Gays, Guns and Antifa Supersoldiers: New Reporting for Rolling Stone
Inside a whirlwind trip to Texas and a whole bunch of encrypted text messages.
Hello. My latest piece, “Anti-Fascist. Armed to the Teeth,” an inside look into the heavily-armed militant left wing organizations formed to resist far-right violence against marginalized groups, is out today. It was quite a time!
You can read it here, although it’s heavily paywalled, which is fine, media outlets need revenue and all, I get it, also subscribe to Rolling Stone after clicking on my article in case it makes some data nerd at Penske Media Company say “damn we should give that guy health insurance look at how many subscriptions he’s driving.”
If you don’t want me to have health insurance, however, you can read an unpaywalled version here. PMC please don’t sue me.
I reported this feature off and on over the course of about six months, after pitching it several drinks in at the Rolling Stone holiday party, which I basically invited myself to because I figured I could pitch some dumb blogs after editors got all liquored up. That worked… surprisingly well! That’s the hustle mindset, baby.
I’d been interested in left-wing armed movements for years, but hadn’t found quite the right angle in. This reporting built naturally out of my last print piece for Rolling Stone, on the heart of the Cop City protests in Atlanta, which gave me some cachet among the type of press-averse activists who usually make up anarchist/antifascist/far left social movements. I try to be clear with these groups that while I’m sympathetic to their goals — we all want to create a better world, preferably free from the far right — I’m not there to do PR for them. What I hope my work can do, at least, is translate some of the insular, intense, and sometimes confusing world that they live in to people who have no knowledge of it. Essentially, I want to be able to explain to people like my parents — lovely, well meaning ex-hippie liberals — what would cause young people to take action like picking up a gun or firebombing a construction vehicle, despite how extreme that sounds. When you speak to some of these people — many of whom are young, gay, queer, trans, or people of color — it starts to make a bit more sense. The police are not going to protect these groups. We’ve seen them fail to do so on so many occasions. Their answer is to protect themselves, by any means necessary.
Anyway, philosophy aside. I think when I do a big feature like this I’d like to use my personal Substack to give readers some behind the scenes stuff from the reporting process. So! Here’s a video of me mag-dumping an AKM while at the shooting range with Black Cat Rifle Group.
That was fun! No two ways around it. I lucked into the Black Cat reporting when El Gato texted me out of the blue after I had landed in Dallas. As luck would have it, he was headed to the range the day after, and invited me along. We spent the entire day shooting, and then went to Azad’s favorite South Indian place north of Dallas, where I had Idli Chaat for the first time. It was fucking incredible. If we’re pals IRL and you are going to Dallas text me and I will give you the location of this place but otherwise I am not going to blow up Azad’s spot. By far the best meal I had in Texas, although some of the tacos I had in Austin were also up there, as was some of the barbecue I had with my pal Chris while I was there.
Here’s a picture of El Gato and some of the Black Cat arsenal.
There was also a ton of stuff that got cut from the piece, including quite a bit more about the history of the JBGCs: this NPR feature is great background. My only real grip with the print constraints is that the piece is currently very much framed around LGBT+ issues, which the groups involved insisted were not their only priority: any oppression is what they oppose, and many were formed in the wake of or during the 2020 racial justice uprisings.
One sad postscript that I didn’t manage to include before the print magazine closed: the drag show at Tulips FTW has been cancelled — the building’s landlord told Jason, the owner, and Salem, the host, that he would evict the business if the shows continued. So even if these spaces are physically defended, the more mundane wheels of bigoted bureaucracy can still get to them.
I’m starting to drag on a bit, so if you have questions about the reporting or want to accuse me of fomenting a second civil war again, hit the comments below. I’m around (and mostly working on the next piece, which is also going to be a fun one — clandestine computer wars, doxxing, etc. See you soon.
I’ve been following the Cop City protests for awhile, trying to understand it. Your writing is the most comprehensive so far, so thank you! The RICO case against them is a shock. Frankly, so was your piece on the real (versus straw horse) Antifa. I’m feeling like a conspiracist, but the complicity of the Republican Party and their Governors with the far right arming themselves to their teeth and beyond gives me the willies as an ordinary citizen. I find myself truly on the fence regarding Antifa as some kind of counterforce, in a way I’d never thought possible. The times they are a-changing, indeed.
Fascinating piece, Jack, and thanks for the awesome reporting. Do these groups envision a time when they'll be able to lay down their arms, or are they basically in it for the forever haul, like the right-wing militias? It would be interesting to know if there's more of an end-game vision among the antifa set.