Who are the Proud Boys, the hate group Trump told to ‘stand by’?

The first TV debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden saw the president asked if he would disown far-right and white supremacist groups – and telling one group to “stand back and stand by”.

That group was the Proud Boys, an all-male gang known for violence at public rallies and a misogynistic, racist philosophy. A right-wing group that sprung up after Donald Trump was elected, it has evolved from pseudo-intellectual hipster origins into a more thuggish, openly extremist group that calls for violence increasingly openly.

The central figure in the Proud Boys’ history is Gavin McInnes, one of the co-founders of VICE magazine. Having left VICE in 2008, he has for years expounded extreme views on whiteness, masculinity and political culture in general – in particular that political correctness is crushing American masculinity, and that the West and Western men in particular are manifestly superior beings.