⁍ Those facing either federal of state charges for conspiring to kidnap Whitmer subscribe to a version of militant anti-government ideology known as boogaloo movement.

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⁍ Based on what has been publicly disclosed about the other individuals facing federal charges, one had attended a Black Lives Matter protest but there is no indication the men adhere to it.

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⁍ The anti-government boogaloo movement embodies a militant ideology whose members believe the U.S. enters a second civil war.

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– The eight men accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer were not part of the Black Lives Matter or Antifa movements, according to Reuters, which has been able to confirm that none of the eight are members of either movement. The men are members of an anti-government militia group called the Wolverine Watchmen, which Reuters describes as a “bottom-up” operation that has grown out of the area’s longstanding militia presence. Six of the men have been charged in federal court, while the other eight face state felony charges. The FBI says the Wolverine Watchmen used Facebook since November to recruit members and train for the “boogaloo,” or civil war, theory that the US will enter a second civil war. The Southern Poverty Law Center says the boogaloo movement “embodies a militant ideology whose members believe the United States will enter a second civil war.” One of the men accused of plotting to kidnap Whitmer attended a Black Lives Matter protest but there is no indication that he adheres to the Antifa or Black Lives Matter movements, the Washington Post reports. Michigan Attorney General DanaNessel said in an Oct. 9 interview with CNN that the defendants “really all subscribe to a similar extremist ideology, and it’s this ‘boogaloo’ theory of taking over the government, civil war … theythrive on unrest. And that’s what we have provided to them in 2020.”