After the presidential election last year, the Proud Boys, a far-right group, declared its undying loyalty to Donald Trump.
In a Nov. 8 post in a private channel of the messaging app Telegram, the group urged its followers to attend protests against an election that it said had been fraudulently stolen from Trump.
“Hail Emperor Trump,” the Proud Boys wrote.
But by this week, the group’s attitude toward Trump had changed.
“Trump will go down as a total failure,” the Proud Boys said in the same Telegram channel on Monday.
As Trump departed the White House today, the Proud Boys, once among his staunchest supporters, have also started leaving his side.
In dozens of conversations on social media sites like Gab and Telegram, members of the group have begun calling Trump a “shill” and “extraordinarily weak.”
They have also urged supporters to stop attending rallies and protests held for Trump or the Republican Party.
The comments are a startling turn for the Proud Boys, which for years had backed Trump and promoted political violence.
Led by Enrique Tarrio, many of its thousands of members were such die-hard fans of Trump that they offered to serve as his private militia and celebrated after he told them in a presidential debate last year to “stand back and stand by.”
On Jan. 6, some Proud Boys members stormed the U.S. Capitol.
But since then, discontent with Trump, who later condemned the violence, has boiled over.
On social media, Proud Boys participants have complained about his willingness to leave office and said his disavowal of the Capitol rampage was an act of betrayal.
And Trump, cut off on Facebook and Twitter, has been unable to talk directly to them to soothe their concerns or issue new rallying cries.
The Proud Boys’ anger toward Trump has heightened after he did nothing to help those in the group who face legal action for the Capitol violence.
Today, a Proud Boy leader, Joseph Biggs, 37, was arrested in Florida and charged with unlawful entry and corruptly obstructing an official proceeding in the riot.
At least four other members of the group also face charges stemming from the attack.
“When Trump told them that if he left office, America would fall into an abyss, they believed him,” Arieh Kovler, a political consultant and independent researcher in Israel who studies the far right, said of the Proud Boys. “Now that he has left office, they believe he has both surrendered and failed to do his patriotic duty.”
The shift raises questions about the strength of the support for Trump and suggests that pockets of his fan base are fracturing.
Many of Trump’s fans still falsely believe he was deprived of office, but other far-right groups such as the Oath Keepers, America First and the Three Percenters have also started criticizing him in private Telegram channels, according to a review of messages.
Last week, Nicholas Fuentes, the leader of America First, wrote in his Telegram channel that Trump’s response to the Capitol rampage was “very weak and flaccid” and added, “Not the same guy that ran in 2015.”
Biden’s swearing-in has also punctured the hopes of some QAnon followers who pushed the conspiracy theory that claimed Trump would remain in office and arrest top Democrats.
Users across multiple forums and chat rooms spent the morning spinning up new theories about how Jan. 20, dubbed the “Great Awakening” by supporters, would still turn out as the theory had predicted.
As Trump left the White House for a final time, one post shared on a forum backing the president suggested that he was getting into Air Force One for his own safety — instead of to leave for Florida for his first post-presidency travel.
A user on another forum dedicated to the “awakening” claimed that the 17 flags onstage as Trump gave his farewell were a coded message, since “Q” — the mysterious figure who posts cryptic messages that serve as the theory’s foundation — is the 17th letter of the alphabet.
“I don’t know how many signs has to be given to us before we ‘trust the plan,’ ” another user commented.
But as Biden’s inauguration continued without incident, the realization that the theory was failing to come to fruition began to set in for some of QAnon’s most ardent supporters.
Ron Watkins, a former administrator of 8kun, wrote on Telegram that “we gave it our all.”
“Now we need to keep our chins up and go back to our lives as best we are able,” he wrote to the 120,000 users subscribed to his channel.
Watkins’s former platform hosts posts by “Q,” the anonymous figure behind the theory.
Another large QAnon group on Telegram closed commenting to give users “a breather” after Biden’s swearing-in ceremony.
“Q was a LARP the entire f—ing time,” one forum user wrote moments after the inauguration, referring to live-action role playing games.
One 8kun user lamented that they “thought things would finally change and the deep state would be exposed” today.
“Please, I just can’t anymore,” they added.
A large swath of QAnon followers still appeared to be on board with the theory despite Biden’s inauguration, and the community has continued to grow despite previous predictions not coming to fruition.
Many QAnon followers have also celebrated reports that Trump is considering launching a political party, dubbed the “Patriot Party,” as an alternative to the GOP.
More violent right-wing groups are also already strategizing how to convert disillusioned QAnon followers to their ranks.