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The Hate Report: Get to know the Three Percenters

https://www.revealnews.org/blog/hate-report-g...ercenters/

This week, three men were arrested in connection with the bombing of a Minnesota mosque. While the attack didn’t kill anyone, the reported goal was to “scare” Muslims away from living in the United States.

One of the three suspects, Michael B. Hari, is a former sheriff’s deputy who submitted a proposal to build Trump’s border wall.

JJ MacNab, an expert in the world of far-right extremism, uncovered that Hari ran a group called the White Rabbit Three Percent Illinois Patriot Freedom Fighters Militia. The group’s website called Illinois a “failed state” and urged readers to take up “armed resistance” against the government.

The group’s insertion of “Three Percent” into its name is noteworthy. It indicates a fellowship with a larger movement that’s long been active around the fringes of the white supremacist ecosystem.

Founded in 2008, the Three Percent movement takes its name from the idea that only 3 percent of American colonists took up arms against the British. Members fashion themselves as today’s version of those rebels. On its website, the overarching Three Percent group insists it’s not a militia, nor is its aim to overthrow the government. Instead, the goal is, “to utilize the fail-safes put in place by our founders to reign in an overreaching government and push back against tyranny.”

The loosely organized group rose to national prominence when some of its self-identified members provided security to alt-right rallies around the country. Heavily armed Three Percenters were photographed in military-style combat gear guarding the perimeter of last year’s white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Citing Charlottesville fallout, the group issued a “stand down order” urging members not to participate in future white supremacist events.

“We cannot have this organization tainted by new outlets as they will most certainly report that we have aligned ourselves with white supremacists and Nazis,” the statement read.

However, the mosque bombing arrests indicate that the group’s efforts to distance itself from hate haven’t been entirely successful.

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