Patriot Front Leader Among Those Arrested Near Idaho Pride
A tipster reported seeing people loading up into a U-Haul like a little army at a hotel parking lot in Coeur dAlene, Idaho.
06/12/2022 10:51 PM EDT
After the arrest of more than two dozen members of a white supremacist group near a northern Idaho pride event, including one identified as its founder, LGBTQ advocates said Sunday that polarization and a fraught political climate are putting their community increasingly at risk.
The 31 Patriot Front members were arrested with riot gear after a tipster reported seeing people loading up into a U-Haul like a little army at a hotel parking lot in Coeur dAlene, Idaho, police said.
Among those booked into jail on misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to riot was Thomas Ryan Rousseau of Grapevine, Texas, who has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as the 23-year-old who founded the group after the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. No attorney was immediately listed for him and phone numbers associated with him went unanswered Sunday.
Also among the arrestees was Mitchell F. Wagner, 24, of Florissant, Missouri, who was previously charged with defacing a mural of famous Black Americans on a college campus in St. Louis last year.
Patriot Front is a white supremacist neo-Nazi group whose members perceive Black Americans, Jews and LGBTQ people as enemies, said Jon Lewis, a George Washington University researcher who specializes in homegrown violent extremism.
Does The Patriot Front Ideology Parallel Other Movements
The manifesto appears to incorporate various ideologies, including anti-Semitism, nativism and white supremacy, according to Dr. Thomas Pegelow Kaplan, the director of Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies at Appalachian State University.
Rhetoric about replacement and white genocide caught Kaplan’s attention. Fears of enslavement and extermination mirrors Nazi propaganda wielded against “Judeo-Bolshevism.” These concerns stemmed from the belief that Germans would be enslaved in Siberia.
Assertions of cultural annihilation and a need to unite against people who were Jewish, members of the LGBTQ community, communists and more could be found in Hitler’s rhetoric, according to Kurt Mayer Chair of Holocaust Studies at Pacific Lutheran University Beth Griech-Polelle. She observed a similar disdain for politics in both the manifesto and Hitler’s speeches.
Blood and soil analogies used throughout the manifesto paralleled Nazi ideologies, as do fears of globalism , according to Kaplan. Griech-Polelle noted language regarding citizenship and blood that falls directly in line with Nazi ideologies. Citizenship largely revolved around having “German blood” while Jewish individuals typically lost out on the same privileges. Similarly, she pointed to Nazi fears of Jewish immorality and concerns about modernity.
Ultimately, Hughey argued Patriot Front and similar groups are aware of how they are portrayed, attempting to avoid being marked as supremacists.
“As if that’s somehow better.”
The White Nationalists Leader Says Boston March Was Perfectly Done
Laura Crimaldi Dugan Arnett Amanda Milkovits
Long before itsmembers marched masked, uniformed, and 100-or-so deep through downtown Boston early this month,Patriot Front had been quietly making its presence felt in New England.
Stickers bearing the right-winggroups slogans such asBetter Dead Than Red and One Nation Against Invasion had been popping up in towns across the region in recent years.At Framingham State University, such propaganda prompted offers of a $5,000 reward and eventual criminal charges against two of the groups local leaders on charges of vandalism and conspiracy.
Internal videos released this year by a nonprofit media groupshowed Patriot Front members in actionboxing in the woods in Sutton, spray-painting graffiti in Quincy, draping their banner from a Storrow Drive overpass in Boston, slapping on stickers in Providences Waterplace Park.
Despite New Englands reputation as a deeply blue region, those whove studied Patriot Front say that its local faction is among the groups most active nationally, along with Virginia and Texas, where several of its leaders are based. The group, rooted in a notorious far-right rally in Virginia in 2017, is finding a receptive audience for its white supremacist ideology among certain young men and has targeted colleges for recruitment.
Our nations families ripped apart, one member from Washington wrote last year in a leaked discussion. Bloodlines ended. Our people backed into a corner.
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Theme #: Whiteness Is Under Attack
White people typically “come out on top” when it comes to measures of wellness, Hughey said. However, it can become “a very seductive and attractive claim” that white people are in disproportionate duress, particularly in periods of economic turmoil.
Hughey said the group “gives a racial solution” to an issue that can be attributed to capitalism or wealth inequality.
Where do we see this in the manifesto?
- “In order to survive as a culture, a heritage, and a way of being, our nation must learn that its collective interests are fighting against its collective threats of replacement and enslavement.”
- “‘We can have peace and security only so long as we band together to preserve that most priceless possession, our inheritance of European blood, only so long as we guard ourselves against attack by foreign armies and dilution by foreign races.'”- Charles Lindbergh, who was quoted in the manifesto under the section labeled “The identity, individual and the collective.”
Who Are Patriot Fronts Members
Like Rousseau, who is just 24 years old, Patriot Fronts members are mainly young. The image-conscious group focuses much of its activity online, though it also distributes banners, flyers, and posters. Branding is key, with red, white, and blue featuring consistently in PFs propaganda. Members are extremely prolific Patriot Front was responsible for 80% of propaganda incidents across the U.S. in 2020.
On-the-ground action is tightly choreographed for maximum publicity and impact. Flash demonstrations, which minimize individual exposure and convert easily into shareable online content, are extremely popular and often performed on patriotic holidays, or at historic sites.
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What Is Patriot Front The White Nationalist Group That Organized Dc Khaki
Images of khaki-clad men marching with American flags in Washington, D.C., over the weekend sparked outrage and raised questions over the white supremacist group believed to be behind the demonstration.
Patriot Front, a fascist and racist group founded in 2017, reportedly orchestrated the march on the National Mall as another in a string of high-profile demonstrations.
The groups leader, Thomas Rousseau, spoke during the march, which attracted more than 100 people, and he said the demonstration was intended to show our strength, the Daily Beastreported.
Pictures showed participants wearing white face masks and sunglasses, obscuring their identities, and sporting navy blue polo shirts and khakis. Social media users reported the group chanted reclaim America during the march, and pictures show some of the demonstrators carrying banners emblazoned with the phrase.
The Patriot Front did not respond to a request for confirmation that it organized the event.
The group emerged from another white supremacist organization, Vanguard America, in the aftermath of the nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group that tracks extremism. Counterprotester Heather Heyer was killed by a supporter of Vanguard America during the chaos, and Rousseau rehabilitated the image of that group by spinning off its platform into a different organization, according to the SPLC.
Top 10 What Is The Patriot Front Group Best And Newest
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Content Summary
- Highest rating: 5
- Summary: Patriot Front is a white supremacist group whose members maintain that their ancestors conquered America and bequeathed it to them, and no one else.
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- Highest rating: 4
- Summary: The Patriot Front is a white supremacist group in the United States that uses a fasces and a circle of 13 stars as its logo, often placed on top of the
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- Highest rating: 4
- Summary: Patriot Front is an American white nationalist and neo-fascist hate group. Part of the broader alt-right movement, the group split off from the neo-Nazi
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How Is Patriot Front Different From Other White Nationalist Or White Supremacist Groups
Members of Patriot Front are comparatively young, Strzok said.
A central tactic to Patriot Front is flash demonstrations privately planned and unannounced events that allow groups to promote their beliefs while limiting the risk of individual exposure, negative media coverage, arrests and public backlash, the ADL said.
Theme #: Whiteness Is American
The Patriot Front believes being an American has very little to do with citizenship.
The implication that one’s American blood is inherited echoes “birtherism” claims against former President Barack Obama, Hughey said. Though the 44th president was born in the United States, he was viewed as “quintessentially un-American… And that was because of his blackness.”
Where do we see this in the manifesto?
- “Those of foreign birth may occupy civil status within the lands occupied by the state, and they may even be dutiful citizens, yet they may not be American. Membership within the American nation is inherited through blood, not ink. Even those born in America may yet be foreign.”
- “Nationhood cannot be bestowed upon those who are not of the founding stock of our people, and those who do not share the common spirit that permeates our greater civilization, and the European diaspora.”
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In The Aggregate They Are Disturbing
It was the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend 2019 when 20 or so masked members of Patriot Front made their way onto a corner of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. They set off flares and smoke devices, delivered a short speech using a megaphone and fled. The police report said it lasted all of three minutes.
Blakely Lord, a high school English teacher, managed to capture the incident on video. In brief, she called the episode profoundly disturbing.
I chose to film because you feel helpless, Lord said. Im a dumpy middle-aged English teacher. Im not going to get out my sword and face them down.
She added, I do think its a narrative people need to be thinking about: these little incidents may seem unimportant, but in the aggregate they are disturbing.
Such disturbances masked flash mobs, defacing property, distributing propaganda are the day-to-day work of Patriot Front. Screaming outside an anarchist book fair in Texas. Plastering stickers across multiple store fronts on a busy block in Denver. Parading with flares at night in apublic park in Boston. Posting an America First sticker at a gay pride center in Vermont. All in the last year.
Jews have been a part of Columbus almost since the founding of our city, which is almost 200 years ago, Rabbi Beth Schwartz added. We will remain vigilant as a congregation, vigilant as a Jewish community. We dont hide our heads in fear.
People on the campus get intimidated, Simi said.
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Map Of Hate Group Flyering In The Us
The data on this map shows flyers and banners that have been displayed by far right hate groups in the United States. The group that has spread the most hateful propaganda, Patriot Front, posted nearly 5,000 racist flyers in 2021. However, according to leaked archives of Patriot Front private chats obtained in January 2022 by the journalist collective Unicorn Riot, the increase in racist flyering is part of a strategy used by Patriot Front to make the group appear larger than it actually is.
Members of Patriot Front are required to post a certain number of racist flyers per month. Leaders of Patriot Front also demand that members travel up to 100 miles from their homes to post that propaganda. Leaked private chats have revealed that members of Patriot Front are required to purchase stickers, flyer templates and other promotional materials at a premium from the groups leaders, which has led some members to argue they are paying for leaderships rent.
The information on this map was compiled using a combination of social media platforms, news articles and tips submitted to the SPLC. If you would like to submit information about flyers, or any other hate incidents, please use this form.
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Dakota Access Pipeline Protests
During the protests against theDakota Access Pipeline, Unicorn Riot was one of the first media groups to be present when Standing Rock Sioux tribe members set up the Sacred Stone Camp on April 1, 2016. The media collective has maintained a near continuous presence at the pipeline protests. Video from Unicorn Riot showing a crowd of protesters being sprayed with water cannons during sub-zero temperatures was used to contradict police reports that the cannons were only being used to put out fires. Four Unicorn Riot reporters were arrested in September and October 2016. Chris Schiano and Georgiades were arrested on September 13 as they were filming protesters who had locked themselves to equipment being used to construct the pipeline. Reporter Lorenzo Serna was arrested in both North Dakota and Iowa, and reporter Jenn Schreiter was arrested in October while reporting on a lockdown at a DAPL construction site in Iowa.
Two Utahns Arrested With The White Nationalist Group Appeared In Leaked Patriot Front Videos Training Near Sand Hollow Reservoir
A photo obtained by the news website Unicorn Riot shows members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front conducting training in Southern Utah in November 2021.
Over the weekend, six Utahns were among the 31 members of the right-wing extremist group Patriot Front arrested in Idaho. Authorities allege they planned to spark a riot at a local Pride event in Coeur DAlene, Idaho. The neo-Nazi organization has been active in Utah since at least 2019. Members conducted a training camp in southern Utah late last year.
Patriot Front is a white nationalist neo-Nazi group that was formed in 2017. The organization split off from the alt-right organization Vanguard America after a member of that group plowed a car into a crowd killing Heather Heyer, a counterprotester at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Patriot Fronts leader was among those arrested in Idaho on Sunday.
The group is known for conducting flash demonstrations, where members march through an area for 15-20 minutes and make a quick exit, with the whole thing filmed for propaganda purposes. Patriot Front held a march near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., in December and demonstrated at the March for Life in January.
In January, the nonprofit news organization Unicorn Riot published a massive leak of data from Patriot Fronts servers. The leak included more than 400 gigabytes of data from Patriot Fronts website.
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Theme #: Traditionalism Versus Modernism
Some Americans long for the days of “‘Leave it to Beaver,” white picket fences and suburbia, Hughey said.
In reality, Hughey said, not many could afford this lifestyle during this time period, which coincided with Jim Crow laws. Rhetoric to return to a great America echoed in the Trump, Clinton and Reagan administrations are fueled by this nostalgia.
Where do we see this in the manifesto? Look for the following quotes:
- “To form a new and just State, we must first instill a reformed national spirit within our people a people free from the vices of the modern world and a people with a fervor to see themselves free.”
- “Ethical standards no longer exist due to the steady erosion of the history of the nation. The State has situated itself on an ever growing pile of parasitic rules and regulations. Bloated to the point of breaking by bureaucracy, each action taken to solve any problem is done solely as a means to delay the inevitable. Nothing about the current system is sustainable.”
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The presence and visibility of white nationalism are rising in the U.S., and the Patriot Front is one of the groups responsible.
Around 100 members of the group a rebrand of neo-Nazi group Vanguard America known for its role in the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 descended on Boston on July 2. They marched along Bostons Freedom Trail holding a banner that read Reclaim America and have been accused of attacking Black artist and activist Charles Murrell.
In June, 31 members of the Patriot Front were arrested in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on conspiracy to riot charges. Members arrived packed into a U-Haul truck with plans to disrupt a Pride event at a local park.
The group has chapters in 40 states. Patriot Front and other neo-Nazi groups have been tied to ideas of accelerationism, a theory that calls for violence to spur societal unrest.
The threat is large, says Pete Simi, a professor at Chapman University who testified in a trial that led to a $26 million verdict against organizers of the rally in Charlottesville. It’s been large for a long time. And the near future poses a lot of risk.
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Who Is Patriot Fronts Leader
Rousseau, who grew up in suburban Dallas, founded Patriot Front when he was a teenager, according to the SPLC.
While working for his high school newspaper, Rousseau frequently wrote opinion columns in support of conservative topics including the controversial campus carry law in Texas and North Carolinas since gutted bathroom bill. He was also an ardent supporter of Donald Trump during the 2016 election, the SPLC said.
Under Rousseaus direct leadership, Patriot Fronts Texas chapter is its most active relying mostly on flyering, banner drops and occasionally demonstrations. When the organization ventures off the internet, its activities are primarily conducted in the dead of night, anonymously.
After the arrests in Idaho on Saturday, CNN reached out to the Patriot Front and people believed to be associated with Rousseau but did not immediately hear back.
