Far Right Militias Are Back
WIRED Politics Lab
WIRED
4.2 • 244 Ratings
🗓️ 20 June 2024
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jake Lang was arrested for his involvement in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. From prison, he has organized an armed militia that now has thousands of members nationwide.
Today on WIRED Politics Lab, reporter David Gilbert explains how this new militia came to be and its possible parallels to 2020. Plus, a look into the recent resurgence of far right extremism.
Leah Feiger is @LeahFeiger. David Gilbert is @DaithaiGilbert. Write to us at [email protected]. Be sure to subscribe to the WIRED Politics Lab newsletter here.
Mentioned this week:
A January 6 Rioter Is Leading an Armed National Militia From Prison by David Gilbert
Extremist Militias Are Coordinating in More Than 100 Facebook Groups by Tess Owen
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| 0:00.0 | eBay. It's a place to fall in love with new, pre-loved, vintage and rare fashion over and over again. |
| 0:07.1 | Your favorite designers, expertly authenticated. Yeah, eBay. Things people love. |
| 0:18.9 | Welcome to Wired Politics Lab, a show about how tech is changing politics. |
| 0:23.2 | I'm Leah Feiger, the senior politics editor at Wired. |
| 0:27.4 | Far-8 extremists and their militias are back. |
| 0:30.9 | And just like in 2020, they're organizing online in a very brazen way. |
| 0:35.4 | Wired reporter David Gilbert has been talking to Jake Lane, one of the people |
| 0:38.8 | charged after the January 6th Capitol Riot. And while he's been incarcerated, Lang has organized |
| 0:44.1 | a pro-gun nationwide militia on telegram, the encrypted messaging. There is a tyrannical wave |
| 0:50.7 | that is a hit in America that we've never seen before. And so it's time that people get organized in case they escalate to something that puts |
| 0:57.9 | our very lives in danger. |
| 1:03.6 | So, David, who is Jake Lang? |
| 1:07.0 | So in a phone call or two phone calls I had for them from his jail cell last week, he told me that he used to be an e-commerce guy. He sold a company for a million dollars and that he then pivoted to become a nightclub promoter in New York City, all of which we haven't really been able to verify. But then COVID hit in 2020 and there was no more nightclubs. So he had a lot more time in his hands than like many people. |
| 1:30.5 | He found himself deep diving down rabbit holes on the internet. |
| 1:34.9 | And he became what he called part of the Truther movement. |
| 1:38.8 | And ultimately in later 2020, he says he got sober. |
| 1:42.6 | I came to God. |
| 1:43.5 | He cleaned me up. I had Jesus move into my heart. |
| 1:46.7 | And I was baptized a couple months before January 6th. |
| 1:50.6 | And obviously the rest is history. I've been incarcerated since 10 days after January 6. |
| 1:57.3 | Wow. Okay. So from COVID to no partying to January 6th, here we go. And this guy, he got caught at January 6th for doing what exactly? |
| 2:07.3 | So he was, according to the Department of Justice indictment that has been filed against him, he was caught on multiple videos and in photographs taking part in the riot. He was right up there |
... |
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