Donald Trump’s rapid-fire pardons of all January 6 insurrectionists may have opened the floodgates for increased membership in white supremacist organizations. After all, why worry about engaging in violent activities, if you have a president that will readily pardon you.
In late February, a little over a month after Donald Trump’s inauguration, The Patriot Front, marched in downtown Des Moines, Iowa. A post on The Patriot Front’s website pointed out that the demonstration was in protest of ‘the mass migration of unassimilable foreigners who have invaded America.’ KCCI reported. “The group marched around the East Village and on Statehouse grounds chanting and waving flags. They wore masks or face coverings. A video on the Patriot Front’s website says they protect their identity to ‘protect the lives of those speaking out against tyranny. The FBI calls the group ‘far-right’ and ‘extremist,’ and has records referring to them as ‘white supremacist’ and ‘neo-nazis.’”
Around the same time, Patriot Front members rallied near the Massachusetts State House, Boston.com reported. “In an image shared with Boston.com, members of the group held a banner that read ‘Reclaim America,’ which is one Patriot Front’s slogans, according to the Anti-Defamation League.”
Patriot Front activists have been spotted in Tallahassee, Florida’s capital city. According to the Tallahassee Democrat, “The 20-or-so men were dressed in khakis and wearing white balaclavas covering their faces while toting their hate group’s flag and the Confederate flag.”
The Patriot Front has been active across the country, holding demonstrations in West Virginia, New York, and Nashville, Tennessee. News Channel5 Nashville recently reported that Patriot Front is “the largest hate group in America, wrapping themselves in the red-white-and-blue of the flag, marching into the middle of American cities and claiming to be patriots.”
According to NewsChannel5, Patriot Front is “building a compound in Tennessee where they train men for battles that sometimes play out on the streets of America.”
“These are hardened white supremacists who want to see a white ethno-state created somewhere in the United States,” said Jeff Tischauser, the senior researcher who tracks Patriot Front and other hate groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The Patriot Front, which grew out of Vanguard America, was created after 2017’s “Unite the Right” Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which one woman was killed after a white supremacist plowed his car into a group of counter-protesters.
“Patriot Front espouses racism, antisemitism and intolerance under the guise of preserving the ethnic and cultural origins of their European ancestors,” Anti-Defamation League Vice President Oren Segal told USA TODAY in 2022. “They essentially believe that this is their country and they need to fight for the perception of what it was.”
Morgan Moon, a researcher for the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, told the Alabama Political Reporter that Patriot Front was responsible for a majority of the White supremacist propaganda spread across the country.
While it is unclear how many members actually belong to The Patriot Front, “They’re extremely active,” Moon said. “No other white supremacist group is able to amass 200 white supremacists to finance travel and fly to places like Washington D.C. It’s significant. It shows an embeddedness of members and a hardened ideology. They’re one of the groups operating today I’m most concerned about due to their ability to carry out large propaganda demonstrations.”
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