I was a violent white supremacist – I know hate groups like the Proud Boys won’t disappear with...

"If the violent far-right siege on the Capitol didn’t signal to American politicians and law enforcement that the US has an extremist radicalisation problem and that hate is not just a hoax, let my eight years of experience as a violent white supremacist, and the subsequent 25 years since that I’ve spent denouncing my past racist beliefs and working to educate others, serve as a warning.

During Donald Trump’s presidency, I worried his words were stoking fear and inciting acts of violence. After the presidential debate in which Trump provided the Proud Boys, a cadre of violent far-right thugs, with marching orders to “stand by”, I feared an event like January 6 would come.

Publicly, the Proud Boys claim to just be a group of “western chauvinists”. But in reality, they are a gang modelled after white power skinheads from the 1980s and 90s – the latest iteration of the monster I helped build all those years ago. The white supremacist movement had morphed from my days, when we were very visible with shaved heads, black boots, and tattoos, and we recruited young people at skate parks, punk rock concerts, and the fringes of high school parking lots" Christian Picciolini.