two years ago you would likely find magnus painting dungeons and dragon figures in his living room and making a modest living selling them at festivals. today you d be more likely to find him painting this. magnus identifies as a boogaloo boy part of a group that emerged two years ago in online forums. it began as a bunch of memes. a play on the name of a break dancing movie. which morphed into civil war 2 and then simply boogaloo as a term for impending war in america. a shared internet culture then jumped into a real life paramilitary movement complete with its own wardrobe of hawaiian shirts, big igloo symbols, and, yes, semiautomatic weapons.
of silverback, magnus, and thousands of other users with militia leanings. and i wonder just how productive that really is. i know that a lot of people affiliated with militias, they re being deplatformed off of social media. why is that? when they haven t actually committed any crimes. i think we have to acknowledge that we are not settled as a nation on how social media should be governed. for many years they allowed plenty of radicalization to take place on their platforms. and after january 6th the social media companies say oh, that was too much for us. you know, that was over the line. and so they just shut down people en masse. and neither approach, before or after january 6th, is right. i talked to a guy who can t get a grubhub account. and i wonder if that actually makes it more difficult to monitor his activity. absolutely. and it could drive these guys
where is all the money going? in 2014 the city of detroit shut down water access to thousands who couldn t pay their water bills. magnus became an activist, helping residents illegally turn their water back on. what was your interaction with law enforcement back then? always extreme. multiple times just getting pulled over, thrown over the front of the car, car searched. being hit with batons, yelled at. in the wake of back-to-back police killings in march of 2020 including that of breonna taylor magnus began attending rallies fully armed in support of black lives matter protesters. if the government continues to be illegitimate tyrannical and uncaring the summer will be nothing compared to what is to come. do you think militias have too often been painted as kind of extremist white supremacists? yes. a hundred percent. you have leftist militias, communist militias, asian
his living room and making a modest living selling them at festivals. today you d be more likely to find him painting this. magnus identifies as a boogaloo boy part of a group that emerged two years ago in online forums. it began as a bunch of memes. a play on the name of a break dancing movie. which morphed into civil war 2 and then simply boogaloo as a term for impending war in america. a shared internet culture then jumped into a real life paramilitary movement complete with its own wardrobe of hawaiian shirts, big igloo symbols, and, yes, semiautomatic weapons. how would you characterize the boogaloo movement? broad, antigovernment in all forms and fashions more than anything else. the boogaloo boys are pro gun but unlike many right leaning militias they don t sympathize with trump or the republican
party. they re libertarian and anti-police with no leaders or central organization. i want to understand what drew magnus to the movement and why he feels we ve reached a point of no return. so tell moe a little bit about your upbringing. my family are all kind of like hippies sort of. so i grew up in the middle of nowhere, northern michigan, population 300 town. very isolated. what were some of the things that really made an impact on you after you left your bubble? definitely living in detroit and just kind of seeing, like, the idea of what america is supposed to be kind of doesn t exist there. there are abandoned buildings, the infrastructure destroyed but we have a state income tax and pay a lot of money. where is all the money going? in 2014 the city of detroit shut down water access to thousands who couldn t pay their water bills. magnus became an activist, helping residents illegally turn their water back on. what was your interaction with