now has 20,000 registered members, about half of whom have signed up since April (we were unable to independently verify this). The site includes a feature that allows you to start your own âmilitiaâ or join any of the 530 existing militias that are organized by ZIP code, which is intended to facilitate real-world meet-ups.âThe MyMilitia viewpoint is that any man and woman who is a U.S. citizen is part of a militia,â said Ellis. âWe help people find good groups and become organized and regulated.âMyMilitia makes its pitch to prospective âmilitiaâ leaders and members under a tab named âWhy use the militia manager?â It touts an array of features, including an opt-in âmember map and locator,â which allows militia leaders to track their membersâ movements, voice chat, and photo galleries where users can upload images from meet-ups or training events. It also advertises a library of around 500 âdecommissioned military manuals,â like a 1982 U.S. Army guide to chemical weapons and the English translation of al Qaedaâs training manual.The second-most-viewed upload is the Anarchist Cookbook, which contains bomb-making recipes (the book has been linked to decades of terror plots, including the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995).âMyMilitia is like Amazon for people on the fringe,â said Brian Levin, who heads the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. âThe difference is that people here are armed, and theyâre reading Canadian manuals about how to blow up tanks.âIn addition to having the option to form your own militia, there are also forums where users regularly traffic in conspiracies they picked up elsewhere, like Infowars. Thereâs a message board devoted to discussions of weaponry, not unlike 4chanâs /k board, which was the birthplace of the anti-government âboogalooâ movement. Users can learn how to assemble their own AR-15 or sharpen a knife in an emergency. There are discussions of current affairs, survivalist guides, tactical explainers, and a shared spreadsheet dedicated to âtracking riots.ââIn the past you would have to really look for the militia of Montana, for example,â said Levin. âThese days, itâs like finding a dentist.âOn the site, itâs not always clear who is engaging in fantasy role-play and who genuinely believes that guerrilla antifa warriors are busing into small towns around the country to attack supporters of President Trump. The site is awash with bloodlust and references to âtyrannicalâ governorsânot unlike some of the discussions that allegedly took place between the group of self-titled militiamen who were so incensed by Michiganâs COVID-19 lockdown restrictions that they plotted to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.Thirteen men were arrested in connection with the alleged plot, some of whom are now facing state domestic terrorism charges. After those arrests, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told MSNBC she believed the problem of violent militia activity was ongoing and ran much deeper than previously thought. âIâm worried about additional threats,â Nessel said. âThis may very well be the tip of the iceberg.âEllis says the 13 people arrested in connection to the plot were not associated with MyMilitia. But the site has been linked to violence in the past. According to the Guardian, MyMilitia site user Michael Hari and other members of his Illinois-based âWhite Rabbitâ militia drove hundreds of miles to Bloomington, Minnesota, in 2017, where they bombed a mosque.Ellis says that the administrators are âvery diligentâ in their vetting process of MyMilitia members. âWe do not allow any calls to arms on the site,â he said. When VICE News read out some of the comments mentioned in this article, Ellis said, âThose are the kinds of things that we would remove; just like every other platform, weâre not always going to get everything 100 percent.âRecently, paranoia and conspiracies about âvoter fraudâ have rippled from the fringes to the mainstream â aided by Trump himself. During the September 29 debate, he urged supporters to âgo into the polls and watch very carefully.âAfter Trumpâs comments, experts at Georgetown Universityâs Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection published a fact sheet on voter intimidation, state laws on guns at polling places, and laws about âunauthorized private militia groups.ââI have seen a lot of people very interested in doing poll-watching,â Ellis said. âNot like going out in full battle rattle. Just U.S. citizens following the orders of Donald Trump.ââLocal news media channel [sic] said that Trump is asking Militias to be ready before and after the election for insurrection,â one person wrote in the thread coordinating militia activity in Arizona.Ellis said that some users on MyMilitia are particularly concerned about âintimidationâ from the left, because of âreports of BLM people wearing BLM garb outside of polling places in Georgia.â âThat kind of thing, especially with the news stories going on right now, can scare a lot of people from going to in-person voting,â Ellis said.Some people have discussed surveillance options. âI'm going on Election Day myself. I am going to have a GoPro camera rolling and my .45 with me, just in case,â one wrote.âIf you have a cell phone, hook it up to record a wide view in front of your vehicle,â another wrote.Ellis agrees that the tone of discussion on MyMilitia sometimes gets a little exaggerated, but insists that, from his personal experience, the armed far-right are âin a very defensive mindset.ââTheyâre not in an instigating mindset. They want to make sure that if a civil war starts, as little damage or loss be created as possible,â said Ellis. âPeople feel like weâre already in a civil war. Itâs kind of a standard viewpoint. That weâre already there, it just hasnât turned hot yet â itâs a cold war.âThe allegations in the Michigan case are a reminder that conspiratorial thinking and violent fantasies, no matter how outlandish, can inspire real world action. Itâs also an example of the dangerous feedback loop that occurs when fringe grievances like COVID-19 lockdowns or false stories about voter fraud are amplified by legitimate voices, like elected GOP officials or Fox News, and then fed back into fringe networks like MyMilitia.This summer, there was even a discussion on MyMilitia about whether it would be appropriate to kidnap antifa. âNot exactly kidnap, just take them to get information and possibly get them to be on our side,â one person clarified. âWe donât necessarily have to have our own jail systems, just take them by citizen arrest.âThereâs clearly a range of intentions among the participants. âAt every point in white power militia movement activity, there has been both people who are armchair warriors interested in doing a more intense version of paintball, and people who are activists with deadly intent,â said Kathleen Belew, a history professor at the University of Chicago and author of âBring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America.â âPart of the concern is that we would be very mistaken to ignore the deadly activists by thinking the whole thing is just about fantasy role-play.âFor decades, the militia community thrived on vague grievances about âtyrannyâ or government overreach. COVID-19 lockdownsâand the anti-lockdown or âliberateâ movement that came out of itâgave a shape to those grievances. It also opened a window between the fringes and the mainstream.âThe âliberate movement' was sort of a Grand Central Station where grievance-oriented folks could gather, and that spilled over into the militia movement,â said Levin. âComplaints like âthese regulations are too heavy-handedâ melded in beautifully with the narrative of extreme, fringe, insurrectionist folks.âSimilarly, the obsession with antifa at the highest levels of government has been like catnip to fringe militia types. Trump and his cohorts routinely invoke the threat of antifa, even though national security data doesnât support his version of the threat. (A recent threat assessment by Homeland Security made zero mention of âantifaâ).âOn sites like MyMilitia, grievances get seasoned with conspiracy theories, stereotypes, memes, and fiery images from Portland or Seattle,â said Levin, âand what comes out is âAntifa is training racoons to fightâ or âAntifa is busing people into towns.âââApparently Arms are being flown into the US for Antifa and BLM to counter the heavily armed Patriots and Veterans,â one user FLAX1911 posted in early September. âHas anyone else heard about this?âWhat to do about antifa is a whole other topic of debate on MyMilitia. One thread, âShould we declare war on antifa,â garnered nearly 200 replies. Many scolded the original poster, saying they were âthe kind of person who gives the Militia a bad name.â Some were all too eager to jump into the fray.âWe could dress up as antifa and attend their riots and start shooting them there, but there is a good chance we would get exposed and get bad pub[licity],â one user suggested. âI am up for an attack on antifa or blm, but there are none around where I live,â complained someone else.âLetâs not jump the gun and go on shooting sprees,â another replied. âI do feel we all need more intel and do it the right way, or else the next the American people will see on the news is âMilitia attacks crowd of peaceful protestorsâ even tho they are far from peacefulâŠ.. If you do decide to go after them now donât kidnap them and go after them in small groups take them out a little at a time.â
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âWrite down the tag numbers of the cars that are there before the poll opens. This way you have a list of who was working the polls. Empty cars are your main cars.
Make sure your vehicle is angled to see any and all car tags that come and go as well as the front door of all persons. This will help with identification. At the end of the day follow the person that takes the votes to the county building for count. The law is clear . There are no stops to be made on the way to the count. Keep record of everything.â
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