Groypers
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Groypers, sometimes called the Groyper Army, are a group of white nationalist and far-right activists, provocateurs, and internet trolls who are notable for their attempts to introduce far-right politics into mainstream conservatism in the United States, their participation in the 2021 United States Capitol storming and the protests leading up to that, and their extremist views. They are known for targeting other conservative groups and individuals whose agendas they view as too moderate and insufficiently nationalist. The Groyper movement has been described as white nationalist, homophobic, nativist, fascist, sexist, islamophobic, antisemitic, and an attempt to rebrand the Alt-Right movement.
Background edit
The Groyper Army, or 'groypers', are a loosely organized group of social conservatives who follow Nick Fuentes' America First movement, which should not be confused with the American fascist party of the same name, the second attempt at that party by David Duke, or with Donald Trump's own wider America First movement, despite all of them having similar ideologies.
After the term "Alt-right" became widely known in the media, its supporters started being deplatformed and shunned as neo-Nazi racists. Eventually, even most mainstream conservatives had gotten fed up with the alt-right, but rather than being decent people they decided to rebrand the movement instead.
The result of the rebranding is that during 2018 and through to 2020, social conservatives, fascists, theocrats, and other fringe right-wing ideologues came together under the America First banner to support MAGA and 'post-racist' content on the interwebs. This became known as the Groyper Army, calling themselves paleoconservatives and swearing that they weren't alt-right; they quickly started to openly support every single alt-right talking point just as they did before.
Since groypers are not a uniform ideological group, but rather a combination of various kinds of right-wing extremist, there is no absolute set ideology to the movement. There are however, shared ideals which all groypers agree with and call paleoconservatism, despite the fact that it bears very little resemblance to what was traditionally known as paleoconservatism in political science, instead closely resembling a kind of modern fascism.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, Groypers blame the mainstream conservative movement and the political left for what they view as "destroying white America". They oppose immigration and globalism. Groypers support "traditional" values and Christianity and oppose feminism and LGBTQ rights.
Describing the relationship between Groypers and the Republican Party, Nick Fuentes has stated, "We are the right-wing flank of the Republican Party." He summarized his political ambitions by stating, "We have got to be on the right, dragging [moderate Republicans] kicking and screaming into the future. Into a truly reactionary party."
In February 2020, Fuentes spoke at several events that were held as rival events to the Conservative Political Action Conference. One such event, hosted by the online publication National File, featured Fuentes, Alex Jones of InfoWars, and Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes. Fuentes hosted the first annual America First Political Action Conference, which included such speakers as Patrick Casey, former Daily Caller author Scott Greer, and Michelle Malkin.
Groypers are very active online, particularly on Twitter, and have engaged in targeted harassment against opponents. Financial Times reported that many Groypers use "deceptively anodyne" Twitter biographies, describing themselves in terms that downplay their extremism, like "Christian conservative". In April 2020, The Daily Dot reported that Fuentes and other Groypers had begun to move to the video-sharing platform TikTok, where they streamed live and used the "duet" feature to respond to Trump supporters. Groypers targeted one left-wing teenage girl for harassment, which began on TikTok but spread across platforms. Fuentes and some other Groyper accounts were banned from TikTok shortly after the Daily Dot article was published.
Michelle Malkin is often considered the "mother" of the Groypers.
They also have Canadian sects called "Canada First".