# The Proud Boys next door > A Black filmmaker spent years inside the Proud Boys, and what he found was uncomfortably ordinary. - Title: The Proud Boys next door · Mother Jones | Shortify - Summary: A Black filmmaker spent years inside the Proud Boys, and what he found was uncomfortably ordinary. Political violence in America is not a fringe aberration… - Keywords: january 6, documentary, proud boys, extremism, filmmaking, Proud, Boys, next, door, Mother Jones - Source: Mother Jones — https://motherjones.com/politics/2026/09/homegrown-film-documentary-january-6-proud-boys-extremism-michael-premo - Author: Lisa Armstrong - Published: 2026-09-14T07:34:11+00:00 - Read time: 4 min - Topics: january 6, documentary, proud boys, extremism, filmmaking ## Crushed in the tunnel On January 6, 2021, filmmaker Michael Premo and his partner Rachel Falcone were pinned against a wall in the Capitol's Lower West Terrace tunnel. Between his gas mask and body armor, he could barely breathe. ## Freed by a rioter Premo locked eyes with a man he knew from earlier rallies. The man wedged his body in and pried the two filmmakers loose, then they had to decide whether to leave or keep rolling. ## He kept filming Premo stayed. He compares the choice to a war photographer's instinct once the scale of the day landed on him. > I'm just following the story wherever it goes. ## Three years, three men The result is Homegrown, which tracks Proud Boys Chris Quaglin, Thad Cisneros, and Randy Ireland before and after the 2020 election they believe was stolen from Trump. ## No narrator, no experts It is a verité film. Daily domestic life sits right next to the violence, with nobody on screen telling you how to feel about either. ## Screened as a bridge The writer saw it through Project All, a PolicyLink initiative built on the claim that Americans still share a love of country that can pull them past polarization. > an untapped source of energy that can be mobilized to chart a new course above the fray ## Not extraordinary The film's real discomfort is not the violence. It is the suggestion that these men are ordinary, that they love their kids, push back on racism in their own ranks, and think they are the good guys. ## There is no difference Premo, 44, grew up in Albany reading a children's peace book that asked which drawn figure was Israeli and which was Palestinian. He was trying to spot the difference and realized there wasn't one. > And the point is there is no difference. They're just people. ## The dorm door In college in Boston, someone smeared urine and feces on his dorm door with a racial slur aimed at him. The administration was sympathetic, did little, and called it acting out. ## Trump as explanation After 2016, Premo was struck by how shocked everyone was. He made the film partly to explain why he wasn't. > To me he seemed to epitomize everything that America is but pretends it's not. ## He asked, not accused His pitch to the men was disarmingly simple: he wanted to know what they thought they were fighting for, and why. That question got him in the door. > I wanted to understand what they were fighting for, and why. ## Multiracial, and violent He expected an all-white group and braced for hostility. The Proud Boys turned out to be multiracial, and Ireland defended him when members made racist remarks, even as the group tore down BLM banners from Black churches in DC. ## Violence is the norm Premo includes the brawls and the antifa talk not to mark these men as outliers, but to place them inside a pattern he thinks liberal America refuses to see. > the American project is a project built by violence ## The radiator cover Quaglin, a 39-year-old New Jersey electrician, opens the film building a nursery radiator cover for his coming son. Later he calmly rigs his truck to splatter paint over the BLM mural on Fifth Avenue. ## Punched in Quaglin gets initiated into Ireland's chapter after a rally by reciting a pledge and taking punches from five Proud Boys. He went to the Capitol planning to carry knives and guns for what he called civil war. > CIVIL WAR ## He bought her scotch Quaglin slow-cooked pork for the filmmakers on their first visit. The night of January 6 he came back to the hotel with a bottle of Balvenie, remembering Falcone liked it. ## Who knows not to say it The writer, a Black woman, couldn't finish the film the first time. What unsettled her was the normalcy, and the thought that the gap between these men and polite liberal spaces is often about expression, not belief. > the difference is often not one of belief, but of expression ## Ireland disputes the frame Ireland, 51, met Premo in a bar after a Trump rally and calls the film a distortion for leaning so hard on Quaglin. > Chris is an extreme individual. I would say that Michael himself is more the standard. ## Cisneros crossed the line Cisneros, 49 and Latino, partnered with BLM activist Jacarri Kelley on the theory that both groups were failed by the same system. The national Telegram chat pushed back and he was forced out. > we're all sitting on the same plane and we're all crashing into the same damn mountain ## What everyone was after Cisneros lost his chapter, his dog, his relationship, and two years to a Texas prison. Quaglin was jailed, pardoned by Trump, divorced, and still hasn't held his son. Premo needed a year before he could watch his own January 6 footage. > people are looking for belonging, meaning, and purpose ## Key takeaway Political violence in America is not a fringe aberration, it lives inside ordinary domestic life, and the line between extreme and mainstream is often just who says the quiet part out loud.