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The protests last spring featured some signs with swastikas, Confederate flags and language that advocated violence against Ms. Whitmer, including one man who carried a doll with brown hair hanging from a noose. Many in the crowd carried semiautomatic weapons, leading some Democrats in the Legislature to call for a ban on guns in the Capitol.

Republicans in the Legislature sued Ms. Whitmer in May over the executive orders and opponents of her lockdown orders filed petitions with more than 500,000 signatures with the secretary of state last week to repeal the law that gives governors authority to declare emergencies during times of a public health crisis. The Michigan Supreme Court ruled last week that her use of the 1945 law was unconstitutional.

Many groups in the “patriot” movement have adopted the name militia, even if they do not fit the definition. Although the 2nd Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms and mentions a “well-regulated militia,” all 50 states have some manner of prohibition against private paramilitary groups.

Michigan has a long history of anti-government activity. A group known as the Michigan Militia dates back to the early 1990s, when Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, later convicted of carrying out the Oklahoma City bombing attack in 1995 that killed 168 people, attended a few of its early meetings. It resurfaced again around 2008 and 2009, with the election of Barack Obama as president.

More recently, armed groups of men began appearing at some demonstrations, most notably the 2017 march by white nationalists in Charlottesville, Va.

The upheavals in 2020 provided new impetus for anti-government groups to move from the online world onto the streets. During protests against the virus lockdowns, they accused the government of “overreach,” suggesting that business closings and mask mandates were forms of tyranny. That initial scattered presence mushroomed with the nationwide protests over social justice after George Floyd died at the hands of police in May. When some protests degenerated into arson and looting, groups of men appeared on the streets, saying that they were there to protect homes and businesses that law enforcement could not.

But some groups fervently opposed to the government in general and especially law enforcement claimed that they mobilized to protect protesters from officers.