The Atlantic Story
JANUARY 15, 2021
The Boogaloo Bois Prepare for Civil War!
Story by Michael J. Mooney
As the FBI warns of violence, anti-government extremists are ready to get in on the chaos.
Let’s start with what boogaloo isn’t.
It isn’t, mainly, a white-supremacist organization, though there are some white-supremacist boogaloo bois.
It isn’t a collection of Trump supporters ready to fight for the president, like, say, the Proud Boys. Despite the various attacks—planned or carried out—against police officers and government officials, boogaloo also isn’t a militia in any traditional sense of the word. It isn’t even really a movement.
It’s more like an absurdist internet culture propagated by libertarian-leaning gun enthusiasts on 4chan—the anonymous, Wild West version of Reddit—that has somehow moved into the real world. It’s jargon and memes and jokes and a sometimes-serious desire to bring about a violent revolution to overthrow the U.S. government.
Like nearly everything about boogaloo, the ideas and terminology are simultaneously ridiculous and terrifying.
The term boogaloo, for example, can refer to the purveyors of this culture or to an event: a violent revolution some of them hope to hasten, dubbed Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo. The name itself is a takeoff on a pervasive internet joke, an allusion to a 1980s dance movie, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. (Take a moment to pity historians, centuries from now, as they try to understand how the name of a dance-movie sequel turned into the name of a proposed nationwide insurrection.)
JJ MacNab has studied anti-government extremist groups for more than 20 years. As a fellow with the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, she’s tracked the boogaloo bois online since last fall, when she saw an uptick in memes calling—in a jokey way—for a civil war.
Excerpted: More at the link below & become totally confused!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11-VH-CHC-sr_Olsqf9jutQy6qYJBlPeoL-3SvqhPAAU/edit