On June 14 of this year, Vance Luther Boelter shot and killed two people: a Minnesota state legislator and his wife. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz described it as an act of “targeted political violence.” Boelter disguised himself as a police officer wearing a realistic silicone mask and a tactical armor vest. Before the assassination, he visited four other homes belonging to Democratic state representatives. His car contained firearms, large quantities of ammunition, and notebooks with a hit list of more than 45 Minnesota lawmakers and federal elected officials. According to one of the handwritten excerpts from a notebook found in his vehicle, Boelter claimed he was “doing what most people know needs to be done but are not willing to do it [sic] themselves.”
Boelter’s campaign of vigilante justice aligns with a concept I previously defined as the “tactical body,” a “fannish embodiment of white supremacist conspiracy theories and a playful form of political engagement designed to actualize a revenge fantasy of insurrection.” Academics and journalists emphasize the links between extremist ideologies and acts of gun violence, mass shootings, and domestic terrorism. At the same time, fan scholars, like myself, are increasingly alarmed by how acts of right-wing extremism mirror the performances and practices often associated with fandom.
Playing Insurrection: Tactical Aesthetics and Conspiracy Culture
The assassination of lawmakers falls within a growing trend of heavily-armored individuals committing acts of intimidation and violence while wearing body armor and other tactical ensembles. Many individuals who stormed the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, wore helmets, body armor, and other tactical gear. While it may be imprecise to suggest that Capitol insurrectionists were cosplaying as soldiers, the distinct and personalized ensembles many of them created—mixing tactical gear with branded merchandise—share many characteristics with cosplay. Additionally, video recordings inside the Capitol Building displayed insurrectionists searching the desks of Congress members, seeking offline evidence to validate the online conspiracy theories and misinformation surrounding the 2020 election. This behavior could be described as an offline version of “forensic fandom,” a practice that involves collaboratively researching, analyzing, and interpreting fan texts.
The assassination of lawmakers falls within a growing trend of heavily-armored individuals committing acts of intimidation and violence while wearing body armor and other tactical ensembles.
Wearing a bulletproof vest over a battle dress uniform and armed with a “Taser Pulse” weapon, Eric Gavelek Munchel was one of the many who forcefully breached the Capitol Building on January 6. Nicknamed the “Zip Tie Guy” on social media because he was carrying a set of plastic handcuffs, Munchel confessed his motivations for storming the Capitol when he spoke to the press shortly after the attack:
This country was founded on revolution. If they’re going to take every legitimate means from us, and we can’t even express ourselves on the internet, we won’t even be able to speak freely, what is America for? . . . I’d rather die [….] than live under oppression. I’d rather die and would rather fight.
Recent scholarship on fandom has highlighted that conspiracy theories share similarities with fan fiction. Most importantly, both are shaped and reinforced by collective storytelling and function as a “communal headcanon that theorizes a fantastical version of the United States.” Motivated by the false narrative that Democrats stole the 2020 election, Munchel did not simply wish to contribute to this counterfactual rendering of American politics; he sought to actualize it through political violence.
When I describe the tactical body as fan-like, I do not intend to trivialize or downplay acts of political violence. Instead, I aim to highlight how fan performances and playful participation, often regarded as trivial or harmless, are also profoundly serious, hostile, and deadly. One intriguing aspect of Munchel’s tactical ensemble was the Black Rifle Coffee Company (BRCC)-branded baseball cap. Many, including myself, sought to understand Munchel’s identification with this coffee company, especially given its repeated association with incidents of right-wing violence. Just a year earlier, Kyle Rittenhouse crossed state lines into Kenosha, Wisconsin, carrying an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle with the intention of “protecting” the police and businesses from Black Lives Matter protesters. Rittenhouse ultimately killed two people, while claiming that he acted in self-defense, which was later upheld in court. A few days after the shooting, Rittenhouse proudly displayed a BRCC t-shirt on social media, complete with a promo code at the bottom of his post.
While not officially affiliated with BRCC, Munchel and Rittenhouse both used its merchandise as ideological symbols, incorporating it into their tactical outfits. In my analysis of the company’s YouTube comment section, I showed that these two men were not alone in appropriating, or “poaching,” the company’s promotional texts to create their own meanings and communities. While BRCC’s pro-military, pro-gun narratives resonate closely with the imperatives of the tactical body, the BRCC fan community expanded upon its promotional materials, linking them to other conspiratorial and reactionary content. By viewing online communities as fans who engage in play, we can better understand how individuals often create their own meaning within the affordances of digital media rather than merely discovering the meanings embedded in them.
The Tactical Body: Navigating Fandom, Extremism, and the Digital Economy
The intricate ways our digital economy categorizes and commodifies expressions of the tactical body are ripe for academic exploration and discussion. The word “tactical” signals a growing subcultural aesthetic, lifestyle, and consumer market. A simple Google search reveals that the tactical moniker is marketed to online communities and algorithmically amplified in our digital economy with an ever-expanding ecosystem of online personalities, communities, and content. With the assistance of recommendation systems, these markets intersect with a nexus of reactionary content that can lead users down rabbit holes of misinformation, conspiratorial narratives, and fake news. While social media and other interactive platforms have not been the sole drivers of political extremism, they have significantly facilitated fannish participation by appropriating politically reactionary texts for identity expression.
The tactical lifestyle shares many characteristics with fan identities, highlighting the interaction between political reactionism and fandom—a phenomenon that Mel Stanfill refers to as “reactionary fandom.” The tactical body is also “tactical” in another crucial way. Just as fan scholars suggest that, by acting out roles of fantasy characters in public, fans are poaching urban spaces and converting them into safe or home-like places, those who play out the tactical body also attempt to reassert control over public spaces. Some are content with dominating digital spaces, such as online message boards and comment sections, while others aim to reestablish their dominance in the physical world, appearing at political protests, government buildings, and voting stations heavily armed and prepared for conflict.
Some are content with dominating digital spaces, such as online message boards and comment sections, while others aim to reestablish their dominance in the physical world, appearing at political protests, government buildings, and voting stations heavily armed and prepared for conflict.
Like all expressions of body politics, the tactical body is a site of political struggle. However, its militant component and association with right-wing ideology distinguish the tactical body from other expressions of body politics. The tactical body has become a popular mode of political participation in the digital age, often beginning in online spaces and extending into the offline world through acts of intimidation and violence. The concept of the “tactical body” is also politically charged, embodying a “white man as victim” mentality and a self-righteous anger over what they perceive as a loss of certain “God-given rights,” taken away by government bureaucrats and given to those they deem less deserving. Consequently, a motivation for revenge is at the center of the tactical body. Moreover, white supremacy is not just an aspect of the tactical body; it serves as the binding force for other elements, including gun enthusiasm, a citizen-protector mentality, fears of changing demographics, aggrieved entitlement, and feelings of victimhood.
These crisis narratives justify offensive action for angry white men, leading them to adopt toxic aspects of internet culture, such as trolling, hate speech, and conspiratorial thinking. The tools and methodologies used in fan studies are valuable for uncovering this often-overlooked pathway to political extremism. Specifically, my research focuses on how brands centered around the tactical lifestyle leverage rising cultural tensions, militant extremism, and political tribalism to create more opportunities for fans to express their tactical identities.
In a chapter of my upcoming monograph, We Ain’t Playing Nice: Reactionary Fandom, Playful Platforms, and the White Masculine Crusader Fan Identity, I explore the concept of the tactical body further, showing how it can manifest as fan-like performances centered around the body armor company Safe Life Defense (SLD). Like BRCC, SLD has indirect ties to the Capitol insurrection. Evidence suggests Facebook’s algorithms showed their advertisements alongside election misinformation and right-wing content leading up to the attack. Once marketed exclusively to military, police, and security personnel, civilian-focused “self-defense” companies are increasingly common in our digital economy. Nick Goat, the CEO of SLD, may assert that body armor is primarily a defensive tool and that those who commit crimes while wearing body armor “don’t represent the body armor community in any way,” but a discourse analysis of SLD’s promotional materials tells a different story. SLD frequently paints the world as a dangerous place filled with countless threats and encourages citizen protectors to wear body armor to defend their families, communities, and country. SLD’s dedicated social media accounts provide spaces for fans to respond to and expand on this discourse, adding their own narratives surrounding tactical embodiment, which often include racist attitudes towards crime, mis/disinformation, and conspiracy theories. As illustrated by the actions of individuals like Munchel, Rittenhouse, and Boelter, the tactical body does not remain confined to online spaces. When it reaches a boiling point, it can erupt in the real world as acts of violence.
The Rise of the White Masculine Crusader: From Digital Communities to Real-World Consequences
Like Munchel and Rittenhouse before him, Boelter aimed to assert dominance in public spaces. He constructed a tactical ensemble, using body armor as a shield in his quest to eliminate what he perceived as domestic enemies. While there is little direct evidence linking Boelter to SLD, he is the kind of individual susceptible to the fear-mongering advertisements of body armor companies. According to his LinkedIn profile, Boelter was part of the leadership team at Praetorian Guard Security, a company that provided armed home security in the Twin Cities area. Boelter was preoccupied with societal issues and sought ways to address them for the greater good, even receiving training from U.S. military personnel. His alleged connections to an extremist sect of evangelical Christianity, known as the New Apostolic Reformation, likely influenced his perception of the greater good. This sect of Christianity espouses “dominionism,” a far-right belief that calls Christians to take control of every aspect of society to impose Old Testament biblical governance. While Boelter’s motivations differed slightly from those of Munchel and Rittenhouse, they shared a common goal: reclaiming a country they believed belonged to them, even by force if necessary.
Boelter, Munchel, and Rittenhouse shared a common goal: reclaiming a country they believed belonged to them, even by force if necessary.
One of the things I found most disturbing about Boelter’s case was the letter he left in his vehicle addressed to FBI director Kash Patel. In it, he contrives a conspiracy in which Governor Tim Walz initially approached him to assassinate democratic senator Amy Klobuchar to take over her senate seat. Claiming Walz was destroying the evidence that would back up his story, Boelter invited director Patel to “get on the phone and tell Tim you have a few questions for him” and laid out a plan of action in which he would turn himself in directly to Patel to “spill all the beans.” Boelter alluded that Walz might kill him in prison because he knew “about where all the buried skeletons are.”
The reason Boelter left a letter addressed to Patel is unclear. He may have been aware of Patel’s reputation for embracing conspiracy theories, or he might have intended to leave evidence for others like him to engage with in both online and offline spaces. One thing is evident: acts of political extremism are increasingly resembling fan behavior, and our digital environment provides more opportunities for expressions of the tactical body to thrive.
Dr. Anthony Dannar is an Assistant Professor of Communication in the Modern Languages, Communication and Philosophy department at Tuskegee University. As a researcher, Anthony examines political reactionarism through the lens of fandom and theories of play. This research has led to publications in the peer-reviewed academic journal Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies and the edited collection Beyond Fandom: The Darker Side of Social Media Discourse. His forthcoming book, We Ain’t Playing Nice: Reactionary Fandom, Playful Platforms, and the White Masculine Crusader, is a comprehensive exploration of a fan identity defined by the imperative to prepare the body to defend (and in some cases avenge) a particular perception of America supported by white supremacist conspiracy theories, alternative facts, and reactionary politics.
Image made by John Chrobak using “37a.ProudBoys.WDC.12December2020” by Elvert Barnes licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0; “Peace Monument I” by Tyler Merbler licensed under CC BY 2.0.
