Examining the Role of Anti-Communist Rhetoric in the Growth of Reactionary Cult Movements

By Oskar Kaut

Amidst America’s increasingly polarized political climate, there has been growing concern regarding the emergence of reactionary groups that display cult-like behaviors and tactics, posing vital questions about the impact these groups have on individuals as well as mainstream political discourse. Cults can be broadly defined as groups or movements that share a set of philosophical, spiritual, or political beliefs that are by and large considered to be extremist or deviant by mainstream society. On the other hand, the label “reactionary” is typically given to individuals or organizations that oppose social change and desire a return to “traditional” values and practices. Such beliefs have been on the steady rise for several years, and the conception and popularization of affiliated organizations and movements have followed (Rodrik 162). Many fringe reactionary groups such as the Proud Boys and Patriot Front have come under scrutiny for some of their practices, which are often highly secretive and can involve physical and psychological manipulation (Ashland 37). In recent years, there has been a concerning rise of far-right movements worldwide, providing an opportunity for reactionary groups to amplify their message and reach a much larger audience. Many of these groups display clear cult-like behaviors, as demonstrated by their deference to authority and distorted sense of reality. These groups often use anti-communist rhetoric to infiltrate mainstream political discourse, which serves as a gateway to legitimizing and normalizing the extremist ideology of far-right cults. Resultantly, it is crucial to recognize and address the presence of these cults within right-wing movements and the impact their rhetoric can have on broader society. 

A cult is a group or movement centered around a given (typically extremist) belief system that uses coercive tactics to maintain its hold over followers. Sociological research has shown that cults utilize tactics of social influence in order to manipulate their followers into submission (Corvaglia 9). Morton Deutsch and Harold Gerard divided the concept of social influence into two subcategories. Informational social influence refers to humans’ intrinsic desire to be “right”, whereas normative social influence refers to the desire to be liked by others. Both of these concepts can be aptly applied to cults. Cults use normative social influence (known colloquially as “peer pressure”) to recruit new members. In an increasingly isolated society, cults offer some individuals an opportunity to be a part of something that they see as larger than themselves. The propagation of this form of influence can lead to cult members partaking in practices that they would normally oppose in an attempt to gain favor with other members (Deutsch & Gerard 14). Similarly, in a world where misinformation is increasingly rampant and it can be difficult to know which sources to trust, cults make use of informational social influence to develop genuine conformity to their beliefs and practices. Cults attempt to create a hegemony of “accurate information” for their followers, thus justifying even private conformity in which individuals truly believe that the group is right or justified in their struggle (Corvaglia 18).  

Many reactionary organizations and movements embody the aforementioned cult characteristics. Stanley Milgram’s classical experiments in conformity shed light on the willingness of individuals to obey those whom they view as authority figures and perform actions that go against their own conscience (Slater 32-63). The experiments found that test subjects were willing to administer increasingly severe electric shocks to another person (who they believed to be a fellow test subject) even to the degree where they believed the shocks to be lethal. Reactionary cults (like other cults) often exert substantial social influence over their members and rely on a hierarchical structure of authority that leaves them vulnerable to pressures similar to those exhibited in Milgram’s experiments. Oftentimes–as can be seen in the cults of personality surrounding Gavin McInnes within the Proud Boys or Nazi-collaborator Stepan Bandera in Ukrainian nationalist organizations–members of far-right movements are subject to pressures to conform to the extreme beliefs and practices of groups under the direction of authoritative leaders (Rabotyazhev 525). In many ways, this demonstrates the presence of normative influence within reactionary groups and movements. Moreover, members of fringe right-wing movements are also frequently subject to constant messaging from the group’s ideological leaders and even cut off from external sources of information (Jurg & Tuters). This can be clearly seen as an application of informational social influence, in which far-right organizations appeal to their members’ intrinsic desire to be right by bombarding them with their subjective version of reality accompanied by statements such as “facts don’t care about your feelings”. The intent of this process is to present their extreme viewpoints as objective truths that cannot be challenged, thereby working to shift members’ worldviews over time. The existence of such cult-like behavior in reactionary groups and movements presents real issues for mainstream society as the prevalence of these cults continues to grow. 

In recent years, the presence of reactionary groups has risen sharply both in the United States and globally (Rodrik 162). The attention given to these cults has also increased in the wake of sustained political polarization and social unrest. Large rallies such as the 2017 Charlottesville “Unite the Right” march and the January 6th, 2021 attack on the United States capitol demonstrate the power that these fringe movements now hold as well as their capacity for violence and contribution to the erosion of democratic norms and social stability. The prevalence of right-wing cults can also be seen through the drastically increased proliferation of disinformation and conspiracy theories. Now more than perhaps ever in modern history, mainstream American politics are characterized by a general rejection of the notion of objective reality (Bleakley 1). One of the main causes of this rejection can be attributed to the prominence of echo chambers among political extremists on social media, in which aligning beliefs are reinforced and dissenting viewpoints are actively suppressed (Bleakley 12). This phenomenon hints at a bleak reality: the influence of reactionary cults and movements is not limited to their own movements. Rather, their extremist views and tactics can be observed slipping into mainstream political discourse. 

The growth of reactionary cults within far-right politics has drastically influenced mainstream political discourse. These cults both directly participate in mainstream political campaigns and employ a number of more indirect methods to influence political dialogue. As previously mentioned, the rise of fringe, right-wing cults has coincided with a sharp increase in the prevalence of disinformation and harmful conspiracy theories (Bleakley 2). Reactionary groups have used their growing platforms to disseminate propaganda promoting their fringe ideology and undermining that of their political opponents. Much of this is centered around tactics of fear-mongering in an attempt to create a feeling of urgency for action. Additionally, fringe-right cults are able to methodically slip into mainstream political discourse through media coverage of contentious issues as well as through the actions of individual politicians. Over the past several years, a large number of far-right politicians have adopted language that echoes the beliefs held by reactionary cults in attempts to appeal to certain voters. For example, both Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert are former followers of the QAnon cult and continue to espouse much of the same rhetoric supported by the group today, even as they hold some of the highest elected offices in the country. Powerful politicians and media figures’ adoption of framing similar to that propagated by reactionary cults has led to a dramatic shift in the “Overton Window”—the frame of what beliefs are considered socially acceptable within mainstream society. 

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The Overton Window is a concept designed to describe the range of ideas that are considered largely acceptable within conventional society at a given time. Joseph Overton (for whom the term is named) conceptualized that ideas outside the window (i.e., politically unacceptable) may later fit within the realm of acceptable ideas because the “window” can “either move or be transformed in size” (Oleksandr 52). It is through this process that reactionary cults are able to slip their ideas into conventional political discussions. Even over relatively short periods of time, one can observe how views that were previously unthinkable become widely adopted within the mainstream. Similar to the concept of the Overton Window is that of deviance, which refers to the idea of departing from generally accepted standards present in society. According to Hewitt, “Deviance…represents a real or imagined threat to social order, and the deviant is accorded a special and discredited position in relation to it,” (214). Thus, views outside of the Overton Window at a given point in time typically also fall under the umbrella of deviant views. The concepts of the Overton Window and deviance (and the relationship therewithin) are crucial to understanding the strategic importance of falling within the views accepted by mainstream society for far-right organizations. As Zuckerman puts it, “Stray outside the sphere of legitimate debate into the sphere of deviance, and your position becomes invisible to mainstream media dialog,” (16). Essentially, in order to reach a larger audience, reactionary cults have to struggle to fit within the established norms of society at any given point in time. Because of the tactical need to infiltrate mainstream political discourse, many right-wing, reactionary cults seek to normalize their own viewpoints by falsely equivocating their views with those held on the left. 

Reactionary groups often use anti-communist rhetoric to slip into mainstream political discourse by framing their opposition to communism as a defense of democracy, individual liberties, and freedom. One of the simplest means by which fascists can achieve their ultimate goal of consolidating power is by utilizing anti-communism as a tool to create a common enemy. By depicting socialism as a threat to national security, reactionaries can silence opposition, suppress meaningful dissent, and legitimize their authoritarian system. Another means by which reactionary groups seek to utilize anti-communist rhetoric is to equivocate fascism (and oftentimes Nazism) and communism. This is of course, on its face, absurd: while communism promotes the seizure of the means of production by the workers (Marx & Engels 38), Nazism is characterized by its emphasis on racial purity and antisemitism. The false equivalence of communism and Nazism is often propagated by far-right cults and media figures alike as a means to both discredit left-wing ideas and shift the Overton Window in favor of their own ideology. Making the comparison between communism and Nazism serves to downplay the severity of the crimes of one of the worst atrocities in human history and silence legitimate criticisms of capitalism and neoliberalism. The conjoined propaganda tools of finding a common enemy around which to unite and equating communism to the atrocities of Nazism allow reactionary cults to both delegitimize leftist movements and slip their own beliefs into conventional political discourse, ultimately serving their own end goal of consolidating power within mainstream institutions. 

  Fictitious tropes equating communism to Nazism have been widely disseminated and adopted within transnational mainstream political discourse, perpetuating misinformation, reinforcing negative stereotypes about leftist political movements, and legitimizing the views of reactionary cults. While the degree to which such attempts varies, in some parts of the world (especially in former Soviet states), reactionary cults have been able to “...[capitalize] on decades of anti-communism mainstream discourse built-up to develop a full-blown populist radical right narrative and politics,” (Popescu & Vesalon 5). In practice, this means that fascist sects such as the AUR in Romania and the OUN/UPA cult in Ukraine have been able to normalize their own beliefs and have massive impacts on public opinion and public policy (Crstocea). As previously discussed, cults have a tendency to rely on (among other things), informational social influence. In many instances, this can include followers accepting blatantly false information and shaping their perceptions of reality around lies (Corvaglia 9). Naturally, it’s not difficult why it would be undesirable for distorted worldviews to slip into mainstream politics, but in many instances, it already has. One such example can be seen in The Black Book of Communism (Courtois et al, 1999), which coined the “100 million deaths by communism” myth that has since been thoroughly debunked (Francois et al 4). Despite being categorically disproven, this myth is still perpetuated within mainstream conservative (and even many liberal) circles. As the views of reactionary cults with distorted worldviews gain traction within mainstream political discourse, they are enabled to both expand their influence and increase their numbers. 

The presence of anti-communist rhetoric in mainstream political discourse has led to the growth of reactionary cults characterized by informational isolation and a deference to authority. The use of anti-communist rhetoric fosters an atmosphere of apprehension and widespread suspicion toward leftist ideologies, which renders individuals more vulnerable to the perspectives of reactionary groups. The fear-mongering and demonization of communism that has pervaded Western political discourse for decades has created a fertile breeding ground for reactionary cults and movements that espouse radical anti-communist ideologies. These groups oftentimes promise protection against a supposed communist threat and frame themselves as protectors of freedom and traditional values. By stoking fears of a communist takeover of institutions, these cults and cult-like movements are able to tap into the anxieties of ordinary people who are disillusioned with mainstream neoliberal politics and searching for a sense of belonging and purpose. Further, the adoption of fictitious anti-communist tropes by mainstream political leaders and media figures can also serve as a means of legitimizing the views of these movements, leading to a further increase in their membership and influence. As reactionary cults continue to gain traction in mainstream political discourse, the consequences of anti-communist rhetoric are becoming increasingly evident. The aforementioned groups are given steadily more and more massive platforms to promote fringe ideologies and often resort to violence, as seen in the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, North Carolina, and the storming of the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021. Additionally, the dissemination of anti-communist disinformation and conspiracy theories among these cults creates a pipeline toward radicalization and a complete rejection of objective, factual information, facilitating the exacerbation of societal divides. The normalization of radical, anti-communist rhetoric also perpetuates narrow-minded perspective ideologies, discouraging both critical thought and nuanced discussions about complex societal issues. In conclusion, the prevalence of anti-communist rhetoric in mainstream political discourse has led to a sharp rise in reactionary cults, posing a threat to the very institutions that underpin Western so-called “liberal democracy”. Acknowledging and rectifying the adverse consequences of the normalization of anti-communist rhetoric is vital in averting the proliferation of reactionary cults and the further degradation of the material conditions of everyday Americans.

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Trump's Lost Sons

By Sean Posey

Accused mail bomber Cesar Sayoc reportedly spent much of the past 10 years living in a van in southern Florida. According to those who knew him, he drifted through life - working odd jobs at a pizza shop and a strip club. He seemed to have made little impression on the world.

On the day of his arrest, cable news and social media lit up with images taken of his van. Festooned with the stickers depicting images of President Trump - and his political opponents, who appeared with gun sights superimposed on their faces - the vehicle served as a seemingly made-to-order meme. But who is Sayoc?

During an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Sayoc's family lawyer, Ron Lowy, provided some revealing insight into the man. Sayoc had apparently never been political before Donald Trump descended the escalator at Trump Tower to announce his candidacy in June 2015. After that seminal moment, Sayoc gave himself over to the Trump movement.

Trump has been "reaching out," in Lowy's words, to "outsiders" just like Sayoc, "people who don't fit in, people who are angry at America." Trump is telling these people they "have a place at the table," Lowy explained. "This was someone lost," he said of Sayoc. "He was looking for anything, and he found a father in Trump."

Sayoc is not alone. Most famously, Kanye West adopted Trump as a kind of father figure. In October, West travelled to the Oval Office to meet the President. During a rambling speech to the press, he explained his attraction to Trump and the "Make America Great Again" slogan that so memorably defined the President's campaign.

"I love Hillary," West said. "I love everyone. Right. But the campaign, 'I'm with Her' just didn't make me feel, as a guy, that didn't get to see my dad all the time. Like a guy that could play catch with his son. It was something about when I put this hat on, it made me feel like Superman. You made a Superman," he told Trump.

Many depicted West as a lost soul for having to find a father figure in someone like Trump. But America today is filled with lost boys and men. Most of them, however, are not multi-millionaire rappers.

In previous decades, these are men who would have been working in factories, serving in voluntary associations, starting families or going off to college. Many are, like Sayoc, (described as "a 14-year old in man's body" by Lowy) only marginally attached to the work world.

Since the early 2000s, the labor force participation rate of you men without a bachelor's degree has declined more than any other group . Other disturbing statistics about the plight of American males are a regular feature of articles with headlines like "We're Losing a Whole Generation of Men to Video Games."

These are males who are moving from what should have been a place in mainstream America to the very margins. The decline in church attendance, the disappearance of civic life and the splintering of the family has left many men seeking something beyond even the material. The number of children living with two parents, for example, has declined over 20 percent since 1960. Yet in the past two years stand-in father figures have emerged.

Jordan Peterson, previously an obscure Canadian psychologist, recently rose to fame as a kind of guru for struggling men. He estimates that 90 percent of his 1.5 million YouTube subscribers are male. Part of Peterson's appeal is his broadside against what he terms "cultural Marxism" and politically-correct, postmodern society, which he says ignores the needs of young men. Yet he also mixes the kind of critical guidance that one would expect from a father or a mentor, but it's directed at an audience that perhaps has never heard anyone who they felt really spoke to them. This is also something you can hear from those who identify with Trump and feel he speaks to them.

It's not just Kanye West who has adopted the MAGA hat as a kind of warrior's helmet or mark of American traditionalism. A group known as the Proud Boys, which formed as Trump's campaign took off in 2016, has adopted the MAGA cause. They're causing growing consternation among many on the left as their members engage in street brawls across the country with liberal protesters and members of antifa, a loosely organized group of leftist militants.

The Proud Boys bill themselves as a modern day version of the kinds of clubs and fraternal organizations whose decline Robert Putnam documented in his book Bowling Alone. The Proud Boys are a "men's club," according to founder Gavin McInnes. They have two hard and fast rules for membership: you have to be biologically male and you have to declare yourself a "Western chauvinist."

"I think the Proud Boys, and I think Donald Trump, for the most part, drives people who have been disenfranchised by the public because they don't fit in," said Proud Boy Andrew Bell Ramos during an NBC Left Field story on the group in 2017.

"Most guys my age are basically just interested in sitting at home, masturbating, eating Cheerios and playing video games, smoking weed and trying to avoid responsibility," Ramos explained in another segment on SBS Dateline. The NBC segment shows the Proud Boys bonding over a bonfire, getting tattoos, venerating the role of the housewife, and expounding upon the superiority of the Western world. It isn't your average Knights of Columbus meeting.

"What's it like to be a male chauvinist in 2017? Probably a lot less lonely thanks to these guys," NBC journalist Aurora Almendral somewhat naively explained. They almost assuredly do provide a sense of belonging for some alienated men, but at what cost?

The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the Proud Boys a "hate group." Founder Gavin McInnes has been involved with alt-right websites such as Vdare.com, and a skinhead group called the 211 Bootboys joined the Proud Boys in assaulting protesters after McInnes spoke at the Metropolitan Republican Club in October. "I cannot recommend violence enough," he has said . "It is a really effective way to solve problems."

The Proud Boys are an outgrowth of the alt-right and the land of the "red-pilled." The expression "red-pilled" is borrowed from the imagery of the 1999 film The Matrix. In the film, Neo, the putative hero, is offered the choice of taking either a blue pill or a red pill by the mysterious figure, Morpheus. Though he isn't aware of it, Neo is trapped in a simulation called the matrix.

"You're here because you know something," Morpheus explains. "What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad." If Neo takes the blue pill, he returns to his virtual reality life. If he takes the red pill, as Morpheus explains, he'll discover "how deep the rabbit hole goes."

In the film, the matrix is "the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth." Not long after the onslaught the Great Recession, the term "red-pilled" began to be adopted by a very loosely organized group of white nationalists, "men's rights" activists, reactionary conservatives, antifeminists and a host of other groups coalescing in far-right circles on the internet who became collectively known as the alt-right.

To them, the liberal order is the world that has been pulled over their eyes. And for many, it's Trump who is red-pilling more and more of the "normies" among the general public.

A recent analysis of 30,000 Twitter accounts of users who "self-identified as alt-right, or who followed someone who did," found that Trump is "the glue that binds the far right together." And young men (including the Proud Boys) are now an increasing presence at Trump rallies.

"Identity has become the coin of the realm in American culture," writes Angela Nagle , "but one that's not accessible to the heirs of white male hegemony." Although it isn't only white males , as Sayoc, West and others confirm. This is something Trump seems to recognize. His word and deeds are attracting the lost, the damaged and the economically disenfranchised men in America.

These men are searching for meaning and belonging in a country that has long been "Bowling Alone." Some might stop at Jordan Peterson; others will take the red pill. And it's likely that Trump, not Morpheus, will be the one who guides them down the rabbit hole.

Fred Perry, Proud Boys, and the Semiotics of Fashion

By Anya Simonian

[Pictured: Traditional style influenced by Jamaicans, Italians, and Ivy League Americans from the 60s.]

Over the past week the Proud Boys, a self-described "Western chauvinist" organization whose members are tired of apologizing for "creating the modern world", have garnered media attention. Along with the disruption of an Aboriginal ceremony in Halifax by Proud Boy servicemen, the group is gaining notoriety for clashes with anti-fascist (Antifa) activists. Additionally, the Proud Boys have been involved with so-called anti-Sharia rallies . In New York, two Proud Boys and one "Proud Boys Girl" recently parted ways with their employers after their involvement with the alt-right group came to light and a social media campaign demanded the businesses take action. Proud Boys have degrees of membership. To become a "Fourth Degree" Proud Boy, aspiring members take part in "a major fight for the cause." Founder Gavin McInnes explained: "You get beat up, kick the crap out of an antifa [anti-fascist activists]," to rise through the ranks.

Much Proud Boy media coverage has mentioned, in passing, the group's "uniform": a black Fred Perry polo shirt with bright yellow trim. The Washington Post's recent article, "The alt-right's Proud Boys love Fred Perry polo shirts. The feeling is not mutual" went further in its attempts to explain why Proud Boys have adopted a shirt that, at first glance, seems best suited for white middle-class dads out for a round of golf or game of tennis, quoting Zoë Beery's piece in The Outline, " How Fred Perry Came to Symbolize Hate ". While both articles offer an overview of the shirt's popularity among Mod and traditional Skinhead subculturists and its eventual cooptation by racist skinheads and neo-Nazis, neither emphasizes the degree to which the brand has long served as a site of political contest between the radical left and the far-right. Since the early 1980s, attempts to associate the brand with right-wing politics have been met with resistance from two main camps: 1.) anti-racist skinheads and 2.) "traditional" (non-racist) skinheads -- both of whom refuse to cede the meaning of the Fred Perry brand to the far-right in the same way that one might fight for the liberation of an occupied space.

The word skinhead most often conjures up images of white hooligans, or a particular aesthetic adopted by neo-Nazis. Yet, what it means to be a skinhead has changed over time. Periodizing skinhead culture is challenging but, broadly speaking, it can be broken down into three eras: the middle to late 1960s period of apolitical, multi-racial working class youth; the 1980s period of White Nationalist cooptation of the skinhead aesthetic and overtly anti-racist and left-wing skinhead political responses to that cooptation; and the period from the late 1980s to the present, in which the meaning of the skinhead culture and aesthetic is continually contested.

Skinhead Origins

1960s skinheads

In the late 1960s, the first skinhead subculturists were born of multiculturalism: the fusion of Jamaican "rude boy" styles and music brought to England by Jamaican immigrants in the post-war years, and the working class culture of the English Mods (short for Modernists) who decked themselves out in fine Italian suits and shoes, listened to American soul, jazz, and R&B, and rode Vespa scooters. Mod women sported miniskirts, flats, and sometimes men's clothing. Skinhead style emerged in Britain in the late 1960s as a simplified version of the Mod aesthetic that placed greater emphasis on projecting working class masculinity and a love of Jamaican reggae and ska.

Interpretations

Social scientists took note of these subcultures and worked to explain their meaning in relation to a changing post-war Britain. The seminal work on subculture studies to which all later studies pay homage, or attempt to refute, is Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain, edited by Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson. Published in 1976, Resistance Through Rituals, as well as the Birmingham Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) from which the work emerged, understood youth subculture in Marxian terms as a manifestation of social, political, and economic change. The historical context for the CCCS interpretation was the post-war period of the 1950s that saw the rise of commercial television, age specific schools, and extended education that brought youth together for longer, more isolated periods of time. Adding to these challenges were the recent violence of war and more fatherless children as a result of war deaths. These factors contributed to the making of an isolated, and later unique subculture of resistance.

Drawing from Italian Marxist theorist Antionio Gramsci, a driving foundational assumption of Resistance Through Rituals is that one or more dominant groups in society hold "cultural capital" and subordinate groups or classes find ways to express or challenge their subordinate experience in their own culture. This dominant culture, according to the CCCS, exists solely within the framework of capitalism, whereas the struggle for "cultural capital" becomes a struggle between those with capital versus those who labor. The dominant culture acts as a hegemon and attempts to define and contain all other cultures, giving birth to opposition from less dominant cultures against this cultural hegemony. Although the less dominant culture (i.e. the subculture) enters into resistance against the dominant culture, the subculture is in fact derived from the "parent," or hegemonic culture, and will inevitably share many of its attributes. For example, working-class culture is considered by the editors of Resistance Through Rituals to be a "parent culture," yet the youth subcultures that arose from it have their own values, uses of material culture (which are often derived from the parent culture but are re-appropriated and given new meaning), as well as territorial spaces. The Fred Perry represents both an appropriation of the parent culture and a territorial "space" where politics play out.

The editors of Resistance Through Rituals write:

Sub-cultures, then, must first be related to the 'parent cultures' of which they are a sub-set. But, subcultures must also be analysed in terms of their relation to the dominant culture - the overall disposition of cultural power in the society as a whole. Thus, we may distinguish respectable, 'rough', delinquent and the criminal subcultures within working class culture: but we may also say that, though they differ amongst themselves, they all derive in the first instance from a 'working class parent culture': hence, they are all subordinate subcultures, in relation to the dominant middle-class or bourgeois culture. [1]

1960s Mod style from the 1979 film, Quadrophenia

From this angle, Resistance Through Ritual examines the predecessors of the skinheads -- the Mod subculture of the 1960s which, in its most basic terms, consisted of dressing sharp in the latest high fashion (but only wearing particular high fashion brands, often stemming from styles of those involved in organized crime in 1950s and 60s Britain), hairstyles, soul and rock n' roll music, all-night clubs, riding Vespa scooters, and taking amphetamines. The Mod was all about style, and this sharp style, combined with the "uppers" they took, were cast by the CCCS in terms of opposition to the hippie culture of the day that to many Mods seemed to spell a slow, do-nothing death. This seemingly odd combination of interests was explained in terms of working-class resistance by Dick Hebdige in his contribution to Resistance Through Rituals, "The Meaning of Mod":

The importance of style to the mods can never be overstressed - Mod was pure, unadulterated STYLE, the essence of style. In order to project style it became necessary first to appropriate the commodity, then to redefine its use and value and finally to relocate its meaning within a totally different context. This pattern, which amounted to the semantic rearrangement of those components of the objective world which the mod style required, was repeated at every level of the mod experience and served to preserve a part at least of the mod's private dimension against the passive consumer role it seemed in its later phases ready to adopt...

Thus the scooter, a formerly ultra-respectable means of transport was appropriated and converted into a weapon and a symbol of solidarity. Thus pills, medically diagnosed for the treatment of neuroses, were appropriated and used as an end-in-themselves, and the negative evaluations of their capabilities imposed by school and work were substituted by a positive assessment of their personal credentials in the world of play (i.e. the same qualities which were assessed negatively by their daytime controllers - e.g. laziness, arrogance, vanity etc. - were positively defined by themselves and their peers in leisure time). [2]

As mentioned above, the skinheads were born from a combination of Jamaican immigrant "rude boy" culture and Mod subculture. Originating in the middle to late 1960s, the skinheads were of solidly working-class origin and resented authority and social pretensions. The skinhead community developed at a time of worsening conditions for working-class youth, and the CCCS interpreted this subculture as an attempt to recreate a traditional working-class community. Although the skinheads came from the working class, fewer opportunities meant that they almost acted out or performed working-class values rather than lived them. The early skinheads were intensely aware of their self-image and played up their exaggerated working-class style. They wore Doc Marten work boots, suspenders and blue jeans or Levis Sta-Prest jeans as a way to identify with this style and lifestyle in decline. Yet, they coupled this look with Ben Sherman button down dress shirts and Fred Perry tennis shirts -- a scaled down Mod look -- in an appropriation of neat middle-class style that turned middle-class values on their heads. This tennis shirt, worn by working-class skinheads, became a symbol of solidarity and a new kind of "class."

At clubs in the evenings the skinheads would often wear suits like those of the Jamaica "rude boys" and dance alongside Jamaicans to Rock Steady and ska music. Anti-racist and traditional skinheads -- sometimes dubbed Trojan Skinheads for their love of Trojan Records, producers of Jamaican music -- look back on this period as a golden age for their subculture. The phrase "Spirit of 69'" which originated in the 1980s is used by traditional/Trojan skinheads as a reference point for what skinhead culture can and should be about: inclusion, racial harmony, and a multicultural celebration of working class culture. Naturally, the CCCS interpreted skinhead solidarity as an act of resistance to a hegemonic order and its particular characteristics felt by working-class kids coming of age in the post-war years. By the 1970s, however, this variety of the skinhead subculture had largely faded away, but elements of it would be revived, in bastardized form, in the following decade.

Within the early skinhead subculture there had always existed a focus on masculinity, or acting "hard" in order project an "authentic" working-class ethos. This masculinity was expressed in the skinhead interest in soccer and the joining of "firms," or soccer clubs that rooted for their favorite teams and often used violence against opposing firms. The "firm" was also an expression of the desire to protect territory and, most importantly, an expression of collective solidarity. With the introduction and quick commodification of punk rock in the late 1970s, a second wave of skinheads was born. These skinheads, connected to the punk scene rather than the ska, Rock Steady, or reggae scenes of their predecessors, still aped working-class style while sporting the Fred Perry brand, yet their music was Oi -- a more aggressive, simplified version of punk that could never go mainstream. Non-racist bands like Cock Sparrer, The 4-Skins, The Last Resort, Sham69, and The Cockney Rejects led the way.

While this second wave of skinheads was at first largely apolitical, their penchant for soccer hooliganism made them prime recruits for England's far-right National Front. The Young National Front (YNF) began to recruit second wave skinheads at soccer matches, appealing to skinhead working-class sensibilities by scapegoating immigrants for the decline of the white working class. By 1979, the YNF had established Rock Against Communism, a music festival featuring white nationalist bands. In subsequent years neo-Nazi bands like Skrewdriver would bring hundreds of disaffected youth into the National Front. Along with this came the adoption of a new skinhead aesthetic that included the traditional Fred Perry or Ben Sherman shirt and Doc Marten boots, but added to it a paramilitary edge that included flight jackets, larger boots, more closely cropped hair, and symbols of white nationalism. This bastardization of the aesthetic and its coupling with far-right politics made its way to the United States in the 1980s.

Anti-racist and traditionalist responses to the aesthetic and political hijacking of the original "Spirit of 69'" skinhead subculture were swift. As historian Timothy S. Brown put it:

Reacting against this trend-which they considered a bastardization of the original skinhead style-numbers of skins began to stress the cultivation of the "original" look, making fashion, like music, a litmus test for authenticity. Violators of the proper codes were not skinheads, but "bald punks," a category to which racists-who, in the eyes of purists, failed completely to understand what the subculture was about-were likely to belong. The connection between right-wing politics and "inauthentic" modes of dress was personified in the figure of the "bone head," a glue-sniffing, bald-headed supporter of the extreme right, sporting facial tattoos, a union-jack T-shirt, and "the highest boots possible." Although the emphasis on correct style was not explicitly political, it grew-like insistence on the subculture's black musical roots-out of a concern with the authentic sources of skinhead identity. As such, it was heavily associated with the attempts of left-wing and so-called "unpolitical" skins to "take back" the subculture from the radical right in the early 1980s. [3]

In an effort to "take back" the subculture and its symbols from the radical right, Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) was founded in New York City in 1987. Although anti-racist skinheads and left-wing anti-racist skinhead bands like England's The Oppressed had challenged the far right through song and protest, SHARP represented the first attempt to organize skinheads as a multiracial movement against racist, right-wing "boneheads." SHARP's logo was, in part, the logo for Trojan Records, producers of the Rock Steady and ska music so beloved by those first wave British skinheads. In fashion, SHARP emphasized a return to the early styles of skinhead dress, and sought to reclaim the Fred Perry brand (among others) as a symbol of multiculturalism, working-class pride, and the early skinhead subculture in general. As SHARP spread throughout Europe its growth, at times, led to violent clashes with white nationalist skinheads. The Oppressed led the charge in Great Britain, performing confrontational Oi music that pitted the group and its followers firmly against their racist opposition. For example, in their simple four chord song "I Don't Wanna," singer Roddy Moreno belts:

I don't need no bigotry

I know where I'm from

I don't need no racial hate

To help me sing my song

I don't wanna make a stand

But what else can I do?

I don't wanna be like you

Don't wanna fight your race war

Don't wanna bang your drum

I don't wanna be like you

Don't wanna live like scum

The Oppressed associated themselves with groups like Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) and wrote anthems like "The AFA Song" meant to inspire the skinhead left in its fight against the right -- a fight that often resulted in street battles between rival skinhead factions in Europe:

We don't carry shotguns

We don't carry chains

We only carry hatchets

To bury in your brains

So come on

Let's go

So come on

Let's go

A.F.A.

In addition to overtly anti-racist organizations like SHARP, "traditional" or "Trojan" skinheads in the 1980s and 1990s avoided the political question altogether and instead simply decided to live the inclusive values found in the first wave skinhead movement while celebrating working-class pride coupled, at times, with an occasional soft patriotism. Other smaller groups like Red and Anarchist Skinheads (RASH) formed alongside SHARP that added a heavier dose of left-wing politics to SHARP's anti-racist stance.

Both groups have worn the Fred Perry and both have incorporated the laurel wreath symbol associated with the brand into album covers and traditional and anti-racist skinhead tattoos. The Fred Perry polo then, for them, is an object reclaimed, re-sanctified, and restored to its original meaning.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, echoes of these conflicts between left, traditional, and right-wing skinheads continued, though never quite reached the fever pitch the conflict had reached in the 1980s.

The Templars (1996), an Oi band from Long Island, NY

As we move further into this period of political and ideological polarization, brought on by capitalist crisis, we are seeing old partisan battles reignite. It is no surprise then that the Proud Boys have adopted such a politically-charged piece of clothing for their unofficial uniform. For those with an insiders' view of this decades-old culture war, the Proud Boys' adoption of the Fred Perry polo makes an unequivocal statement: we identify with the far-right uses of this brand. The adoption of the Fred Perry is not lost on Antifa, the Proud Boys' primary political opponents. Fashion, as one variety of symbol system, projects a clear political orientation for those able to "read" the language of what is signified by the brand. As anthropologist Edward Sapir pointed out: "The chief difficulty of understanding fashion in its apparent vagaries is the lack of exact knowledge of the … symbolisms attaching to forms, colors, textures, postures, and other expressive elements of a given cultures. The difficulty is appreciably increased by the fact that some of the expressive elements tend to have quite different symbolic references in different areas."

For those who have adopted or who understand the skinhead subculture in all its variegated forms, the Fred Perry, viewed in certain contexts, sends one of three messages: that one espouses white nationalist politics, far-left politics, or that one is a traditional skinhead who celebrates multiculturalism. For those in the latter two camps there has been a long-standing contest to wrest the symbols of the "Spirit of 69'" from the hands of those who would corrupt them. While "ownership" of a brand may seem trivial or ill conceived, this "ownership" embodies a struggle for agency, space, and the dominance of an ideology through appropriation of contested material culture.

Notes

[1] John Clarke, Stuart Hall, Tony Jefferson and Brian Roberts, "Subcultures, Class and Culture," inResistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain, ed. Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson (London: Routledge, 1993), 7.

[2] Ibid, 76.

[3] Timothy S. Brown, "Subcultures, Pop Music and Politics: Skinheads and "Nazi Rock" in England and Germany." Journal of Social History 38, no. 1 (2004): 157-78.