Uh no. They were a far right wing “militia”. They had nothing whatsoever to do with BLM.
Whitmer was duly elected. She holds office for 5 years. If they feel it was a mistake, then the proper course of action is to impeach, initiate a recall vote, or elect someone else at the end of her term like civilized people. Not kidnap her, threaten her family, drag her across state lines to hold a mock “trial” for treason and execute her by hanging.
Storming the capitol with 200 armed men carrying assault rifles and God knows what else is hardly a civilized means of removing a governor. Can you imagine the collateral damage?
Anarchists work alone or in small groups. They are predominantly arsonists, (cyber) saboteurs, provocateurs (trolls), and on rare occasions… bombers. They tend to target structure over people. It’s the institutions they want destroyed to promote freedom for the people.
The far right fringe groups, on the other hand, fancy themselves guardians of the Old Republic. They see themselves as militias of the common man like the state militias at the beginning of the nation. However, those militias were drafted, supplied, trained, and answerable to the state or local governments. Because they were funded by the local government, they were funded by the local tax base and therefore ultimately answerable to it as well.
These groups are answerable to no one but themselves. They fund themselves through a variety of means both legal and illegal. Fraud is not uncommon in many of these groups. They band together, recruit from disaffected youth and ex-military when possible. They favor military tactics, weapons of war from assault weapons to bazookas to C4. They train extensively.
They tend to target people over structures but will attack buildings as well. They are misogynistic and often white supremacist but definitely some form of supremacist thinking. They believe in Democratic Republic so long as they decide who gets to vote, who’s eligible to hold power, and who controls the economy and wealth. Basically, that means them predominantly, like in the beginning of the nation and everyone else should just be happy with scraps. They favor institutional strength for a minority citizenry over freedom and self determination for all people.
BLM is a banner slogan term encompassing a wide variety of grassroots organizations across the country aimed at promoting the welfare and advancement of Black Americans. The term gives cohesion to these many groups to work together organizing protests against brutality and murder suffered by black people at the hands of police. They advocate for accountability and justice from police and local governments when police encounters go bad. They have rarely gotten justice or had their legitimate grievances properly addressed, hence the national protests. They are organized protestors and include allies who believe that equality for all is necessary for a healthy society. They are predominantly peaceful and most certainly have peaceful intent, though any protest has a chance of devolving into a riot when passions run high and government is antagonizing the protestors with extrajudicial goon squads and authorized attacks against them. It also doesn’t help when antigovernment anarchists hide in the crowd to destroy and create mayhem and far right militia thugs load up their pickup trucks hoping for a 'fun' lynching or a ‘turkey’ shoot for practice.
See the difference? Hope this clears things up.
