Summary

Using the scientific method, a researcher conducts a study in five phases: asking a question, researching existing sources, formulating a hypothesis, conducting a study, and drawing conclusions. The scientific method is useful in that it provides a clear method of organizing a study. Some sociologists conduct research through an interpretive framework rather than employing the scientific method.

Scientific sociological studies often observe relationships between variables. Researchers study how one variable changes another. Prior to conducting a study, researchers are careful to apply operational definitions to their terms and to establish dependent and independent variables.

A LOOK AT DATA: 

Redneck Revolt: Rethinking Discourse and Identity in Activism

Redneck Revolt is a now defunct social movement that challenged capitalism and racial injustice, while advocating for gun rights. After the collapse of Redneck Revolt, I interviewed N = 9 former participants from local chapters around the United States. The primary research questions the study was most interested in, include:

• How do the individuals view their own identity and role in the movement?
• How is discourse used in the movement?
• How does the identity of the activists shape the perception and goals of the movement?
• How does this political-cultural moment in the United States inform this activism?

There have been armed anarchist-based movements on the left for decades in the United States. This is not new. What is new is a 21st century move to anarchist based armed Left movements that are steeped in intersectional discourse with nuanced approaches to tactical innovation. Redneck Revolts starts in 2009, goes in abeyance, re-emerges in 2016, and falls apart by 2019. It was a national activist organization that advocated for the downfall of capitalism through the elimination of racism. They framed their work as connected to a long historical lineage with roots in Marxist ideology. As a member stated:

“The rights to community are inherited – it’s not something the state gives you.” (1).

I wrote about Redneck Revolt earlier, (Rothschild, 2019) and since then was given access to interview a very small sample of members from chapters across the county. The context for these activists who participated for various lengths of time between 2015-2019 – is that in 2017 – prior to Charlottesville, democracy in the U.S. had already failed (Smolla, 2020). The N=9 activists I interviewed that were affiliated with Redneck Revolt primarily joined around 2017 and stayed until its demise in 2019. The short period of time does not minimize the power of the movement for these activists, and why it is important to continue to examine.  The narratives of the subjects interviewed provide more insight into what drew them to this movement, how they make sense of activism in the United States today, (Faysee, 2018) what their experience in the movement was, and what their take aways are now, after the decline of the movement.

When questioned about what they were looking for and why they joined this organization, all offered that they found the group online when they were searching for like-minded people. They were drawn to the movement because they viewed it as a radical anarchist organization that was ‘horizontal’ in leadership, emphasizing the importance of community over capitalism. The horizontal nature of the movement was a draw because these members were aware of the pitfalls of more ‘top-down’ social movement infrastructure and leadership. They knew of movements that were hierarchal, as well as those that were leaderless (Occupy Movement), and what the consequences of each structure were.

The participants ranged in age from 23-50, and none identified as woman or female, though several would be labeled that way in mainstream American society. This defies the representation that the movement is white working-class men exclusively. A few of the non-binary respondents were initially skeptical about the inclusion of guns in the movement and saw that as a limitation of the movement. Once they were engaged in the movement, they ‘came around’ and changed their views on guns broadly from advocates of ‘gun control’ to seeing the use of firearms as necessary to fight the state and protect the powerless.  The activists received overall support from family and friends for their affiliation with the organization, even though they all came from diverse racial, ethnic, political, and regional backgrounds, with family members from a range of social classes. All people interviewed saw themselves as solidly part of or central to the organization.  Some of the members had positions in the national chapter as well as in their specific local state chapters. They were drawn to the history of fighting capitalist oppression and a few mentioned groups such as the Young Patriots, white Appalachian activists who aligned with the Black Panthers in the 1960s.

Overall, they supported the name Redneck Revolt, even though the sample illustrated that they were much more diverse than media had portrayed the activists. Non-binary, queer, and racially and class diverse, the members came from different starting points, but shared anti-capitalist tendencies and embraced the fight for racial justice. Overall, there are very high levels of education among its former members. All the subjects I spoke with had completed college, and some had additional education. In addition to formal education, many had been involved in informally educating themselves through intellectual readings steeped in Marx and Lenin. Many of the younger activists interviewed were very conscious about their identities (Earl, et al, 2017) and articulated who they were and how they presented themselves, even when they were not prompted to do so. This was true among the activists across varied regions that were interviewed and seemed to illustrate a bit of the micro-culture of the movement.  Despite the racial, class, and sexuality diversity, many felt the organization was still ‘run by’ a white cis-gender man and woman.

Their activism was two-fold: challenging the state/capitalism and fascism (some see this as 2 or 1). Racism was embedded in both, and they want to challenge both. They argued that both poor white people and poor people of color are fighting against the same enemy – the wealthy. (Bray, 2017). They framed their work as attacking white supremacy. The activists understood white supremacy as central to capitalism. The right to bear arms is entwined in the right to overthrow the state, if necessary. When asked to explain their activism, two different participants shared:

“It is radical politics that is in the same historical family that many of us wanted to participate in.” (5)

“I wanted something above ground that was visible and transparent. I wanted people to be connected to safe community defense.” (8)

Class and community-defense were much used phrases that the activists used when discussing their participation.  For these activists, many ‘came to’ progressive politics, and were aware of how others would see them.

“I grew up outside of the Left. I was working-class. We realized to get people in we had to ‘make a plan’. (9)

Community defense was viewed as direct action. For them – to affect change requires guns. All emphasized the importance of firearms for themselves and training for communities who historically have not had access to firearms training. Ideology on what to do with arming is split between viewing guns as tools for self-empowerment and as tools for aiding others in community. Guns provided them the ability to directly fight fascism at its roots at all costs. A few respondents commented that sometimes the left leaning allies were not comfortable with the use and presence of firearms. The firearms of choice for members range from AK 47 machine guns to older Russian rifles that evoke a call to how firearms have been used in the past. Members did work at gaining trust with those on the left that did not carry firearms. They were ‘protecting’ and not initiating violence – and for many of the members, this distances them from Antifa. Though two subjects I spoke to aligned themselves with antifa ideology. Overall, Redneck Revolt activists saw the 2nd Amendment as not just right. They see gun control as racist – disarming black people. One convert to the use of guns as a tool in activism reported: “They showed me that guns were not the tool of the oppressor.” (1)

In addition to the use of guns, central to Redneck Revolt was what they called ‘counter-recruiting’. The Marxist rhetoric framed community and success as only possible with a coalition across classes, and identities to challenge the built-in oppression of capitalism. For Redneck Revolt this meant ‘working with’ white working-class people who might be ‘taught’ to embrace an alt-right or white supremacist ideology. “I didn’t want to do it [counter-recruiting] because I distrusted these people. But you are doing a great service by organizing and changing the way the alt-right think.” (6) Counter-recruiting was dreaded and hard, but it also helped bind the members together, and distinguished them from other Left leaning movements that centered firearms. “No one else was counter-recruiting…It really felt like a community.” (4)

 In their counter-recruiting work, they occupied spaces that are often associated with white working-class places: country music concerts, flea markets, gun shows, NASCAR events and rodeos. In these spaces, they stood against white supremacy as an aboveground militant formation that was an anti-capitalist, anti-racist, and anti-fascist group that used direct action to protect the marginalized and argued for the necessity of a revolution, while drawing attention to limits of liberalism. They saw themselves as challenging white nationalist groups, (Sonnie, 2011), arguing that these organizations do not ‘provide a way out’ for white working-class folks, but rather that these white nationalist organizations create more racial divisions while building up the capitalist enterprise. These tactics of Redneck Revolt were designed specifically to connect differing populations with new practices. Multiple responses to white nationalist demonstrations have come out of this as well. A way that the organization tried to practice this was to populate and support events that were not ‘theirs’ to connect to other groups. In the counter-recruiting, particular messaging was altered based on the audience. The necessity of racial and transgender justice might be geared towards rural whites, while the firearms trainings were for people who are typically shut out of gun culture in the United States: women and people of color.

In addition to the work of counter-recruiting, Redneck Revolt engaged in community survival projects and Mutual Aid. The community survival projects included firearm engagement, but also involved creating spaces in rural communities for Pride Parades. The mutual aid component included free stores, meet-ups, and attention to redistributing resources within their own communities. The attention to mutual aid was a way to build community and support as they garnered trust with people they were engaged in recruiting and/or working with. Mutual aid was also a deliberate means to challenge the tenets of capitalism, shunning consumerism in favor of cooperation and collectives. This was a clear activist practice of the group, more present in some regions, (Maine and California), according to my respondents.

Social media was a primary tool of tactical innovation (Kim and Lim, 2019) for the activists. Many participated in memes that initially showed their alliances to, and later their questioning or disdain for Redneck Revolt. Discord was used a way to communicate within and across chapters. Initially, the ability for all members to participate on Discord led to a sense of a ‘leaderless’ organization. The emphasis on a horizontal model of equity was strong initially, but calls of sexism, questions of sexual assault, and insular communication among select members led to a feeling of a more traditional ‘vertical’ organization, with hierarchy ‘built in’. This ultimately led to the downfall of the organization. As one member recalled: “Social media created and destroyed Redneck Revolt.” (9)

Everyone was very savvy and aware of their individual media presence, (Carty and Barron, 2018) and Redneck Revolt’s as well. They saw it as a double edge sword. On the one hand, they did get media coverage because of the perceived juxtaposition between who they are, and what they do.  However, this coverage was often reductive and sensationalized, resulting in essentialized narratives of the members and the mission. At times this created more social distance between themselves as a group, as well as between members and society at large.

By the time I spoke to the participants in the Spring and Summer of 2022, no one had remained active in the organization, and the movement was defunct. Some cited social media, others misogyny, still others the press, as the primary reason of the collapse. However, many argued that there was a pseudo-intellectualism that was not healthy for their movement in the long run. Another spoke directly about Lenin and Marxism in reference to intellectualism as having the ability to harm a movement. For the most part though, most of the members spoken to, left the movement because they felt disillusioned with Redneck Revolt as a whole. Two reported not knowing what the movement stood for anymore. One was trying to keep the local chapter he was involved in afloat with a new name, another was repeatedly ‘doxed’, and was unsure if it was from people within or beyond the movement. “People who spend time on the internet have a warped sense of what is reasonable and what is bat-shit insane.” (5) As community eroded, so did the clear message of protest and the purpose of the movement: “People just don’t get collective action.” (5). “It was not in the Mission Statement to be paternalistic white people protecting people of color – but, anyway I think it happened.” (9)

However, despite the decline of the movement, everyone claimed that they are still connected to at least someone in the movement today – and see themselves forever part of a community, even if some of them have never met each other past the keyboard. Many viewed the movement overall as a success. A few pointed out that the success or ‘footprint’ would not be seen until people could look back and see how much Redneck Revolt accomplished by countering militia movements, emphasizing firearm training, and counter-recruiting.

References:

Bray, Mark (2017). Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. Brooklyn: Melville House Publishing, 2017.

Carty, Victoria and Francisco G. Reynoso Barron.  “Social Movement and new technology: The dynamics of cyberactivism in the digital age.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Social Movements and Social Transformation. London: Palgrave Publishers,  2018: 373-397, 2018.

Earl, Jennifer and Thomas Maher and Thomas Elliot. “Youth, Activism, and Social Movements.” Sociology Compass. Volume 11, Number 4, 2017: 1-14.

Faysse, Nicholas. “Finding common ground between theories of collective action: The potential of analyses at a meso-scale.” International Journal of the Commons.  Volume 11, Number 2, 2017: 928-949.

Hyun-soo Kim, Harris and Chaeyoan Lim. “From Virtual Space to Public Space: The Roles of Online Political Activism in Protest Participation During Arab Spring. International Journal of Comparative Sociology.  2019, Volume 60, Number 6, 2019: 409-434.

Rothschild, Teal. “Multiplicity in movements: the case for Redneck Revolt.” Contexts. American Sociological Association Journal. Summer 2019, Volume 18, Issue 3, pp.57-59, 2019.

Smolla, Rodney A. “Rednecks and Saint Paul” in Confessions of a Free Speech Lawyer: Charlottesville and the Politics of Hate.  Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2020; 243-246.

Sonnie, Amy and James Tracy. Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times. Brooklyn: Melville House Publishers, 2011

Student Questions:

1. How do the primary questions that guide this research lend themselves to semi-structured interviews? Are there other methods I could have employed, given these research questions?
2. Why do you think ‘context’ and ‘history’ are so important to this particular group of activists?
3. What are some examples of how the narratives (direct quotes from subjects) illustrate how these activists viewed their activism?
4. Why do you think the participants emphasize aspects of their identity so much?
5. Try to use their particular (micro) experience with social media and activism to develop a broader more generalized research project (macro) that focuses on social media and activism.
6. Try and find some narratives that show emotions. The subjects might not say “I am angry”, for example, but there are emotional themes that are present here. Try and find some individual examples, and then locate any emotional themes across interviews.