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The only evidence I’ve seen has been
Some journalist sifting their comments. I can’t really tell what he’s linking because Twitter is a trash website.
None of them are morbidly obese.
It’s, uh. Not exactly a knockdown argument.
The arguments that I've seen for Patriot Front being federal agents have nothing to do with them not being morbidly obese - the general neonazi position on matters of physical fitness are that if you are representing the movement at all you need to be physically capable and impressive. The real reason as to why people think they're feds is that they're directly advocating for a form of protest that leads to people who join them getting doxxed and prosecuted, while at the same time doing absolutely nothing to achieve meaningful political change. Organisations like PF are worse than useless at achieving political goals in the current climate, and carry an incredibly high risk of permanently ejecting the people involved from mainstream society. For the record I think that argument is actually somewhat convincing given just how many cases we've seen of the FBI manufacturing and creating terror plots so they can arrest some isolated losers.
I’m not going to get into what Nazis actually think about fitness. But as I pointed out above, these guys, if you met them on the streets outside of the actual protest, would absolutely look and act like official muscle. Super-fit, 25-30 tops, dressed in polos and khakis and carrying riot shields. Nobody can go from the typical incel physique to military levels of fitness in the timeframe in question. If they’re joining and within 6 months look ready for deployment, there’s definitely something off here.
The other thing is that in the arrests, it’s very obvious that the feds had very clear ideas of exactly where they’re going to be such that the government can immediately stop them on the way to their protest. As has been pointed out above they never reached the event, and never actually rioted. And given that they’re driving to a protest in a U-haul that’s not immediately obvious, it seems somewhat weird to me. There’s no reason that the government should be able to find a single U-Haul out of however many are rented in a day, going to a specific site and know which route they’re taking. Unless someone on the inside told them about the u-haul and the specific route, it’s simply not possible.
IF they're not morbidly obese and they're fairly dedicated, plus or minus some "help" of questionable legality, they probably can. A sedentary untrained young dude who works out hard can get to benching 185 and running a 7 minute mile in six months. He'll need to work his ass off, but if he spends a bunch of time doing pushups and running with other guys in his Neo-Nazi group? Plausible. Hard, but plausible. And there are probably a few guys who work manual labor or go to the gym or something joining, too.
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I was under the impression that Patriot Front didn't even let you join if you weren't in good shape so I wasn't really surprised by their fitness levels - but I freely admit that I might be wrong here. Also I totally agree on the importance of the fact that they never actually reached the event, and knowing what I do about FBI conduct I have to assume that was on purpose too.
Also I don't think there's anything weird about the government finding them at all. Someone else has already mentioned Snowden's leaks, but you don't even need those. The leader of the Proud Boys was a federal informant, and even if I assume that PF didn't start out as a fed honeypot there's no way that an organisation like that wouldn't be crawling with agents from the get-go. Given just how much hyperventilating there's been in the press about the dangers of far right terrorists, there's no way that the FBI weren't on that group like flies on shit. I'd bet a decent chunk of change on there being at least one informant in the van, and I think they would have been live-tracking every single phone in there as well.
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Not to detract from any of your points, but as a 20-year US military veteran, I believe you have a gross overestimation of "military levels of fitness" and "ready for deployment". Add caveats of "specops" or "infantry" or "Marine" and I'd agree, but holy shit you would not believe the fatbodies I've had to work with in a warzone.
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You might want to ask Edward Snowden about that one.
I mean there are parts of that story that absent someone texting them and handling them information don’t track for me.
First of all, this is a rental vehicle and thus unless you know which vehicle they’re renting from which rental place, you are not really able to put out the information or put trackers in the vehicle. You also need to figure out where they’re coming from and specific routes if you’re going to have assets in place to stop them en route. Even having the information of renting uhauls doesn’t help with tracking as there’s no way to pick out PF from dozens of people moving stuff around by uhaul. Even having the lísiense isn’t enough unless you get super lucky and happen to have your persons of interest drive past a cop car. Technology can’t help you find something you don’t know anything about.
Did they rent the vehicle with cash? If not, they could easily be tracked. Even if they did, rental companies have internal databases, which could well be penetrated.
It's most likely there were informants. But they don't actually need them.
Unless the card is flagged it would still take time to look through the databases and find the transaction, and this still doesn’t give you enough data to stop that one vehicle in transit. Unless they somehow blocked every possible route instantly, there isn’t a good way to find that truck and deduce where it’s going and then send the cops.
They don't need to block every possible route; they've got access to cameras and police license plate readers and all of that sort of thing.
You also need to get your cops in a position to catch them in rush hour traffic.
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Point 2 is in fact a knockdown argument (though I'd emphasise age over weight). Young, fit men are a tiny fraction of the politically active population. Politics is an old people thing!
Both my extreme right-wing and extreme left-wing friends mostly are fit, and many of them actively go to the gym and lift weights! This is just not true. That's probably representative of the kinds of people I'm friends with ... but then there's no reason PF can't pick its members from similar kinds of people.
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