The first TV debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden saw the president asked if he would disown far-right and white supremacist groups – and telling one group to “stand back and stand by”.
That group was the Proud Boys, an all-male gang known for violence at public rallies and a misogynistic, racist philosophy. A right-wing group that sprung up after Donald Trump was elected, it has evolved from pseudo-intellectual hipster origins into a more thuggish, openly extremist group that calls for violence increasingly openly.
The central figure in the Proud Boys’ history is Gavin McInnes, one of the co-founders of VICE magazine. Having left VICE in 2008, he has for years expounded extreme views on whiteness, masculinity and political culture in general – in particular that political correctness is crushing American masculinity, and that the West and Western men in particular are manifestly superior beings.