Homegrown

Director: Michael Premo

With extreme views and a tendency to shout simplistic offensive opinions and wear really weird headgear it is easy to mock Make America Great Again (MAGA) supporters. Director Michael Premo’s documentary Homegrown suggests MAGA supporters are trying to promote a more nuanced view of their movement.

The documentary covers the run-up to the 2020 USA elections, which Joe Biden won but then-president Donald Trump refused to concede defeat, and the consequential storming of the State Capitol in Washington by Trump’s supporters.  Premo concentrates on three members of The Proud Boys, of whom Randy Ireland is the least communicative, like a politician he avoids personal issues and instead recites off-the-peg right-wing opinions. It is the part of the documentary where Premo’s preference for allowing the interviewees to speak without interference works least well. Randy Ireland is a military veteran and it would be interesting to have heard how he reconciles his background with support for a politician like Trump who dodged the draft.

Interviewee Thad Cisneros is determined to refute the perception of The Proud Boys as racists; referring to them as ‘Western Chauvinists’ who support western values such as capitalism, not white supremacists.  He is Latino and, in an effort to change the Proud Boys from within and to promote multicultural tolerance, forms an unlikely alliance with the organisers of Black Lives Matter (BLM).  Of course no good deed can go unpunished and ultimately Cisneros is expelled from The Proud Boys for working with BLM.

Cisneros also demonstrates his own limitations, which hinder his ability to promote change. When a conversation with his wife does not go the way he had hoped he simply walks away and he struggles to cope with the complexity of a discussion with a BLM activist particularly around the concept of ‘white privilege’. Cisneros admits to being a conspiracy theorist and claims to have been radicalised by watching Fahrenheit 9/11. Wonder if Michael Moore is flattered.

Much of the documentary focuses on interviewee Chris Quaglin who, like Cisneros, is quick to deny racism pointing out his wife is ethnically Chinese. Again, like Cisneros, Quaglin gives away his limitations and hypocrisy. Notwithstanding his pregnant wife being a medical professional and in the high risk category he chauvinistically disregards her concerns about him risking becoming infected with Covid by taking part in mass gatherings. Despite his claims not to be racist Quaglin vandalises a BLM mural and boasts of his actions.

Quaglin is a contradictory figure, when he is not spending his leisure time building a room for his first child he works on a storeroom for his extensive collection of guns. In one of the moments in the documentary where The Proud Boys slip close to self- parody Quaglin reveals the mantelpiece in his front room has a false compartment concealing a rifle for use in emergencies.  Quaglin displays a staggering lack of self-awareness claiming to be entitled to own guns as he is a law-abiding citizen conveniently ignoring that he has committed an illegal act of vandalism. Quaglin concludes by striking a self-pitying martyr attitude,  having served four years of a 12-year sentence for his part in storming the Capitol, been divorced and not seen his child since he went to gaol.

Director Michael Premo presents America as a deeply divided and violent society. There are distasteful scenes of The Proud Boys swaggering through streets verbally and physically confronting anyone who disagrees (or looks like they might disagree) with their opinions. The interviewees constantly reference the probability of a civil war breaking out at some point and, although Premo does not share their relish for the concept, his documentary provides evidence that supports the possibility.

In the aftermath of the Capitol riots the insurrectionists retreat to the arguments of schoolyard bullies- it was somebody else’s fault. They claim their movement was infiltrated by Antifa, a left-wing anti-fascist and anti-racist political group, who caused all the violence or that the Democrats were to blame for tolerating so many protests in the period leading up to the attack on the Capitol.

The footage Premo captures of the Capitol riot is extraordinary and terrifying; in particular a claustrophobic sequence of combatting rioters and guards squeezed into a narrow tunnel.

Homegrown demonstrates how the racism of The Proud Boys, and their actions as a whole, are shaped by a martyred sense of resentment and perception they are undervalued and unrewarded. Chris Quaglin claims not to have a racist bone in his body but then goes on to assert, without evidence, black people are awarded privileges which he is denied. The most disturbing feature of the documentary is the casual glorification of violence; the interviewees adopt quasi- military uniforms or superhero style costumes (Quaglin wears a garish stars-and-stripes outfit at the Capitol riot) and all are convinced change can be achieved only through force.

Homegrown is distasteful, infuriating and horribly compelling.

Homegrown is released on 6 January 2026.