Members of the Proud Boys and other far-right groups in Portland, Oregon on September 17, 2019 (Doug Brown Media/Shutterstock.com)
For decades, the far-right, anti-government militia groups have operated in the shadows, but a former FBI agent who worked undercover is warning that everything has changed since President Donald Trump took over.
Speaking to the Washington Post, Mike German noted that conservatives who once loathed “Big Government” now cheer on more militarized federal power being used by the White House in "blue" cities.
"Since Ruby Ridge and Waco in the 1990s, a faction of right-wing populists had excoriated federal law enforcement. Now those agents are being deployed by their allies," the report teased.
German recalled working for the FBI in the "late ’80s and ’90s and early 2000s." It was an era when far-right militants were called "anti-government militants."
“Sometime around the first Trump administration, I came to believe that was not an accurate description; they were Trump supporters. They clearly presented a pro-police, pro-state viewpoint," he said.
While the militia groups once fought the government as "jackbooted" feds, they're now on the president's side.
Under Trump’s second administration, the dynamic has been inverted: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Border Patrol and other federal units are now deployed as part of an ongoing effort to rid the U.S. of immigrants.
“Are these in fact the same actors who 10 minutes ago were warning us about jackbooted federal thugs, and today are saying ‘Yay, jackbooted federal thugs, crack some more heads?’ I do wonder about that," said Georgetown law professor Rosa Brooks, an expert in national security law.
“It’s not surprising that we see people saying, ‘It’s fine for police to crack the heads of people I don’t like, but not okay when it’s people for whom I feel sympathy,'" she added.
Rachel Carroll Rivas, Southern Poverty Law Center interim director of the intelligence project, said that the "patriot" groups have become overly partisan by waxing and waning based on who controls Washington.
“It is a very clear trend that when there is a Democratic administration in power at the federal level, those movements grow,” Carroll Rivas told the Post. “When there is a federal administration they are in agreement with — on issues like race, gender, social programs, etcetera — they shrink and pull back.”
Since Trump took over in 2017, experts say many right-leaning populists feel like "one of their own [is] in charge," the report said.
The report cited Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who once described IRS agents under former President Joe Biden's administration as the “new Gestapo.” Under Trump, however, she said that it is "borderline illegal" for anyone to critcize ICE agents
Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the nonprofit Police Executive Research Forum, explained that police are stuck in the middle because they "want to do their job" but at the same time, "don’t want to alienate federal law enforcement."