January 6, 2021, is a day that will live in infamy. It’s a day that Donald Trump supporters stormed the Washington Capitol, in an attempt to overturn the results of the Presidential election. The protests turned violent, five people lost their lives, and an angry mob of protesters attacking police officers (174 officers were injured) at the Capitol was a disturbing sight that was broadcast on live television.
Director Michael Premo’s documentary Homegrown follows three conservative activists in the lead-up to, during, and after the Capitol attack. Chris Quaglin is a man with a pregnant Chinese immigrant wife in New Jersey, Randy Ireland is a Trump supporter from Texas (but we don’t get much of a family life background for him), and Thad Cisneros is an air force veteran with a girlfriend named Jacarri Kelley, who, interestingly enough, is a Black Lives Matter activist. All three men are members of the “Proud Boys,” an American far-right, neo-fascist militant organization that is known for its street violence and racism.
Premo gives us a glimpse into the lives of two of these ardent Trump supporters, which shows that there are some qualities that they have in common with everyone else, and others that they do not. Chris is constantly talking about becoming a father soon and trying to be mindful of that fact while building an addition to the house and baby furniture, but his actions in the street (such as vandalizing a Black Lives Matter painting) and aggressive attack at the Capitol show him to be more concerned with Trump than he is with his own family. His wife is a Covid nurse who warns him on the phone to be careful at the rallies because if she gets sick with Covid and the flu, she will have a fifty percent chance of dying due to a low immune system while pregnant. He likes to drunkenly tell other Proud Boys about this while he’s at after-parties for the rallies.
“…follows three conservative activists in the lead-up to, during, and after the Capitol attack.”
Thad is a Latino with a black girlfriend who joined an openly racist organization, so that’s a head scratcher if there ever was one. He explains that ever since he served in the air force, he’s been into conspiracy theories. The most profound moment in the film is when Jacarri tries to explain to Thad that even though he has a black girlfriend and children, he can still be a racist. It’s something that he can’t seem to fully grasp.
The issue of race comes up multiple times in the doc, with the prevailing theory amongst the subjects that there is no such thing as “white privilege,” that minorities actually have an advantage over others, and Chris caps it off by saying that 90-95% of black people who die from incidents with law enforcement, should be killed by the cops due to their actions. These are all thoughts that have been implanted in them through both social and traditional media, and to them, it’s not racist at all. It’s a fascinating subject that should warrant an entire documentary unto itself, because we’ve reached a point in society where many white people feel as if they are a persecuted minority now, and it leads to some of the extreme reactions that we see in this film.
Homegrown is not a film that takes a stance one way or the other on the extreme political divide Donald Trump has created in the nation. It instead gives you a glimpse into the mind of men who fought for and ultimately went to prison for him.
"…gives you a glimpse into the mind of men who fought for and ultimately went to prison for him."
