Quiet Is Reorganization

An analytical brief on the post-pardon paramilitary landscape

The relative public quiet of far-right paramilitary formations in the post-pardon period is being read by significant portions of the broader pro-democracy field as evidence that the threat from these formations has receded. This reading is dangerous. The comparative record on far-right paramilitary movements is unambiguous: the periods that look quiet from outside the network are almost always periods of internal reorganization, leadership consolidation, recruitment infrastructure development, and ideological sharpening. They’re followed, with consistency, by mobilization waves that the field’s monitoring infrastructure has typically been positioned to anticipate but the broader field has typically failed to act on.

The post-pardon period has specific features that make this dynamic more acute than at any prior comparable moment. The pardons returned to the network a generation of leadership figures with operational experience, a martyrdom narrative, and reduced legal exposure. The federal monitoring infrastructure that previously tracked these formations has been substantially weakened in the second Trump administration. The mainstream press has reduced its coverage. The integration of paramilitary infrastructure with formal political institutions, particularly at the county and state level, has accelerated. The recruitment infrastructure has shifted toward demographics and pipelines that the field’s previous monitoring models do not fully cover.

This brief makes four arguments. First, the network should treat the current quiet as reorganization rather than demobilization, with analytical confidence drawn from the comparative record. Second, the most consequential development in this space is the integration of paramilitary infrastructure with formal political institutions, which is the most under-tracked dimension of the threat. Third, the existing monitoring infrastructure — a small set of NGO, academic, and state-level human rights organizations — is significantly under-resourced relative to the actual scope of activity, and the broader pro-democracy field’s lack of investment in this monitoring is itself a strategic failure that the network should help correct. Fourth, public awareness work is needed in specific framings that the network is positioned to make, and a coordinated effort would meaningfully change the public’s analytical readiness for the next mobilization wave.

Quiet is the condition under which monitoring matters most. The formations that look least active are often the ones doing the most consequential work.

1. WHAT QUIET ACTUALLY MEANS

The pattern of relative public quiet from these formations is, in the comparative record, the dominant indicator that reorganization rather than demobilization is occurring. The pattern is consistent enough across the historical record that it functions as a working analytical principle for far-right movement research.

What reorganization periods produce

• Leadership consolidation. The internal hierarchy sorts itself out, factional disputes resolve, and a clearer command structure emerges from what was previously a more diffuse network. The post-pardon period has produced significant leadership consolidation around figures who emerged from federal incarceration with elevated standing inside the network.

• Recruitment infrastructure development. The formations rebuild or reinvent the channels through which new members enter the network. In the current cycle, this has shifted substantially toward digital pipelines that did not exist as significant feeders a decade ago.

• Training infrastructure. Compounds, training facilities, weapons programs, and what these formations call ‘force protection’ capacity get built or rebuilt during these periods. Several formations have been expanding training infrastructure in the post-pardon period.

• Ideological sharpening. The internal debates that were suspended during periods of high public mobilization resume, and the ideological project gets refined or radicalized through these debates. The current period is producing significant ideological development that the field has not yet fully tracked.

• Coalition formation. Formations that previously operated independently begin coordinating, often through shared training events, cross-formation leadership exchanges, and consolidated digital infrastructure. The current period has seen substantial coalition formation among formations that were previously competitive with one another.

Comparative cases

The Klan looked quiet to the white press for years before the 1963–1965 wave of organized terror. The militia movement looked quiet between 1996 and the early 2000s and reorganized into structures that produced the formations active in the 2010s and 2020s. The Three Percenter and Oath Keeper formations looked quiet in 2014 and 2015 and were doing the recruitment and infrastructure work that produced their 2020 and 2021 mobilizations. The pattern is consistent. The field’s standard mistake is reading visible activity as the principal indicator of threat level, when the more reliable indicator is the rate of internal reorganization that monitoring infrastructure can detect even when public activity is low.

2. THE STRATEGIC EFFECT OF THE PARDONS

The January 6 pardons, including those for individuals convicted of seditious conspiracy and those associated with the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, and the various militia formations, have changed the strategic situation for these networks in ways that are still being absorbed.

Removal of the deterrent effect.

Federal prosecution had been producing a significant deterrent effect on recruitment and on operational planning across the network. The pardons removed that deterrent. Recruitment conversations, training event planning, and operational discussions are happening now without the legal-exposure constraints that shaped them between 2021 and 2025.

Network reset with elevated leadership.

Many of the figures who would otherwise have been incarcerated through the late 2020s are back in the network. Several of them are more prominent now than they were before, because martyrdom narrative has elevated them. The network has been reset with leadership that has both operational experience and the credibility that comes from having served time for the cause.

Federal law enforcement signal.

The pardons signaled to the broader far-right ecosystem that federal law enforcement is, for the foreseeable future, not going to be the instrument that holds them accountable. The strategic calculation inside these formations has shifted accordingly. Risk assessments that previously included federal exposure as a major variable have been substantially revised.

Permission structure for state-level integration.

The pardons functioned as a permission structure for the formal integration of paramilitary infrastructure into Republican Party structures at the county and state level, particularly in geographies where this integration was previously contested within the party. The Republican Party question and the militia question are not, in 2026, separable in the way they were a decade ago.

3. WHAT THE NETWORK SHOULD BE TRACKING

Five specific dimensions warrant the network’s attention. Each is being tracked by some combination of NGO, academic, and state-level human rights organizations, but the integration of these tracking efforts into the broader pro-democracy field’s strategic awareness is incomplete. The network can contribute to that integration.

3.1 The integration with formal political institutions

This is the most consequential development of the past several years and the most under-tracked. The boundaries between paramilitary formations and formal political institutions — sheriffs’ associations, county-level Republican Party structures, certain state legislative caucuses, and the constitutional sheriff movement — have blurred substantially. The integration is happening through multiple channels: formation members running for and winning local office, formation leaders advising or directly working with elected officials, formation infrastructure being absorbed into county Republican Party structures, and ideological framing from the formations being adopted by elected officials. This integration is what makes the question of paramilitary threat structurally different in 2026 than it was in 2014. It is also what makes the threat harder to monitor through traditional far-right movement research, because it requires expertise in both formal political organizing and far-right movement research, which are usually held by different organizations.

3.2 Geographic concentration

The activity that does continue is not evenly distributed. The geographies most warranting attention based on current monitoring include Idaho, Montana, eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, parts of Utah, parts of Texas (particularly the Hill Country and border regions), parts of Tennessee, parts of North Carolina, parts of Pennsylvania (particularly central and northern regions), and increasingly the upper Midwest. State hub leadership in these geographies should have direct relationships with the state-level human rights organizations and academic researchers tracking activity in their regions.

3.3 Recruitment infrastructure

The recruitment patterns have shifted substantially since 2020. Significant feeders into the network now include gaming-adjacent communities and platforms, fitness and combat-sports communities (particularly mixed martial arts spaces and certain gym networks), the broader ‘manosphere’ digital ecosystem, and certain veteran-affiliated networks. The recruitment is also reaching younger demographics than it did in the 2014–2020 period. The field’s previous monitoring models, which focused on adult recruitment through ideological media and event-based recruitment, do not fully cover this shift.

3.4 Training infrastructure

Several formations have been expanding training compounds, weapons training programs, and what they call ‘force protection’ capacity in the post-pardon period. The patterns are consistent with formations preparing for either a political crisis (an election outcome they reject, a federal action against their networks, a perceived threat to a leader) or for opportunistic deployment in support of state-level political conflicts. Specific training infrastructure being built in this period is geographically distributed, and the network’s state-level partners may have information from their state-level monitoring partners that is not yet integrated into national-level analysis.

3.5 Transnational connections

The U.S. far-right paramilitary infrastructure has had ongoing exchange with European far-right formations, with Russian-aligned actors, and with the broader transnational authoritarian network. This is not peripheral to the threat; the strategic learning, the funding flows, and the ideological development happen substantially in this transnational space. The formations that look quiet domestically are often quite active in this transnational space. Monitoring this dimension requires capabilities that most U.S.-based human rights organizations do not have, and is principally being done by a small number of academic researchers and specialized journalism outlets.

4. WHO IS DOING THE MONITORING

The work of tracking these formations is being done by a small number of organizations and individuals. The network should know who they are, develop relationships with them, and contribute to the resourcing conversation. Listed below are the organizations and researchers currently doing the most consequential work.

Research and monitoring organizations

• Western States Center. Based in Portland, OR. Sustained tracking of far-right activity across the Pacific Northwest and Mountain West. Strong analytical infrastructure and direct relationships with state-level human rights organizations. The leading institution for monitoring the geography where current activity is most concentrated.

• Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (IREHR). National scope, strong analytical work on the integration of far-right formations with formal political institutions. Important reading for the dimension named in section 3.1.

• Political Research Associates. Long-running analytical work on the U.S. far right. Strong on the ideological development dimension and on the connections between far-right formations and broader political structures.

• Montana Human Rights Network. State-level model for monitoring infrastructure. Sustained work in one of the most concentrated geographies. The model that other states with significant activity need versions of.

• Southern Poverty Law Center. Tracking infrastructure has been substantial historically, though there are ongoing field debates about its analytical methodology. Worth being in relationship with even where there are disagreements.

• Center for Analysis of the Radical Right. Academic infrastructure for analytical work on the U.S. and transnational far right. Good source of in-depth analytical writing that the network’s leaders should be reading.

• Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). Quantitative tracking of far-right activity at incident level. Important source for understanding geographic and temporal patterns in actual mobilization.

• Coalition on Homeland Security Statistics. Specific analytical work on the gap between official monitoring and actual activity, particularly in the post-pardon period.

Academic researchers

• Kathleen Belew (Northwestern). The leading historian of the U.S. white power movement; her analytical frame for understanding these formations across cycles is foundational.

• Alexander Reid Ross. Analytical work on the transnational dimensions and ideological developments.

• Shane Burley. Investigative and analytical writing on Pacific Northwest formations and broader far-right political dynamics.

• Cassie Miller. Sustained analytical work on the digital recruitment infrastructure and ideological development.

• Cynthia Miller-Idriss (American University). Comparative work on far-right youth recruitment and the broader transnational ecosystem.

Investigative journalism

A small set of investigative reporters and outlets continues to produce the field-level reporting that public awareness depends on. ProPublica’s specific reporting on far-right paramilitary formations has been consequential. Talia Lavin’s writing on digital recruitment has produced analytical contributions the field uses. The Bulwark, Jewish Currents, and other outlets have produced sustained reporting. These journalists are doing important work with shrinking institutional support.

5. SPECIFIC ACTIONS FOR THE NETWORK

Five specific actions are within the network’s capacity and would meaningfully strengthen the field’s response to the developments named above.

• Action 1: Build direct relationships with the monitoring infrastructure. State hub leadership in the geographies named in section 3.2 should have direct working relationships with the relevant state-level human rights organizations and academic researchers. National-level network leadership should have ongoing relationships with Western States Center, IREHR, and Political Research Associates at minimum. Quarterly briefings from these organizations to network leadership would meaningfully improve the field’s analytical readiness.

• Action 2: Bring monitoring infrastructure into funder conversations. The institutional weakening of monitoring capacity is itself a strategic failure of the broader pro-democracy field. The funder conversations the network is in should explicitly include the resourcing needs of the organizations named in section 4. The Hewlett, Ford, MacArthur, Open Society, Solidaire, and Democracy Fund portfolios should be hearing this argument, and 22CI is positioned to make it.

• Action 3: Develop analytical content that the network can deploy. The companion Substack piece distributed publicly in parallel with this brief is one example. Additional pieces on specific dimensions — the integration with formal political institutions, the recruitment shift, the training infrastructure, the transnational dimensions — would extend the field’s analytical readiness. The Anti-Authoritarian Playbook publication is the principal vehicle, with state hub partners as amplifiers.

• Action 4: Operational security awareness for partner formations. The integration with formal political institutions, particularly at sheriff and county-government level, has implications for the operational security of organizing in the affected geographies. State hub leadership in those geographies should have working operational security practices and access to the legal infrastructure that civil rights workers rely on (National Lawyers Guild, Center for Constitutional Rights, the movement-aligned legal infrastructure that develops as needed). This is not new work for many partners, but the field-wide integration of this work is uneven and worth strengthening.

• Action 5: Coordinate with other movement formations on the awareness question. The argument that quiet is reorganization is one that many movement formations need to hear and that the field benefits from making in coordinated voice. Race Forward, the Working Families Party, Indivisible, Faith in Action, the labor formations, and the other partners in the broader pro-democracy field should be hearing this argument and making versions of it within their own networks. Coordinated framing across the field would meaningfully change the public’s analytical readiness.

6. WHAT THE NETWORK SHOULD NOT DO

Several adjacent activities are real risks for the network and should be avoided or approached with significant care.

• We should not become a monitoring organization ourselves. The work of direct tracking of these formations is highly specialized, requires expertise we do not have, and creates operational security risks for staff and partners that we are not equipped to manage. Our role is to amplify the analytical work of the existing monitoring infrastructure and to bring it into the broader pro-democracy field’s strategic awareness, not to duplicate or replace it.

• We should not produce content that creates roadmaps. Public-facing content on specific formations, specific training events, specific operational details should be left to the journalists and researchers with the institutional infrastructure to produce that content responsibly. Our public-facing content on this question should be analytical (the framework for understanding what is happening) rather than reportorial (specific factual content about formations).

• We should not engage in confrontational direct action against these formations. Confrontational direct action against far-right formations is high-risk, has uneven historical track record, and routinely produces escalation that benefits the formations being confronted. Where direct confrontation happens, it should be led by formations specifically prepared for it (which is not us) and with infrastructure that contains the escalation risk. Our work is upstream of the confrontation question.

• We should not let this analytical work crowd out the other work. The block work, the build work, the leadership preparation, the cross-stream partnerships, the cultural strategy work — all of it continues regardless of the paramilitary monitoring question. This brief is asking the network to add specific awareness and specific actions to existing work, not to reorient its work around the paramilitary question. The strategic posture is integration, not substitution.

CLOSING

The relative quiet of these formations in the post-pardon period is the condition under which monitoring infrastructure matters most, and it is also the condition under which the broader field’s attention to monitoring is weakest. The network has the capacity to help correct that mismatch, and the work to do so is operationally specific and feasible within the existing strategic posture.

The argument that quiet is reorganization is not a doom-laden argument. It is an analytical correction to a reading that has become widespread in the field, and it is offered as the precondition for the strategic awareness the next phase of the work requires. The network can help the field hold this awareness accurately. The next mobilization wave from these formations — whether it is opportunistic, scheduled, or triggered — is significantly more likely to produce its intended effect if the field is unprepared. Preparation is what this brief is asking the network to undertake.

The quiet is the work. Recognizing it as such is the field’s principal task in the period before the next mobilization wave.

Questions, additions, corrections, and additional analytical resources should be sent to 22CI Director leadership. The brief is intended for working circulation across the network, with the distribution constraints named at the front.

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Internal Analytical Brief produced by the 22nd Century Initiative.

For 22CI network distribution. Not for public circulation.