While covering the Aug. 17 Proud Boys invasion of Portland the weekend before last, I took a ton of photos. My camera is in many ways my notebook (especially now that it has video/audio recording capabilities) when I cover these things. This was my 16th such event.
I was struck afterward by the many faces I had captured, and the kind of story they told that can’t be put into words—and how they also dispel a certain mythos around these far-right street brawling groups.
The first thing you will notice is that most of these people came intent on getting into fights. My experience at these events is that nearly all of them are fairly eager about it; it seems in many ways to be their main motivation for getting on a bus and trundling into the downtown of a city they acknowledge hating.
You can see it in the body armor and the weaponry, though I didn’t happen to see any guns that day, as I have during previous rallies. You can see it in their banners and their scowls, and I could hear it in their chants and shouts.
And you can see it in their faces. Not all of them, of course—these Proud Boys were also very much enjoying themselves even without the usual side of street violence. But you can also see the anger, the fear, the paranoia. What you mostly see, to tell the truth, is their utter ordinariness. This is not to normalize their extremism, but to emphasize something those of us who monitor the far right have long known: Namely, that these extremists look and talk and generally behave like everyone else, at least when they are on broad public display. That’s exactly how they succeed at spreading the virus.
In the end, it seems best to let their faces do the talking. Here are 45 of them.
Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys’ national chairman from Miami, was one of the key organizers of the event.
The event’s most colorful organizer, and leader of the march across the bridge, was Proud Boys “elder” Joe Biggs.
Joey Gibson of Patriot Prayer, the key organizer of most of the preceding far-right rallies, showed up with a flag the day after being arrested for inciting a riot in May.
There were lots of American flags on the Proud Boys side.
The flag was also a favorite piece of attire.
‘Three Percenter’ militiamen were everywhere with their body armor.
T-shirts expressing a desire to kill communists by dropping them from helicopters were popular once again, along with those declaring “Pinochet Did Nothing Wrong!”
Haley Adams of Patriot Prayer, the far-right group that has organized the large majority of Portland street-protest events, was on hand along the waterfront.
Yes, Proud Boys were able to boast at least a couple of transgender supporters. There were people of color in their ranks as well. All of them comprised a very tiny minority.
Most of them were very ordinary-seeming people, if a bit inclined to live-action-role-playing tendencies.
Beards are popular among the more militia-leaning Proud Boys.
Another person of color in the crowd. Right-wing authoritarianism crosses all kinds of boundaries, especially ethnic ones.
Several of the Proud Boys were very large men who all seemed to favor body armor.
Alan Swinney, a Texas man, travels to Proud Boy events around the country to participate in the violence—and he uses a Patreon fundraiser to finance it.
Others just showed up in ballcaps and T-shirts, however.
There were also plenty of GoPro-style cameras set to record the street violence.
This street preacher had an appreciative audience among the Proud Boys as he denounced the “hate” coming from the “radical left.”
Some of the Proud Boys’ patches were extremely cryptic in nature.
There were also some obvious familial ties.
A number of Proud Boys were content to hang in the backs of the crowds and help out.
Many of the marchers were fully geared up for violence.
There was also an inordinate amount of paranoia on the Proud Boys side.
There was a certain fashion sense among the men, taken mostly from the racks at Cabela’s.
Beards were mostly of the Harley-Davidson school.
The street preacher on the waterfront had a very intent Proud Boys audience.
Some listeners appeared to become emotional.
A number of the Proud Boys appeared to be part of a well-organized team running the logistics of the protest.
Some of the marchers appeared to be unacknowledged organizers to whom others deferred, including this man.
Pretty much everyone deferred to the very large, muscular men who wore body armor.
Aviator sunglasses were also a big thing.
Some of the Proud Boys who seemed angriest were also geared to the hilt.
Though the Proud Boys’ ranks were over 95 percent white males, there was some variety among the marchers, too.
Selfies were a big thing as well.
The large, powerfully built man on the left is Ethan Nordean, aka ‘Rufio Panman,’ of Auburn, Wash., one of the biggest celebrities among Proud Boys as the man who delivered a knockout punch in a Portland street brawl that went mega-viral. Everyone wanted to do selfies with him.
The most popular attire by far were flags and MAGA hats.
Sometimes the body armor was accompanied by odd Christian shields, as well as other indecipherable symbols.
The uniform of the day: Black Fred Perry polos with special Proud Boy gold stripes and symbols, and red MAGA ballcaps. It had variations.
Proud Boys marchers flung bitter invective at masked-up antifascists, calling them “cowards,” but exhibited no concern about the many masks in their own ranks.
“Fashy” haircuts were also inordinately popular in their ranks.
Some marchers were more disheveled than others.
The stars and stripes were omnipresent in the crowd.
As the march broke up, the Proud Boys began handing out directions to the meetup planned on the other side of the river in Vancouver, Wash.
Skylor Jernigan, a Patriot Prayer member, is well known in their ranks for videos he posted last year featuring violent rhetoric; on Saturday he was mostly quiet.
The march also seemed to attract nervous young recruits from the suburbs. This young man became extremely upset at a counterprotester who was using sidewalk chalk.