patriot front

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merri ok

someone said proud boys? looking for new leader issue = transgender

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A New Book Explores Antifa’s Spy Network | HuffPost Latest News

inside The Antifa Spy Network

Donald Trump’s fascism builds on generations of racial supremacy. A new book goes inside the secretive antifa groups fighting for freedom.

By Matt Shuham

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|Updated Jan 30, 2026

Anti-fascists in 2018 march near the site of a makeshift memorial where Heather Heyer was killed at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the year before.

Win McNamee via Getty Images

At a diner next to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, five men took turns loudly saying a racial slur to prove they are bona fide members of Patriot Front, a white nationalist organization.

Sometime later, one of them returned, alone, with a $300 tip and a message for their server, a woman of color: “Those guys aren’t my friends.”

The man, “Vincent,” was one of several “antifa” spies around the country who had gone undercover in fascist groups. Over several months, he worked out, hiked and camped with a group of committed white nationalists. He joined them as they dropped propaganda banners and vandalized public artwork depicting people of color.

Months later, in the middle of a nationwide Patriot Front video call, Vincent started playing a recording of “Bella Ciao,” the Italian anti-fascist anthem. “You guys really forgot to remove the antifa spy’s access?” he taunted them.

While embedded with Patriot Front, Vincent expropriated reams of previously unknown membership data and logistical information that allowed other anti-fascists, in anonymous collectives around the country, to “dox,” or publicly identify, the group’s members. These collectives vandalized extremists’ vehicles, alerted their neighbors and employers — and, step by step, worked to shrink their influence in American public life. Similar infiltrations have hit several neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups around the country over the years.

For years, the journalist — and former longtime HuffPost reporter — Christopher Mathias chronicled these efforts, cultivating sources from antifa groups across the country, verifying the information they gathered, and publicly outing cops, teachers and members of the military who led secret double lives as neo-Nazis and white power activists. (Mathias and I reported several stories together for HuffPost, including about Donald Trump’s fascism.)

Mathias’ new book, “To Catch a Fascist: The Fight to Expose the Radical Right,” takes readers behind the scenes of the fight to push back against the rising tide of fascism since Trump entered the political sphere over a decade ago.

Some may think the antifa movement is just about punching Nazis in the street, but as Mathias’ book explores, it’s about a lot more than that. It builds on generations of activists fighting for civil rights and pushing back against racial domination in the U.S. “To Catch A Fascist” takes a look back at this long history through today, as Trump’s second term delivers armed, masked federal agents to communities nationwide, stopping people at random because of their skin color and accents.

“Throughout history, when fascists wear masks, they do so in hopes of creating a world in which they won’t need masks at all,” Mathias told me this week. “I think it is an alarming and scary prospect to consider a world in which [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents feel comfortable not wearing masks.”

More observers than ever seem to be saying, “Yes, it’s fascism.” But Mathias and plenty of others have been saying that for a while. He spoke to HuffPost about antifa’s “fundamentally hopeful … struggle against impossible odds,” modern fascism, and what connects Minneapolis and Charlottesville, Virginia.

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How do you think about the interplay between street-level fascist thugs committing violence and what it means for the most powerful government in history to be a fascist government?

Reporting and researching this book made me completely rethink what fascism is and the way we talk about it. So much punditry over the last 10 years, during the Trump era, has revolved around this question: “Is it fascism? Could it happen here? Is it happening here?” And there was always this impulse to suggest that, “Once we reach a certain point, it’s fascism.” Once it’s analogous to Mussolini’s Italy or Hitler’s Germany, then we can call it fascism.

What’s really interesting from the militant anti-fascist perspective is that there’s not a certain threshold we cross before things become fascist. Throughout American history, fascism has been a fact of life for many people.

There is a mythology we tell ourselves as Americans that we defeated fascism in World War II. And obviously, yes, the U.S. Army — my grandfather was part of that — defeated the Nazis. But the U.S. Army was also a segregated army. It was a colonial army. And when Black soldiers fighting in segregated units returned to the United States, they returned to Jim Crow and, later, mass incarceration. If you were, for example, a Black man swept up in mass incarceration, unjustly incarcerated for years and years of your life, what is the material difference between that experience and the experience of living in a fascist state the way we talk about it, in Europe? I would argue that it’s kind of negligible — that is a fascist experience.

So this is basically my way of saying, I’m glad people are calling what’s happening now fascist. And I think what is happening now is an intensification of these underlying social arrangements, these underlying dynamics of domination, and making those dynamics more and more explicit.

One of the foremost scholars of fascism, Robert Paxton, initially decided not to call Trump a fascist when he came to power in 2016. After Jan. 6, 2021, he revised that assessment and declared Trump a fascist. Obviously we’re at a point now where — there are just so many elements that point to calling Trump a fascist. I mean, he’s threatening to invade Greenland, and he has a secret police force raiding people’s homes [without warrants]. So it’s pretty blatant by this point.

A lot of your book is a corrective of the use of the term “antifa” and particularly how it’s become an all-purpose bogeyman for Trump and the right. To them, “antifa” is an “outside agitator,” but also they’re destroying their own communities. They’re “super soldiers,” but they’re also feminine, blue-haired transgender socialists. Talk about that label “antifa” and how it became so useful for propaganda on the right. Is it to create a pretext to confront racial justice activists while armed?

Totally. What’s really important context is that no one in America knew what the fuck antifa was before 2017.

And all the sudden, with Trump’s inauguration, you have Richard Spencer in Washington, D.C. And then, as the far right is emboldened and mobilized across the country — in places like Berkeley and Gainesville and Lansing and Charlottesville, where Nazis felt like they could go on the street and make their presence known — all of a sudden there are these leftists, radical leftists, sometimes wearing all black, punching these Nazis. And these videos obviously go viral, and there’s a thousand explainers in the media about who these Nazi punchers are, and they are antifa.

[After the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville,] Merriam-Webster adds “antifa” to its dictionary, Oxford Dictionary short-lists “antifa” for its “word of the year.” That’s how, suddenly, the word became part of our lexicon, through this militancy. So most of the public associates antifa with just Nazi-punching. But in reality, that tactic — physical confrontation — represents a really tiny percentage of the work antifa does.

So in 2017, suddenly everyone knows who antifa is. And something really interesting happens after Charlottesville — when the right and MAGA finds itself on the defensive [because] Trump has called them “very fine people,” and it’s become obvious that this MAGA coalition includes Nazis, that these Nazis are very violent, and that they just killed someone in Charlottesville.

There is a pseudonymous pro-Trump troll called Microchip who starts a viral petition to the White House to designate antifa a domestic terror group. And Microchip gives this fascinating interview to Politico that’s incredibly frank and upfront about why he’s doing this. He knows that the White House can’t designate antifa a terror group because there’s no statute for that. That’s not the point. The point, as he puts it, is to set up antifa as a punching bag, and to distract and deflect from the right’s very real violence, and create this false equivalency where, “Yeah, we have our extremists, but look, the left has their extremists too!” Which is an absurd equivalence, of course. The far right has killed hundreds by this point over the previous couple decades, and antifa, at this point, hasn’t killed anyone.

And what happens throughout 2017, 2018, 2019 is, you have these far-right and MAGA influencers — guys like Jack Posobiec, Mike Cernovich, Andy Ngo and a lot of other people — who create conspiracy theories about antifa.

After nearly every mass shooting in America — even before America knew who the shooter was or what their motives were — they would rush to fill that information vacuum with baseless claims that the shooter was antifa. Even if later it proved that the shooter was actually a white supremacist, by that point, the waters have been muddied and people are confused.

Antifa gets blamed for natural disasters, for wildfires. There’s a rumor that antifa “super soldiers” are going to behead white parents. It’s absurd, and again, this is all to distract and deflect from the right’s escalating violence in America.

“To Catch a Fascist: The Fight to Expose the Radical Right,” by former HuffPost reporter Christopher Mathias, will be released next week.

Atria Books

[Eventually,] there’s a bit of a lull in the way the antifa bogeyman is used, but then in 2020 it’s repackaged as a response to the George Floyd uprisings. MAGA, Trump — they blame antifa for fomenting these mass, historic uprisings, which, again, is absurd. Yes, its practitioners did take part in the uprisings, but their numbers are so small that they would never have the power or organizing capacity to foment uprisings like that.

Moreover, those uprisings, as we know, were created and led by the communities that they were in, and they were Black-led uprisings. And that’s why MAGA and Trump blamed antifa for these uprisings in a big way — to distract from the very real grievance at the heart of the protest, which was for cops to stop murdering Black people.

It was also a tactic to sow division on the left — entangling the left in debates about tactics and so forth. The way they wield that label, they eventually start calling anyone they want antifa. And that’s just a way of designating someone as outside the realm of political respectability. When you do that, you are creating a pretext for that person to be targeted, either by state prosecution or by vigilante violence, which we saw a lot of in 2020.

Fast forward to 2025, Trump claims to designate antifa a domestic terror group — which, again, is an effort to label this burgeoning uprising against his agenda as outside the realm of political respectability and worth repressing.

Talk about the difference between “antifa” as a term and anti-fascist as an ideology or description.

When I say “antifa,” there is an important distinction to make. Antifa, yes, is just the shortening of the word “anti-fascist.” A lot of liberals and centrists will point to that fact as a way of saying, “Well, aren’t we all antifa?” It’s kind of a way of saying, “Antifa isn’t a real thing,” or that it doesn’t exist. But that’s not true. Antifa, as a word, refers to a very specific kind of militant radical tradition of combating the far right “by any means necessary.”

And when I talk about antifa, these are activists who practice a political tradition that believes in a few basic tenets: First, that, yes, sometimes fascists need to be confronted in the streets, sometimes violently. Fascists should be given no platform to speak or organize. That means revoking permits for them to speak in cities or parks, or de-platforming them from social media.

Another important tenet is that the state and law enforcement cannot be trusted in this fight. And that essentially means they view the government and law enforcement as inherently white institutions that will collaborate with and support fascists.

Antifa didn’t emerge out of nowhere. It emerged from preexisting networks of anarchists, socialists and communists — largely from a tradition born in the ’80s and ’90s to kick Nazis out of the punk scene, and the formations of groups like Anti-Racist Action and Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice, and they basically developed those tenets we talked about, those points of unity when combating the far right.

Q {You mentioned that there’s a tendency to say, “Well, I’m anti-fascist, and my grandfather was anti-fascist in World War II.” But you get into the history of anti-fascists, of doxing fascists, in the book, and the history traces back well before either of those words existed — before doxing existed, before the word fascist existed. You go back to investigative journalist Ida B. Wells. You go back to Walter White, who investigated lynchings in the early 20th century for the NAACP. You go back to Frank Schwab — the mayor of Buffalo who revealed the identities of 18,500 people who were members of the KKK in the area, posting their names at the city’s police headquarters — and the undercover detectives who infiltrated the Klan. Why was it so important to you to get into that history of very specialized resistance to racial domination?}:

So Langston Hughes made this point. “Negroes in America do not have to be told what fascism is in action. We know. Its theories of Nordic supremacy and economic suppression have long been realities to us,” [Hughes said in 1937, at the Second International Writers Congress in Paris.]

What I find frustrating about the discourse about fascism in America, again, is this mythology we tell ourselves that we’re the good guys who defeated the fascism. Robert Paxton, the scholar of fascism I mentioned, has described the Klan as the proto-fascist organization, right? Nazi Germany looked to Jim Crow laws in America for inspiration for its own race laws in Germany. America, in many ways, was fascist before the word fascist existed.

“Throughout American history, fascism has been a fact of life for many people. ... America, in many ways, was fascist before the word fascist existed.”

• Christopher Mathias

What I found so compelling about efforts to unmask the First and Second Klans was, first, just how insanely brave that work was — people really putting their bodies on the line.

Edward Obertean, an undercover police officer who infiltrated the Klan in Buffalo, was murdered afterwards by a Klan member.

The history of white supremacy in America is marked by periods where its most ardent practitioners wore masks, and periods when they didn’t need to.

The First Klan is born to destroy Reconstruction. There’s an amazing effort to unmask them, and it’s successful in a lot of ways in destroying the Klan. But part of the reason that Klan dissolves is also because they were successful. They could trade the anonymity of the hood for the anonymity of the lynch mob.

The Second Klan, same kind of thing — an amazing effort to unmask them that goes a long way in destroying the Second Klan. But again, they were also dissolved, in a way, because they were successful. The 1924 immigration law is passed, the Johnson-Reed Act — and Johnson, the congressman, by the way, was in the Klan — and created these immigration quotas, which, incidentally, are the quotas that restrict immigration to Northern Europe, and is kind of what the modern far-right, including Stephen Miller, wants to go back to.

For me, it was really important to tell those stories, because I actually find them really inspiring. The people doing this work didn’t wait on anyone to save them. They understood that we have to save ourselves, and they didn’t always get to see the fruit of their work. The work they did would contribute to later victories.

Q {You talk a lot about antifa’s work as modern-day journalists. In my opinion, the anonymous collectives that comprise your description of antifa are some of the most skilled journalists working in the country today. That might be a surprise to readers, but to folks who have covered the “extremism” beat, they know. I mean, how many of your own stories that were published in HuffPost stemmed from that sort of work? Reading your book, it was striking to me how much projects like “Panic! In the Discord” or “Ignite The Right” sound like “The Panama Papers” — that is, collectives of journalists working together on a large project. Talk about the skill of these folks as journalists, and whether you think they get their due.}:

No, I don’t think they get their due. There is still this presiding snobbery in journalism that says you have to write for this outlet or that outlet to be considered a journalist. There’s also what I would consider an antiquated notion of objectivity around journalism that says that people doing the type of research that antifa does couldn’t possibly be journalists. I push back against that in the book and am upfront in the intro about the fact I, myself, subscribe to militant anti-fascism.

I do not think that objectivity exists or that there is a “view from nowhere” to report on masked secret police abducting my neighbors. And that is the perspective that antifa also takes. And if we are to consider journalism, first and foremost, to be in the public interest and for the public good, then I think journalism should be explicitly anti-fascist. The investigations that antifa did over the last 10 years were absolutely remarkable sometimes. I talked to one anti-fascist who read through 60,000 tweets to collect enough little morsels and clues and bread crumbs to unravel a Nazi’s identity.

You compared the leaks of Nazi chat messages to The Panama Papers, which is a really apt description. It goes grossly underappreciated that Unicorn Riot, the independent news outlet, created an absolutely remarkable database for leaked white supremacist chat messages — millions and millions of these messages that were open-source material that anti-fascist researchers across the country could mine and look through to figure out who among their neighbors is a Nazi. And that’s a remarkable story and a remarkable feat of journalism.

Talk about the source relationships that you have with anti-fascists. I take it you’ve been talking to some of these folks, unnamed sources of yours, for a decade, or at least many years. How did those source relationships develop over the years, and how have they changed you as a reporter?

It took a long time to gain the trust of anti-fascist sources. They are, understandably, wary of the press. And also, I take their trust in me very seriously, because there are fascists out there that want to harm them. So it’s important for me to protect their identities. And, of course, the state also wants to target antifa, so it adds an extra level [of concern].

But yes, I’ve been talking to so many people for upwards of a decade now. For the book, I ended up talking to about 60. What is most striking for me is that almost everyone involved in this work started doing it after personal brushes with fascists in their communities.

One anti-fascist I talked to a lot, her friend lost someone in the El Paso Walmart massacre, which inspired her to start doing this work.

One of the things that prompted me to do this book was seeing them do that work — neither for glory or acclaim — and also seeing diminishing returns when they were doing the doxes; for a while there, they were getting Nazis fired from their jobs and there was real accountability. But then, something started to shift, and occasionally there were towns where they didn’t care that they had a Nazi as a neighbor. And so I started to talk to anti-fascists about what that meant for American politics in general.

You spoke about inciting incidents for people to get involved in this work. You were at “Unite The Right” in Charlottesville in 2017. You sawDeAndre Harris being beaten. Can you talk about that as an inciting incident for a lot of journalists of the far right and the effect it had on you?

Anyone who was in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, 2017, had their lives irrevocably changed afterward. For me, it was the beginning of this long kind of reporting journey into this new, insurgent fascist movement — and then, eventually, into the anti-fascist opposition. But more generally — on a visceral, emotional level — when you see, up close, that kind of vile racism and bigotry so comfortable with itself in public, you start to realize how urgent the need is to fight back against it.

Especially in reporting this, I had a front-row seat to seeing how what we considered fringe in our politics actually wasn’t that fringe at all, and that the Republican Party was becoming the party of the Nazis that marched in Charlottesville. So, it’s just a radicalizing process. There’s no way around it.

What would you say to folks in Minneapolis today, who, I think you would argue, are looking at a different form of fascist violence, a traumatic sort of street violence, except this time it’s performed by the federal government?

I cannot stop thinking about the similarities between the uprising against ICE in Minneapolis and the uprising against all the fascists that were taking to the streets in 2017 through 2020. They’re embracing the same organic, grassroots tactics that are not dependent on law enforcement or the government, which, in Minneapolis, has kind of abandoned them. They have to do this on their own.

And they’re doing all the stuff that anti-fascists were doing to Nazis a few years ago — which was following them, monitoring them, identifying them, doxing them, pressuring businesses and hotels not to host them. They’re doing noise demonstrations outside of hotels. They are creating a social cost for being in ICE, for being part of the secret police, for being part of la migra, which is really heartening and really remarkable and really brave, and the similarities are really striking.

You talked to an ex-member of Patriot Front in the last chapter of this book, and he essentially laid out the argumentfordoxing. He explained that when people think of Patriot Front, “the first thing they think is, ‘If I join Patriot Front, I will be doxed.’” On the other hand, he noted, once unmasked, fascists sometimes dive further into those communities as a support network.

There is also the question of, what happens when the social stigma around white supremacy is gone? Given the strength of fascism in America today, given its position inside the U.S. government, if antifa 10 years ago saw what was going to happen, do you think there would have been a change in tactic? How are these tactics changing now?

There’s this debate over whether antifa was successful. Because, obviously, they destroyed all these fascist groups. But of course, now, we have a much broader mass fascist movement, MAGA. It’s an interesting question, and I don’t have a clear answer.

But what antifa does at the local level is an insurgent form of community self-defense, and it was an urgent, pressing political tactic — or style of politics — that prevented Nazis from being comfortable in specific places, the streets. And in that way, it was really successful.

But you also have to remember, antifa is an incredibly small subculture — a small phenomenon or movement. It would never have had the members to stop what is happening now. That said, like I was saying with Minneapolis, we are seeing an adaptation of militant anti-fascist tactics on a bigger scale.

I personally think that those kinds of tactics, if replicated on a big enough basis, could be really effective. And I’ll say that there’s a reason MAGA — Kristi Noem, Trump — are so scared of efforts to dox ICE agents. And that’s in part because MAGA saw what doxing did to the alt-right. And doxing, again, is dependent on leveraging a societal taboo against explicit white supremacy. And I think doxing, identifying ICE agents, for example, is an important part of creating and maintaining a taboo against being in ICE.

I think it will be important now to let people in ICE know that they are the Nazis in this movie, and that in a generation, they will be depicted as villains in the movies their kids watch. We are already seeing public opinion turning against ICE. A [YouGov poll taken the day immigration agents fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis showed 19% of Republicans and 46% of American adults overall indicating support for abolishing ICE.] That is remarkable.

I quote an anti-fascist in the book saying that anti-fascism is fundamentally hopeful, that it’s a struggle against impossible odds. And I find that example of anti-fascists over the last few years, actually, very inspiring for this fascist moment that we’re in right now.

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• Angry White Men: Elijah Schaffer Extols The Accomplishments Of White People And Defends Patriot Front.

On the Jan. 25, 2024 episode of his show, Slightly Offensive, far-right, racist Internet personality Elijah Schaffer commemorated Australia Day by “celebrat[ing] the accomplishments of white people.” Schaffer and his guests, Jon Miller and Anna Perez, praised white people for creating civilized countries, and suggested that Black and indigenous people are incapable of doing so.

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Patriot Front members buried over lawsuit complaint they lost their jobs after their identities were exposed

Tom Boggioniand Raw StoryAugust 13, 2023

The editors of the Idaho Statesman have very little sympathy for several members of the Patriot Front who are suing because someone infiltrated their ranks and then exposed their names, leading them to lose their jobs and be shunned by their families.

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As the editors wrote, the five who are suing are experiencing the consequences of their actions that they know are so reprehensible that they choose to wear masks when they appear in public.

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At the center of the lawsuit filed against Alan Capito, 37, also known as Vyacheslav Arkhangelskiy, is a claim that "Plaintiffs, by this complaint, seek redress for the particular and severe harms Defendant Capito has inflicted on them. At a deeper level, this complaint seeks to vindicate the rule of law and basic principles of free expression for persons who espouse unpopular opinions."

According to the editors, the complainants should have the courage of their convictions and not hide their identities.

READ MORE: Busted: Florida Republican 'wildly plagiarized' and 'entirely made up' portions of his honors thesis

Getting right to the point, the editors began, "What they’re really upset about is suffering the consequences of their abhorrent views — views that they feel so strongly about, they don’t want anyone to know."

Pointing out that Capito took pictures and recorded conversations which he later made public, the editors took note of what followed for the exposed Patriot Front members.

"The five plaintiffs say they were fired from their jobs, have been threatened at their homes and have had their tires slashed, among other things, according to the lawsuit. While those latter two things certainly go way across the line, the first is a result of actions having consequences," they wrote.

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"It’s a warped view of freedom of expression when Patriot Front members attempt to completely conceal their ownership of said expression," the editors wrote before adding, "Hiding behind anonymity has become an all-too-common feature of white nationalist and extremist trolls who lurk in the shadows of social media, hiding behind bogus accounts and fake avatars, spewing hate, sowing division, and threatening and intimidating others. It’s that anonymity that allows their putrescent views to grow and spread like a flesh-eating bacteria — except in this case, it’s more like a brain-eating disease."

"The fact the Patriot Front members’ main complaint is that they’ve suffered for being associated with these views is telling. The fact that employers — even their own relatives, in the case of Brown — want nothing to do with them tells you all you need to know," the editorial continued before concluding, "If Patriot Front members believe that they are right and just, why not attach their names to their beliefs and putrid goals? Otherwise, they’re just behaving in a cowardly fashion, hiding behind ridiculous masks, fake social media accounts and in the darkness of the back of a U-Haul van."

You can read more here.

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https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/jun/18/matt-sheas-church-denounces-patriot-front-during-a/

A pastor from the far-right church led by former state Rep. Matt Shea denounced the recent actions of the hate group Patriot Front during an anti-abortion worship service at the clock tower in Riverfront Park on Saturday. About 100 people gathered for the event on the cold morning.

On Fire Ministries Pastor Gabe Blomgren strongly condemned Patriot Front, whose members were arrested by law enforcement last weekend while seemingly en route to antagonize the city’s annual Pride in the Park event.

Thirty-one members of the group, who were travelling in a U-Haul truck and equipped with riot gear, were arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy to riot. Shea was also in Coeur d’Alene that day to lead an alternative “prayer walk” in opposition to the Pride event.

“The organization Patriot Front has nothing to say about the lord Jesus Christ – not one exalting word in their garbage manifestos, which frankly make me sick,” Blomgren said. “I’ll say publicly that Patriot Front needs to have the word ‘patriot’ scrubbed from it, because there’s nothing patriotic about hating other races, and they are clearly a racist organization. We denounce everything they stand for.”

However, Blomgren also offered the hate group a path to redemption. If Patriot Front followed Christianity, “there would be the ability to kick down doors and to move into fronts they’d never seen or imagined,” he said.

Patriot Front, which has branches across the country, primarily focuses on spreading racist propaganda through stickering and vandalism to intimidate minority groups. The group’s founder, 23-year-old Thomas Rousseau, said they were going to the Pride event to oppose what they described as “moral depravity,” according to court documents from the arrests. The potential for a conflict at the event had come up last month when a member of another group, Panhandle Patriots, announced during a public meeting hosted by state Rep. Heather Scott that they needed to confront the Pride event.

Originally, Shea claimed that the U-Haul was filled with antifa who were going to ambush his prayer walk. But one of the men arrested, Mishael Buster, was a member of On Fire Ministries, according to a video of a church service. Josiah Buster, his brother, was also arrested.

Blomgren confirmed that a former member had been arrested and that the two are sons of a good friend of the church, Matt Buster, a few days later on a broadcast that he co-hosts with Caleb Collier, a former Spokane Valley councilman.

The two expressed sympathy for the Patriot Front members and said they had been duped by a racist organization, with Collier saying the men had “righteous anger” at the state of the country.

Unrelated to Patriot Front, Collier also announced on Saturday the formation of a “watchmen” group to help with safety concerns in the city. Collier said that the group would not accept “hot heads” or people wearing camouflage and carrying rifles. The group would be designed to help improve security at businesses and to escort women, he said.

A Spokane Police Department spokesperson on Saturday was unable to say whether such a group was legitimate or if one had contacted the department.

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https://www.rangemedia.co/patriot-front-coeur-d-alene-matt-shea-white-nationalia/

range media

two of the Patriot Front members arrested in Cd'A over the weekend have ties to Matt Shea and his church.

Of the 31 Patriot Front members arrested in Coeur d'Alene Saturday, two have ties to Matt Shea and one appears to be part of the team at Shea’s On Fire Ministries. For a rundown on the arrest, check out Daniel Walters’ piece in the New York Times.

Patriot Front is a Texas-based White Nationalist hate group that broke away from another similar group, Vanguard USA, after the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville that resulted in the murder of Heather Heyer. Patriot Front has had an active presence in the Inland Northwest since at least March 2021 when people began noticing stickers and posters popping up at busy intersections throughout the region, along the Centennial Trail in Riverfront Park, and on the campus of the embattled North Idaho College. A mural of George Floyd on the side of Shacktown Community Cycle in downtown Spokane was defaced twice, the second time in April 2021 using stickers and stencils bearing the Patriot Front logo.In the leadup to Saturday’s event in Coeur d’Alene, at least one far-right Twitter personality was referring to it as Charlottesville II.

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Patriot Front has been active in Spokane for at least a year, including this defacing of a George Floyd mural at Shacktown Community Cycle (@dennisGHS)

Among those arrested Saturday, only one suspect was initially identified as being from Spokane: Mishael Buster.

It now appears that Josiah, the other Buster arrested, used to live in the same Hillyard house as Mishael and appears to still be registered to vote there. He has since moved to Watauga, Texas, which is the address he gave police in Coeur d’Alene. Watauga is a suburb in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Thomas Rousseau, the founder of Patriot Front who was also arrested Saturday, lives in nearby Grapevine, Texas.

According to the Spokane County Assessor, that Yale Street home in Spokane is owned by Matt and Diane Buster.

Matt Buster is a well-known associate of Matt Shea, the preacher and former Washington state legislator who was expelled from the State Republican Caucus after an investigation found he had committed acts of domestic terrorism. Buster has helped Shea for years with various rallies and protests, such as The Church at Planned Parenthood (TCAPP) and several of the Reopen protests Shea organized in 2020 and 2021. Activists have asserted that Matt is Josiah and Mishael’s father, but RANGE was unable to independently confirm that.

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Matt Buster has been filmed with Shea at numerous rallies in Spokane. (Photos courtesy of @queer_will)

As has become common both nationally and locally, when arrests like these are made, journalists and activists immediately went to work to make connections and offer context on those arrested. Many of the Patriot Front members were well known, and documentation came relatively quickly.

The Busters took a little longer to run down, but local activists and journalists including RANGE started making connections midday Sunday. Stronger Together Spokane, a far-right watchdog Twitter account, first pointed out the connection publicly Sunday evening around 6 p.m.

Shea and his wife Viktoriya are founders and Senior Pastors of On Fire Ministries. The On Fire staff page lists Matt Buster as leading “Real Men’s Ministry” at the church.

In a separate Facebook post celebrating On Fire Ministries moving to a new location, Worship Pastor Gabe Blomgren thanked the Church’s “online team” members, including “Shael Buster”  — presumably short for Mishael. Later, in an On Fire Ministries video posted on Dec. 19, 2021, and reshared by Matt Buster, Shea is seen welcoming Matt and Shael Buster onstage to read announcements to the congregation and tell some jokes.

Shea and Blomgren were also in Coeur d’Alene on Saturday, leading a small protest march with bullhorns that did not appear to be directly connected to the Patriot Front action.

At roughly the same time as the arrest was taking place, Shea and Blomgren were seen leading a group of protestors in Coeur d’Alene. At one point, the group stopped in front of the Coeur d’Alene Press building and Blomgren led them in a rendition of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” An unknown man said a prayer that “one day the Coeur d’Alene Press would one day be a bastion of righteousness.”

The group moved to the county courthouse and eventually to the Human Rights Education Institute, where Shea prayed aloud that God was the author of all rights, and “government can never take it away, and they can never say under the euphemism of human rights, that the rights of Christians do not matter.”

In addition to his role at On Fire Ministries, Gabe Blomgren is the cohost with Caleb Collier of a podcast called “Church and State,” which has dedicated several segments recently to antagonizing the LGBTQIA2S+ community, including a May 31 podcast entitled “Pride month is an indicator that the doomsday clock is ticking.”

On Saturday, a story posted to the official Church and State Facebook page shared a video of law enforcement opening the U-Haul with the caption “This is HUGE Antifa stopped.”

The post echoed several conspiracy theories that began flying soon after video of the arrest hit social media. Some claimed that the men in the U-Haul are either antifa or paid by the Biden administration. Others went as far as to say Patriot Front itself is not a real white nationalist organization, but a psyop — a psychological operation — of the government.

Around the same time, Matt Shea went live on the Facebook page of Redoubt News — a North-Idaho-based far-right media outlet with a large national following — to make a similar claim.

“Just a few minutes ago, as we were on our prayer walk, it looks like antifa may have been setting an ambush for us. A U-Haul truck … was busted just after we walked past with our prayer march.”

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shea goes on to describe the khaki pants and white balaclavas the men were wearing and compares them to a widely circulated conspiracy theory about a van of similarly dressed antifa in Washington, DC, during the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

These conspiracy theories were immediately debunked at the time, including by the insurrectionists themselves, but we have seen them continue to circulate online, especially in the aftermath of Saturday’s arrests.

“Looks like they were busted here in North Idaho,” Shea concludes, “... we are fearless right now. They will not win. Because we are patriotic Americans we will not give up. We will keep up the fight, in Jesus’ name.”

It’s unclear whether Shea or the person who posted the “Church and State” story knew that Mishael Buster was on board the U-Haul at that time.

ALSO OF NOTE:

According to Tarrant County property records, Josiah Buster owns the Watauga, Texas, home he listed as his address. It also serves as the registered office of a Roofing Company that Buster helps run, and which is owned by a man, Cameron Schronk, Buster claims to have met while serving in the Army Rangers. Josiah Buster appeared on the company website as Operations Manager as of Sunday evening. By Monday morning, his bio had been taken down.

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A second man arrested in Coeur d’Alene, Connor Patrick Moran, listed the same Spring Creek address, but his connection to Josiah Buster is unclear.

By midday Sunday, all 31 men arrested had been released on bail.

This story was updated to include further corroboration of Shea’s ties to Mishael Buster and to include a video of Shea claiming the U-Haul was a thwarted antifa attack on he and his followers.

Former WA Rep. Matt Shea at the center of controversy surrounding Ukrainian orphanage evacuation

The far-right former WA Representative has been quiet lately until he turned up last week at a hotel in Poland, surrounded by Ukrainian orphans.

RANGE Media

Luke Baumgarten

RANGE is a reader-supported publication. Help us grow by becoming a paid subscriber.

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https://www.vice.com/en/article/93a5da/patriot-front-arrests-on-fire-ministries-ties

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Arrested Patriot Front Brothers Have Ties to Apocalyptic Christian Nationalist Church

Two brothers and members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front are affiliated with On Fire Ministries, founded by ex-Washington state Rep. Matt Shea.

By Tess Owen

June 21, 2022,

Josiah Buster (left) and Mishael Buster (right) (Kootenai County Sheriff's Office, via AP)

JOSIAH BUSTER (LEFT) AND MISHAEL BUSTER (RIGHT) (KOOTENAI COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE, VIA AP)

Two brothers who were recently arrested in Idaho along with 29 other members of white nationalist group Patriot Front have extensive ties to a Christian nationalist church known for its apocalyptic outlook and culture war teachings.

Mishael and Josiah Buster, ages 22 and 24, respectively, are affiliated with On Fire Ministries, a religious nonprofit founded a year ago in Spokane, Washington, by former state Rep. Matt Shea, who’s known for his ties to extremist groups. Much of the congregation’s teachings hinge on the Bible’s Book of Revelation, whose apocalyptic visions have inspired far-right paramilitary extremists for decades. Like other Christian nationalist congregations, the church frames culture war issues, such as trans rights, immigration, vaccines or critical race theory, as primordial battles between good and evil.

Up until last week, Matt Buster, Mishael and Josiah’s father, was described in the “leadership” section of the congregation’s website as heading a subgroup called “Real Men’s Ministries.” A flyer for his group cites Proverbs 27:17: “As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.” Buster also appeared onstage with Shea as recently as this past weekend.

Mishael appeared onstage with his father at an On Fire Ministries event in December.

A post on the congregation’s Facebook page last year also described Mishael as being part of the ministry’s “online team,” according to Range, a media outlet based in the Pacific Northwest.

Josiah, who currently lives in Texas, was photographed at an event linked to On Fire Ministries last year with his father.

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Representatives from On Fire Ministries also helped promote the far-right event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on June 11, which was intended to clash with an annual Pride festival there.

Shea, who appeared in Idaho himself and livestreamed the arrests, also put out a video statement asserting that Matt Buster was “not part of On Fire Ministries leadership in any capacity,” but that he was a “brother in Christ and we do not judge him for the actions of his sons.” He also claimed that neither son had ever had anything to do with the congregation.

On June 11, the day of the Pride event, local law enforcement stopped a U-Haul truck heading downtown. Inside were 31 members of Patriot Front, equipped with shields, flags, and a smoke bomb. They quickly surrendered to police—much of which was caught on video by stunned onlookers—and charged with misdemeanor criminal conspiracy.

The 31 arrests and subsequent release of their names and mugshots yielded a rare opportunity to better understand who belongs to Patriot Front, a notoriously secretive group that splintered from the neo-Nazi organization Vanguard America in the wake of the violent Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in summer 2017.

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The Buster brothers, specifically, have illuminated the ideological overlap between the surging Christian nationalist movement and Patriot Front, whose leader intentionally cultivates a clean-cut aesthetic and seeks out allies within popular right-wing causes, like abortion, with the goal of widening its pool of potential recruits.

A local activist group, Stronger Together Spokane, was the first to link the Buster brothers to On Fire Ministries following the Coeur d’Alene arrests. On Fire Ministries has become particularly notorious in the Pacific Northwest because of its roots with Shea, who served in the Washington House from 2009 until 2021.

A 2019 investigation by the Washington Legislature found Shea “participated in an act of domestic terrorism” when he “planned, engaged in, and promoted a total of three armed conflicts of political violence against the United States government" between 2014 and 2016, including the Bundy’s armed standoffs in Nevada and Oregon and an armed conflict with the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department in Priest River, Idaho.

Shea also once wrote a four-page document called “The Biblical Basis for War” and supported a group that was training child soldiers to “be effective in Christian warfare.”

Shea initially spread misinformation that the individuals in the van in Idaho were “antifa” but has since moved away from that conspiracy and instead claimed that the Buster brothers were ensnared in a government operation that came to Coeur d’Alene with the goal of “smearing peaceful Christians and patriots.”

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On Fire Ministries platforms a regular show called “Church and State” for “Christian patriots.” It’s less of a sermon and more far-right shock-jock fare, where hosts touch on a wide range of issues, including drag queens, why patriots eat red meat,Prince Charles’ support for the “antichrist,” communists’ secret pedophilic agenda, and so on. 

These shows are hosted by Gabe Blomgren, the singing worship pastor at On Fire Ministries, and Caleb Collier, coordinator of the conservative think-tankThe John Birch Societyand assistant director of The Church at Planned Parenthood, which has organized anti-abortion protests at Planned Parenthood and used the Proud Boys as security.

(In one show from May, Collier, inexplicably, eats a red crayon. “Semper fi,” Blomgren says admiringly, referencing the motto of the U.S. Marine Corps. “Paper and all. What a man.”)

Matt Buster has been photographed at events with Collier, as well as with Shea. He was photographed with his elder son, Josiah, at a “Medical Freedom Rally” in Spokane last September, where Shea spoke and Proud Boys attended.

The Buster family also has ties to similar churches led by Christian nationalist pastor Ken Peters, including his “Patriot Church” network and The Church at Planned Parenthood.

There are similarities between Josiah Buster’s history and one application to Patriot Front.

The group’s internal chats were obtained by antifascist infiltrators and published by media collective Unicorn Riot. They included notes from interviews with prospective members. VICE News cross-referenced details in one set of notes and found a lot of similarities between the details included and what we know about the Buster brothers.

For example, in an interview conducted in December, an applicant told his Patriot Front interviewer that he’d been part of the Church at Planned Parenthood and said he considered himself a “Christian nationalist” and believed the biggest threat to the U.S. was “cultural marxism,” which he described as “the knife to America’s throat.” He also mentioned that he followed white nationalist livestreamer Nick Fuentes closely.

The applicant was from Spokane but now lives in Texas, which is consistent with what we know about Josiah). That applicant described himself as having served in the U.S. Army from 2016 to 2020. The Daily Beast confirmed that Josiah Buster served in the Army for that exact timeframe.

And as for whether he believed violence was a good way to achieve political goals, the applicant responded that it was currently “not a viable choice, but it’s not completely off the horizon as for the future.”

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TAGGED:

EXTREMISMPRIDELGBTQARRESTSIDAHOWHITE NATIONALISTCOEUR D’ALENEPATRIOT FRONTTHE EXTREMISM DESKON FIRE MINISTRIES

link

https://unicornriot.ninja/2022/patriot-front-fascist-leak-exposes-nationwide-racist-campaigns/

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not stolen, conquered]

Patriot Front Fascist Leak Exposes Nationwide Racist Campaigns

By Chris Schiano and Dan Feidt, Unicorn Riot  January 21, 2022

The detailed inner workings and operations of neo-Nazi organization Patriot Front have come to light after a massive leak from their chat servers. The exposed communications show coordination with their leader Thomas Rousseau to deface murals and monuments to Black lives across the United States, and intimate struggles to bolster morale through group activities like hiking and camping. 

This release includes more than 400 gigabytes of data published by Unicorn Riot. Ostensibly private, unedited videos and direct messages reveal a campaign to organize acts of racial hatred while indoctrinating teenagers into national socialism (Nazism). The information stands as a chilling reminder that fascist organizing thrives in secrecy and obscurity.

Content advisory: Organized racism, harassment, vandalism

This release is now made available to the public at vault.unicornriot.ninja. Volunteers upgraded Unicorn Riot’s DiscordLeaks platform to host 55,249 RocketChat messages and file attachments, allowing the public to search the cache and inspect how fascists try to operate discreetly at their most inner levels. (See BitTorrent info below)

Additional resources: Recordings & Transcripts of 22 Leaked Patriot Front Meetings • Guide to leaked media files • Chat records on our DiscordLeaks platform • Our Far-right Investigations Desk page • 2018 Report on Patriot Front

Patriot Front, known for its disconcerting masked ‘flash rallies’ and racist sticker campaigns, was organized byThomas Rousseau in the immediate aftermath of 2017’s Unite the Right march in Charlottesville, VA. Rousseau gained power within the group’s predecessor organization, Vanguard America, in the fallout from the nationally orchestrated event. After James Alex Fields, seen sporting a Vanguard America shield during the march, murdered Heather Heyer, Rousseau moved to split with Vanguard America, taking with it most of the members as well as the website domain name “bloodandsoil.org.”

Vanguard America’s ‘bloodandsoil.org’ domain was reconfigured to support Patriot Front’s main internal communications system: a self-hosted instance of RocketChat, an open-source chat server software similar to Slack and Discord; messaging platforms with multiple channels.

Information security in this centralized communications project failed almost entirely. Sources provided Unicorn Riot with screenshots, audio recordings of meetings (self-hosted on another system called Mumble), extracted texts of group chats and even the private direct message system. Chat messages contained dozens of links to unlocked, public mega.nz cloud storage directories, which hosted more than 400 gigabytes of raw videos and photos of Patriot Front events, gatherings, scouting for vandalizing Black monuments, and much more. Most of the materials come from the latter half of 2021, including a rally in Washington, D.C.

The civil rights lawsuit ‘Sines v. Kessler’ concluded last November with multiple findings of civil liability against Vanguard America and other white supremacist defendants for their participation in the deadly Unite the Right event. Rousseau was deposed during the lawsuit and asked extensively about his role in planning the Charlottesville rally and encouraging his followers to participate in street violence there.

Members of Patriot Front consider themselves a part of “the greatest nationalist activist organization in the world.” As the leaks reveal, they are micromanaged by theirTexas-based director who oversees every detail of the organization from its persistent campaign of racially motivated vandalism to the minutiae of clothes members may wear in public.

Unicorn Riot reported in 2017 how Vanguard America’s “Southern Front” server on Discord was used to celebrate Fields’ vehicle attack, as well as exposing the group’s links to Robert Ray (aka ‘Azzmador’) of the Daily Stormer, Richard Spencer and other figures in the white supremacist movement. In 2018, with further Discord leaks data we examined how Patriot Front developed its style of stickering and how they show up as a security force for touring speakers like Spencer and other ‘alt-right’ events, while enthusiastically promoting sexual assault and training for further violence.

[For related stories see Unicorn Riot’s Far-Right Investigations Desk.]

After the 2018 disclosures, internal chats were moderated more strictly, but the group’s prospective member intake process, exposed in the current leak, most clearly highlights the members’ ardent beliefs in national socialism and adulation towards historic Nazi figures.

Despite Patriot Front’s strict measures to avoid overt Nazism in their public rhetoric, the group’s racist, antisemitic and misogynistic nature shines through quite clearly in their more recently leaked chats. Members frequently use slurs and brag about IRL racist harassment.

The recent leak also reveals that Patriot Front preys on teenagers, recruiting members through the internet who are still legally minors, indoctrinating them with white supremacist ideology and even encouraging them to lie to their parents so the group can transport them across state lines for fascist events. According to the chats, while the group’s official policies require members to be at least 17 ½ years old to join, in reality it “goes by a case by case basis” with some members being recruited below that age.

According to leaked messages, Patriot Front’s rank and file still enjoy doing ‘Roman salutes’ despite rules saying they shouldn’t. In one direct message exchange members nostalgically recalled throwing up Nazi salutes “in front of a PF flag in full uniform” at a bar in Europe while meeting up with Polish neo-Nazi skinheads. In one leaked video of masked Patriot Front members reading a manifesto, as they take off their official gear one of them remarks, “Sieg fucking heil! Lets fucking go. I can say that now that [the recording is] over.”

In a leaked photo (September 9, 2017) of Patriot Front members posting with flags, a child of approximately 11 years old can be seen giving a Nazi salute (at left). Photo taken inside the American Pavilion at Veterans Park in College Station, Texas

Patriot Front also routinely praises historical fascist leaders such as Mussolini, Oswald Mosley, and American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell, as well as contemporary Nazi and fascist groups such as the Nordic Resistance Movement in Sweden and Casa Pound in Italy. Members sometimes address each other with Nazi titles, and others reportedly hung swastika Christmas decorations or displayed the Nazi sonnenrad ‘black sun’ symbol on their home.

Numerous membership applications marked ‘ACCEPTED’ are logged as “ideology: national socialist.“ Another member wrote on his approved application to join that the “biggest threat to America is Jewish domination over the world” and complained about an incident in his childhood when his Jewish kindergarten teacher gave blocks that he wanted to play with to another child.

Racist Propaganda Coordinated to Stir Fear Across America

Patriot Front has aimed to terrorize non-white and pro-racial justice communities around the U.S. by trying to damage and deface murals and Black Lives Matter art by placing racist messages and other actions at the direction of its national leadership and regional Network Directors.

[Note: Members of Patriot Front are assigned handles with a fake first name – two letter state code, which is used in most internal communications for the purpose of maintaining anonymity.]

The pattern of activity mainly centers around an aggressive propaganda strategy distributing ‘promat’ (‘promotional materials’) pushing the group’s name, website, and white nationalist views. Members are required to submit proof of weekly ‘activism’ tasks and are criticized, scolded and punished when they fail to meet their expected quotas.

Tasks towards members’ weekly requirements are reviewed and accepted by Patriot Front leaders, often regional Network Directors (NDs) or sometimes the group’s leader, Thomas Rousseau. Actions that help meet the official member requirements sometimes include spray painting official Patriot Front stencils on public or private property, painting over racial justice murals, as well as stealing, defacing or destroying pro-diversity yard signs and flags from homes and businesses.

Patriot Front’s official ‘promat,’ such as stickers and flyers, can only be bought directly from leader Thomas Rousseau, who personally ships it to members.“If any of the prices seem above market rate,” wrote Rousseau in the group’s chat in July 2021, “it’s because it also goes toward paying for our servers, our digital accounts and subscriptions, and the food I can afford to eat.”

Patriot Front leader Thomas Rousseau discusses charging members “above market rate” for materials like stickers and posters, which he requires all members to purchase from him personally.

Having to pay Rousseau out of pocket in order to post the group’s propaganda has led some Patriot Front members to make their own bootleg materials. Others have complained that buying stickers from Rousseau in order to meet their mandatory action quotas meant they were “paying Thomas’ rent“ and that without forcing his followers to buy stuff from him he might have to find a real job.

Some members mentioned targeting “diverse“ neighborhoods for plastering with Patriot Front stickers. Others discussed placing stickers along the route of a leftist protest march the night before it took place.

Texas: Most of the dozens of banners Patriot Front members have dropped have been on highway overpasses or other public areas visible by traffic. However, some of their banner drops have seen members go to greater lengths. In one official banner action, Patriot Front members in Texas targeted an FBI billboard, which read, “Protecting our communities TOGETHER. Report hate crimes.”

Network Director ‘James TX’ discussed the FBI billboard plan with Rousseau, who asked him for the exact GPS coordinates for the billboard’s location. In Patriot Front’s chat server ‘James’ proposed scouting for “weaknesses in the fence“ in order to access the billboard; Texas member ‘Patrick‘ said he would “bring bolt cutters.” Messages show ‘James TX’ had “been wanting to get this billboard for a while“ and said he planned to cut down part of the billboard’s anti-hate crime message before draping a banner over it.

Photos and video [1, 2] shared privately inside Patriot Front show members making a banner, accessing the billboard at night to drape it in a banner, then driving by the next day to show the banner still up in the daylight. The banner placed over the anti-hate crime billboard featured several fasces, a classical symbol of fascism.

At least four other Patriot Front Network Directors – ‘William OK‘, ‘Eric PA’, ‘Lawrence FL’ and ‘Carter MO‘ (Luke Paule) – discussed coordinating actions targeting FBI “report hate crimes” billboards in their respective areas [1, 2, 3, 4].

Spray painting is also one of the group’s main activities that members are encouraged to carry out to meet “activism” quotas. Rousseau and other directors instruct members on details down to what kinds of spray paint cans to use, how to place Patriot Front stencils and how to photograph them.

Patriot Front members spray painting in Springfield, IL.

Pacific Northwest: Patriot Front’s Pacific Northwest Network Director Colton Michael Brown posts in RocketChat as ‘ND – John WA‘ and has taken part in a prolific amount of Patriot Front vandalism as well as directing others to do so. RocketChat message logs show Brown took personal responsibility for Patriot Front stenciling in front of Seattle’s City Hall as well as its Capitol Hill neighborhood. He also provided instructions to his chapter’s members on what kinds of spray paint to use [1, 2, 3, 4], and told one to modify fire extinguishers for spraying paint.

In a direct message exchange about a business displaying “anti-American propaganda“, Colton Brown aka ‘ND – John WA‘ and Patriot Front member ‘Patrick NC’ had a frank exchange about their group’s involvement in apparent vandalism and the problems it could pose to their organization. “Maybe I can talk to Thomas about stenciling the store”, ‘Patrick’ wrote, before adding “Of course, never talk about criminal activities … that’s how we get doxed, sentenced, and basically fucked over.”

Brown’s reply did not seem amused. “The org would be pinched if we had to fund any legal funds right now,” he wrote. “I’d advise not doing that. Do you have $3000 or more to spend on a petty vandalism case?“

After learning in December 2021 that his chapter of Patriot Front had been infiltrated, Brown wrote to Rousseau that he was becoming “concerned all of us or at least Tyler will get charged for the Olympia mural.” ‘Tyler WA’, real name James Julius Johnson, was identified by antifascists last month as one of the Patriot Front members who painted over the “Respect & Love Olympia” mural on 4th avenue in Olympia, WA on October 16 around 3 a.m.

The mural vandalism garnered attention and outrage in the local media, with Patriot Front members declaring victory and feeling heartened when city officials announced they would remove the mural instead of continuing to repaint it. Chat logs reveal that Patriot Front leader Rousseau was not only aware of the Olympia mural vandalism, but even joined a group call with the Pacific Northwest chapter to direct the group in how best to accomplish the task.

“Obviously the objective is to mess up as much of it as possible,” instructed Rousseau, “I would have start out by having a few guys just going up and down the length of it with turbo cans…so that if they are going to repair it they’re essentially going to have to start from scratch.”

Worried that he “might get a knock” from police over the mural, Brown “moved all [his] [Patriot Front] materials and political stuff“ into the car of another member who stored his items in their home, according to his messages to Rousseau. (Brown was previously named in a 2020 report filed by a detective with the King County Sheriff’s Office as part of an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) investigation into Patriot Front activity in Washington state.)

The Olympia mural vandalism was primarily planned by Jacob Stephen Sundt (aka ‘Clarke WA‘), a member of Brown’s chapter, who lives in Olympia “not too far away from downtown.” Before Patriot Front knew they were infiltrated, Sundt bragged that “our recent actions have shown we can walk down busy avenues at prime time in Seattle and deface the largest most well protected mural in shitlib olympia without so much as being accosted once.”

Messages by Colton Brown / ‘ND – John WA‘ in Patriot Front’s official chat featured ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos showing Patriot Front spray paint covering the mural. Leaked HD photo and video taken by Patriot Front documents their activity in detail as they deface the mural.

Members of Patriot Front’s Pacific Northwest chapter, including Brown, also defaced a mural in Portland, OR in July 2021 honoring the lives of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery. “When we did the George Floyd one,” Brown said in an audio call with Rousseau and other Patriot Front members, “we were in and out maybe two minutes. It was really fast and we got up the URL stencil like three times.”

After the artist who created the mural called for help on social media, the mural was repainted within 24 hours.

One of the more religiously Christian members seems to have quit Patriot Front over his concerns about “some of the techniques related to the activism, specifically the stenciling and defacement of other property.” Patriot Front Network Director Paul Michael Gancarz aka ‘Samuel VA‘ told Rousseau that he responded by telling the former member “George Floyd is the messiah of a false religion of evil.” Another member, ‘Ben MD‘, summed the matter up with: “if you have a moral problem with covering up a George Floyd mural then you’re probably not a good fit for PF.“

Massachusetts: Patriot Front members in Massachusetts discussed casing and wanting to ‘hit’ a Black Lives Matter mural on the side of the Champion Ice Cream shop at 113 Legion Parkway in downtown Brockton, MA. A Patriot Front member going by the alias ‘Philip MA’ described the mural as being located in a “potential high risk area” but assured other members that “with a bunch of guys we should be able to pull it off.” Patriot Front members ‘Philip MA‘ & ‘NQ – Henry MA‘ messaged each other to weigh the merits of using light bulbs, balloons and/or a pesticide sprayer filled with paint in order to quickly and effectively deface the mural. ​​“I’m thinking a simple ‘Reclaim America’ should do the trick,” ‘Phillip MA’ wrote.

A PDF document entitled “Stenciling – December 12rd, 2021” [sic] lists the aliases of seven members involved in the day’s plans, outlined meetup locations, scouting plans and radio frequencies for members to use to communicate. Along with directions and GPS coordinates, the document included a photo of the mural to be vandalized as well as a list of spray paint supplies and detailed instructions for lookouts.

Videos and photos dated December 12, 2021 and shared inside Patriot Front show masked members defacing a Black Lives Matter mural in Massachusetts, covering much of the mural over with white paint before spray painting a stencil of Patriot Front’s slogan ‘Reclaim America.’

Michigan: Patriot Front members in Michigan also consulted with Thomas Rousseau about targeting historic civil rights murals in Detroit. ‘Alan MI‘ sent Rousseau photos he took while scouting the 8 Mile Wall, a historical site which hosts murals commemorating the history of segregation and civil rights in Detroit. ‘Alan’ asked Rousseau for advice for “better…covering stuff up” while defacing the civil rights mural; Rousseau told him to consult Patriot Front’s official stencil guide which instructs members to use turbo cans. Patriot Front also vandalized a ‘Black Lives Matter’ street mural in Ypsilanti, MI. Leaked video also shows members covering up a mural of a Native American at the Lincoln Street Art Park in Detroit.

Indiana: ‘Michael IN‘ reported to Thomas Rousseau that he “was thinking of using roofing tar of some sort to cover the George Floyd BLM mural in Lafayette, IN.“ ‘Michael IN’ noted the mural was “previously visited by PF twice, defaced 5 times overall” and asked Rousseau if the use of “rubberized roofing cement“ “would be permitted“ to cover the mural’s new “anti-graffiti clear coat“ during his return to deface the mural a third time. Thomas told ‘Michael IN’ to “keep me posted as to your research and practice with this substance. Orders will be given out at the event.” (According to WLWT Cincinnati, a protective coating was added to the George Floyd mural in Lafayette, IN on August 6 after police began investigating repeated “defacing” at the site.)

Colorado: Leaked videos dated October 8, 2021 show Colorado members of Patriot Front painting over and stenciling over a large pro-abortion mural outside a business in Denver.

Patriot Front defacement of a pro-abortion mural outside Crema Coffee at 29th & Larimer streets in the LoDo neighborhood in Denver, CO included two ‘fasces’ symbols.

Georgia: A leaked video shows members in Georgia spray painting Patriot Front stencils on a ‘Stop Asian Hate’ mural.

North Carolina: Another leaked video from inside Patriot Front shows members scouting the ‘Harriet Tubman – Journey to Freedom’ statue in Jackson County, NC. They discuss sabotaging the park’s electrical system in order to possibly shut off security cameras while defacing the statue. (“Have we considered [cameras] across the street? Think they would reach that far…can we disarm them?” “If everyone’s wearing what we’re supposed to be wearing, then it wouldn’t matter.”) One of the men the video shows casing the Tubman memorial wore a shirt reading ‘Legalize Arson.’

Pennsylvania: In October, Patriot Front members covered over a mural in Boyertown, PA reading ‘Boyertown is No Place For Hate’. They took ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos and videoed themselves spraying paint to cover several of the people of color depicted in the mural.

Eastern Berks Regional Police estimated the mural was defaced “sometime between 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 5, and 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 6” according to The Mercury, a newspaper based in nearby Pottstown, PA. The next day, community members held an “anti-hate rally” and worked to restore the mural.

Patriot Front members in Pennsylvania defaced a mural in Boyertown, Pennsylvania calling for tolerance.

Virginia: Patriot Front Network Director Paul Michael Gancarz aka ‘Samuel VA‘ was one of several members involved in defacing a mural honoring Black tennis legend Arthur Ashe in Richmond’s Battery Park in October 2021.

Stealing signs from homes: Patriot Front members are also fond of stealing pro-diversity and pro-LGBTQ yard signs and flags; like graffiti, these thefts are among actions members can count towards their weekly activism requirements. Dozens of yard signs and several flags are discussed as having been stolen in late 2021. In a group call, Rousseau suggests that members steal American flags from bridges and other public areas so that they can be carried upside down by the group during marches. “I want a duffel bag full of flags by December,” Rousseau told one member.

On November 28, ‘Vincent VA’ posted a picture of himself stepping on a Black Lives Matter yard sign, bragging that he “got a trophy.“ The same day, another member in Utah, ‘Logan UT’, shared a photo posing with apparently stolen Mexican and transgender flags; another photo he sent shows the flags being burned. A video from that night shows the flags being burned after members read out a statement:

“for those who destroy our nation, we will destroy your symbols and all that you worship, to think that we will lay down and perish, you are greatly mistaken. Burn em.”

Another video from Michigan that night shows the members singing “blood and soil.”

Patriot Front members burn stolen transgender pride flags. (From leaked video)

In another post, Jacob Stephen Sundt (aka ‘Clarke WA‘), shared a photo of Black Lives Matter signs and a rainbow flag with the caption “prisoners of war.”

Jacob Stephen Sundt (aka ‘Clarke WA‘) posted to Patriot Front’s RocketChat server to show off stolen pro-diversity items.

On December 13, ‘Alan MI‘ asked other Patriot Front Michigan members, “coded language aside, how many flags did you guys steal? You guys took signs?” ‘Eric MI‘ replied “3 flags and at least 6 signs“, while ‘Benjamin MI‘ wrote “3 flags, not sure on signs but it was a lot… says BLM on it…“

Another photo, shared in Patriot Front’s chat sent by Colton Brown aka ‘ND – John WA‘, shows Pacific Northwest members posing with 26 stolen pro-diversity yard signs that had been painted over to feature Patriot Front stencils.

Patriot Front members in the Pacific Northwest pose with stolen yard signs that once contained pro-racial justice messages.

Patriot Front Links to Neo-Nazi Podcasters, Proud Boys and the National Justice Party

Despite Patriot Front’s official rules against “parallel organizing” with other groups, PF’s leaked chats show connections to several other groups in both the neo-Nazi movement and the far-right more broadly. Patriot Front has significant overlap with so-called ‘pool party’ groups organized by the neo-Nazi podcast network The Right Stuff (TRS). Several Patriot Front members attend pool party meetups; three midwest members (including Trevor Valescu aka ‘ND – Johnny MN‘) are leaders for their regional TRS pool party. TRS affiliates have also organized fundraisers to donate to Patriot Front, according to leaked chats. Patriot Front members involved in TRS pool parties may also use the more informal groups to recruit.

Patriot Front is also close to the National Justice Party (NJP), a newer neo-Nazi group founded in 2020 by TRS podcaster Mike ‘Enoch’ Peinovich, former Daily Stormer writer Joseph Jordan aka ‘Eric Striker’, and Tony Hovater, former co-leader of the defunct Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP).

Patriot Front members have attended several NJP events, including a November conference in Pittsburgh and a recent rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin which Rousseau and another member ‘Mason’ attended. Several Patriot Front members also posted about distributing NJP materials alongside Patriot Front’s official propaganda [1, 2, 3].

Patriot Front is also affiliated with Media2Rise, the propaganda arm of Will2Rise, a new fascist hipster fitness lifestyle brand created by Rob Rundo of the violent neo-Nazi group Rise Above Movement (RAM). A Media2Rise member using the name ‘Lucca Corgiat’ often acts as an unofficial media operative for Patriot Front, providing sympathetic embedded coverage during their recent march in D.C. Corgiat is a former member of the defunct alt-right group Identity Evropa, in which he used the Discord alias ‘Valaska.’

Corgiat attended the secretive 2021 American Renaissance (AmRen) conference alongside Thomas Rousseau, with the two collaborating on an exclusive interview with Jared Taylor, conference organizer and longtime intellectual figurehead for white supremacists in America. A large volume of videos shot inside the 2021 AmRen conference are included in this release.

Several Patriot Front members and potential recruits are former Proud Boys [1, 2, 3], and others in the group professed to have good relations with Proud Boys in their area [1, 2, 3, 4]. One member, recently exposed as Casey James Knuteson (aka Leo OR), was a member of the Portland Proud Boys throughout 2020 and continues to have close ties to the group.

Despite these entanglements, Patriot Front members distinguish themselves from the Proud Boys due to the latter group’s flexible position on questions of race and ethnicity. For Patriot Front members, the Proud Boys aren’t racist enough. “I remember I got called racist [by Portland Proud Boys members] for saying f*** Islam and saying that it has no place in western society,” Casey James Knuteson (aka Leo OR) wrote in an internal chat.

Another member was said to be “working closely” on a podcast project with former TWP leader Matthew Heimbach. At least one current member of Patriot Front is also a former TWP member.

December 4, 2021 Patriot Front March in D.C.

“It has come to our attention that you do not wish to attend the upcoming event in December. You are obligated by membership in this organization to attend.”

-Message from Patriot Front leadership in the group’s RocketChat, pressuring members to attend the December 4 rally.

Aiming to maximize attendance at Patriot Front’s December 4, 2021 rally in D.C., the group’s leadership pressured every member to attend, telling them it was mandatory. Rousseau also asked members to reach out to other groups, like the TRS pool parties, to get extra people to march with Patriot Front to make their numbers appear larger. (Rousseau also employed this tactic when leading Vanguard America in Charlottesville, letting strangers join his formation which led to the group being associated with car attack murderer James Alex Fields.)

Thomas Rousseau even tried to push Luke Paule aka ‘ND – Carter MO‘ into missing the birth of his child to march in D.C. Paule ultimately opted to be with his wife while she gave birth but received the silent treatment from Rousseau after this decision. (He would also later apologize for picking up his wife and newborn baby from the hospital during a Patriot Front meeting.) While Paule himself did not attend the December 4 march, he purchased a 13-passenger bus for his chapter of Patriot Front to use. He was dismayed to learn that just as the bus was debuting on the D.C. trip, it was “completely destroyed“ after Patriot Front’s ‘vehicle exchange’ locations for their march were compromised. “It will be quite the setback since it was abandoned to the police,” Paule lamented. “The worst part about its destruction is that I didn’t even get to RIDE in her. Lived for a single event and never made it back home. It’s something out of a fiction book is how it feels.“

A 13-passenger bus bought for Patriot Front by Network Director Luke Paule was “completely destroyed” while it was parked during the white nationalist group’s December 4, 2021 march in Washington D.C.

Patriot Front would later estimate total expenses from damages to their parked vehicles on December 4 at over $19,000. Many members reported being stranded and unable to drive home after traveling across the country to participate in the modern equivalent of a Klan rally only to have to leave their vehicles behind. In the days after the march, members complained of being contacted by Maryland Park Police and the FBI.

For marches like those recently held in Philadelphia and D.C, Patriot Front employs a “shield section” of members who train in shield tactics like those used by Vanguard America in street violence during Unite The Right in Charlottesville in 2017.

Patriot Front members practiced riot shield formations before their December 4, 2021 march in Washington, D.C.

Regional networks hold mandatory “drilling sessions” and those camped out before the DC march held drilling operations at their campground as well.

Patriot Front members, including one in a shirt with a Nazi ‘black sun’ symbol, practice marching in formation.

Leaked Patriot Front video files obtained by Unicorn Riot include extensive unedited footage of Patriot Front drilling sessions, as well as a draft of an official “drilling instruction” video. [See the bottom of this page for an index of available leaked materials.]

Deception & Subterfuge

Patriot Front depends upon secrecy to advance its goals, and the orchestration of various frauds and misrepresentations is mapped out in this data release. The owners of the campsite the group rented during their D.C. march did not know they were renting to Patriot Front but were fed a “cover story“ that the group was “an assortment of youth with different Christian denominations” who were affiliated with conservative student group Turning Point USA.

According to RocketChat messages, Patriot Front secured a police escort for their December D.C. march by placing a “false” 911 call about themselves. Thomas Rousseau directed member ‘Benjamin WI‘ to call police “from a burner [phone]” as Patriot Front left their nearby camp for D.C., pretending to be a concerned citizen. Rousseau said this step was taken to “soften the police up before our big visual contact on the bridge, and provide a little confusion and misinfo that’s within the realm of honest dialogue.”

Similar methods were at play in Patriot Front’s successful strategy to exploit the media during their December mobilization. Members used a fake ‘Sheryl’ Twitter persona, as well as various “fake journo account[s]” to promote their march, with some tweets going viral. (Patriot Front is officially banned from Twitter, but various members maintain sock puppet accounts, on which they often post on the group’s behalf at Rousseau’s direction.)

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}:

Their social media plan for the D.C. march included posting about their march to 4chan and various subreddits, overstating their numbers while pretending to be an ignorant observer – “500 white men with riot shields are marching in DC….Does anyone know who this group is?”

Despite the setbacks of their march in the nation’s capitol, Patriot Front largely declared the event a victory, citing large media impact and an increase in new membership applications. The new applicants was a boon to Rousseau; who in mid-December complained that he was “absolutely desperate for new people,” having “been in the 220’s to 230’s membership rut for nearly a full year.”

Patriot Front has apparently had some issues with retaining members even as it continues to recruit. Complaints by members and former members who quit include “hounding by leadership.” According to ‘NQ – Paul TX’, “there is, at present, no real sense that higher leadership cares about you. You are treated as a number that needs to be mobilized.” Another recurring annoyance is how all members, regardless of their perceived athletic fitness, are “subject to long talks and rambles over fitness. This drove now previous members up the wall, and still does for present members.”

In addition to condescending lectures about exercise, Patriot Front’s membership is subject to increasingly paranoid and invasive security measures. Members are encouraged to snoop around each other’s homes and monitor each other’s “dating record”. Chapter leaders may also demand that a member break up with his girlfriend if she doesn’t meet their approval.

Patriot Front’s increased internal security measures include a “full pat down“ and confiscating cell phones during road trips and camping get-togethers. Those vetting new members are instructed to “clandestinely record the license plate information or obtain a picture of that new member’s face” and require applicants to empty their pockets and be checked for wires.

Terrified of being held accountable for their racist acts and affiliations, Patriot Front members go to great lengths to hide their identities. Leaked chats show members discussing installing license plate flippers or plate covers on vehicles used to attend white nationalist rallies. After many of their license plates were identified at the parking area for their December 4 D.C. mobilization, Colton Brown aka ‘ND – John WA’ told members to lie to DMV officials in order to obtain fresh plates for their cars.

“Go into the DMV and say your plates were stolen and you’re really worried and want a new plate. They will ask you to file a police report and just say you’ll do it afterwards. Then don’t do that, and slap that new plate on your car.” At a recent January demonstration in Chicago, members were seen leaving the area with license plates covered on their vehicles.

Patriot Front is also keen to avoid keeping membership records in order to avoid fallout from lawsuits that may be filed against them. This practice has continued from the group’s predecessor Vanguard America, which dissolved after being named in a multi-million dollar civil rights lawsuit filed after the deadly violence at the Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, VA in 2017. As mentioned above, Thomas Rousseau was a leader in Vanguard America and was extensively deposed for the ‘Sines v. Kessler‘ lawsuit. The jury in that case ultimately found Vanguard America liable for $1 million in damages.

Thomas Rousseau (L) and other Patriot Front members smile for the camera at a gathering in this leaked photo taken inside the American Pavilion at Veterans Park in College Station, Texas. Date unknown.

In a national call following the group’s December 4 march in Washington D.C., Rousseau instructed all members to go through their phones and delete information that could link them to the event or that could be subpoenaed in a future legal proceeding. “I want you to go through your Threema chat, your Telegram, your whatever,” said Rousseau, “… and delete any messages pertaining to the events…any chat rooms, photos, videos, anything at all pertaining to the event. Or any photos…you took at camp, go ahead and make sure to scrub all that.”

Patriot Front members in Ohio pose with a banner.

When working to identify infiltrators who had joined their membership, Patriot Front discussed measures such as keeping lists of names and license plates, as well as IP addresses that log into their RocketChat server. However, they decided against all these measures after Rousseau, weary after being “questioned for a total of 16 hours by a panel of vicious Jewish attorneys for the Cville suit“, insisted it would be unacceptable to have such information available in the event they received a subpoena. “You should actively avoid having members know each other’s places of work, addresses, real names, and any such similar information,” Rousseau instructed his followers.

Despite Patriot Front’s claims to only be involved in legal above-ground activism, the group’s membership can’t seem to sway away from involvement with guns and violence. Leaders sometimes complain about the inability to keep their underlings from assaulting people of color, such as in one incident where a member reportedly assaulted a Latinx person, “rip[ping]” them “out of a car.”

:{:{}:

}:

According to one of Rousseau’s messages, one member attending their D.C. march “brought two fully loaded pistols to the event with additional ammunition, including rifle ammunition.“ At least one other attendee seems to have also brought a firearm. It’s unclear if the guns were present at the march itself or at their nearby campsite.

After antifascists identified Patriot Front member and 3-D-printed gun enthusiast ‘Tyler WA’ as Seattle resident James Julius Johnson, Rousseau instructed everyone to make sure any evidence of anyone talking about 3-D printing guns needed to be “trashed or destroyed“. Colton Brown/ ND – John WA then confirmed the materials of concern to Thomas were “gone” in a “boating accident.”

Johnson is not the first Patriot Front member to have an affection for manufacturing untraceable “ghost guns.” In 2020, Texas Patriot Front member Joffre Cross was convicted of federal felony charges of possessing a “Vyatskie Plyany, Model VEPR, caliber 7.62 mm rifle and approximately 1500 rounds of various rife and pistol ammunition” as a felon and prohibited possessor. In 2007, Cross was discharged from the Army after selling narcotics and equipment stolen from the Army to an undercover FBI agent posing as a white supremacist.

According to the Houston Chronicle, when police searched Cross’ home in 2019, authorities also found three homemade rifles and a homemade pistol. He is current serving a 57-month sentence at FCI-Pollack in Louisiana.

At least two other Patriot Front members–Jakub Zak, and Justin Milaszewski–have been arrested on gun-related charges in recent years. (Milaszewski allegedly pulled a gun while putting up fliers and stickers for Patriot Front, according to police who arrested him on hate crime charges.)

This large-scale release shows that while organizations like Patriot Front may seem to surface intermittently, displaying threatening banners and marching occasionally, their long-term, vertically managed campaign to instill fear and a chilling effect in the society around them continues in many states around the U.S.

Additional reporting was contributed by Ryan Fatica and R. Martin.

Leaked Patriot Front materials released for this story:

At Unicorn Riot Discord Leaks: pf3618.bloodandsoil.org RocketChat message logs | May 2020 – December 2021, 55,249 messages | [download raw JSON database files here]

Attachment files from RocketChat messages (647MB ZIP)

RocketChat screenshots (874MB ZIP)

Mega.nz files shared inside Patriot Front (Video, photos, documents and various other files)

Additional alternate download mirrors are being added

[PLEASE NOTE: RocketChat screenshots and RocketChat server logs do not cover the same exact time periods and contain different sets of messages.]

PatriotFrontLeaks on Vault.UnicornRiot.Ninja

Check out individual files at Vault.UnicornRiot.Ninja/patriotfrontleaks. (Note this may be under heavy load – Archive.org mirrors may work)

PatriotFrontLeaks BitTorrent release:

The PatriotFrontLeaks BitTorrent file release requires approximately 440 gigabytes of space. (Contains more than 6600 files). The app “Transmission” v3.0.0 (Linux/Mac) and “qBittorrent” v4.4.0 (Windows) is confirmed to work with this release. BitTorrent packaging courtesy of Distributed Denial of Secrets.

Download the patriotfront-repack.torrent file (4.9MB)

Torrent Magnet Link (For Torrent Client programs)

Note: Torrents are not an anonymous method of downloading files. More info here.

Note: If you started swarm downloading with the earlier, discontinued torrent: Start the new torrent for a few minutes then pause and quit the program. Place the old downloaded partial swarm files into the newly created torrent folder, matching its folder structure. Relaunch the BitTorrent program. (qBittorrent: right click to select “force recheck”. Transmission: Transfers menu, select ‘Recheck local data’.) This will rescan the folder (takes 10-15 minutes) and adds your previous files to the new torrent! In this way you do not have to start over from 0%.

Patriot Front documents obtained during this reporting:

Patriot Front Member Guides:

1 – General Conduct

2 – Documenting Activism

3 – Banner Construction and Placement

4 – Large Poster Placement

5 – Placement of Promotional Materials

6 – Information Security

7 – Legal Research & Compliance

8 – Stencil Placement and Protection

Other assorted documents:

October 30, 2021 – ‘2 Banner Drops, Postering, Sparring’

October 31, 2021 – ‘2 Banner Drops, Postering, Sparring’

November 7, 2021 – ‘Create 3 Banners. Drop 2 Banner Drops. Promat’

November 14, 2021 – ‘Fitness, Sparring, 2 banner drops, group stickering’

November 28, 2021 – ‘Drilling and Banner Drops’

December 3rd, 2021 – ‘Travel to Event’

December 12rd, 2021 – ‘Stenciling’

December 12rd, 2021 – ‘Fitness, Sparring, Drilling, Activism’

17 Days at Chosin

Additional Roles

Attendance Tracker 2021.xlsx

Attendance Tracker v1 – 2021 NNM

Big Drop PDF – V1 11-24-2021

December Attendance Master

Drilling Practices 11721

Driver Briefing

EvaluationProcessAndInterviewScript5921

EvaluationProcessAndInterviewScript83121

EvaluationProcessAndInterviewScript121121

Event Roles

Falls Hike_Oxt_23rd_PDF

Falls Hike_Oxt_23rd_Revised

Falls Hike_Oxt_23rd_Revised_two

Feb 5th Schedule

GabrielCASanJoseInformantNotes

How To_ Baofeng UV-5R

Ice Cream

IntermediateMeetingAndEvaluation11_11_20

Interview Script Changes

Lifestyle Recovery Main Log

Manistee River Trail Loop

Meeting 032 2021-11-15

Meeting 033 2021-11-23

Meeting 034 2021-11-30

Meeting 035 2021-12-14

MEETING INTERMEDIATES

MEETING INTERMEDIATES 121021

Nov 20th Schedule

NW3 scouting draft

NWX Drilling Itinerary 10/30/21

NWXII Weekly Meeting and Report 12_7_2021

NWXII Weekly Meeting and Report 12_12_2021

October23rdWeekend

PF Medic Document

pf meeting notes 10 Dec 2021

Radio Etiquette

Recommendations

suggested changes

Travel Guide

Vehicle Exchange

Vetting intermediates – draft

Weekly Check Ins Lifestyle Fitness

Weekly Check Ins Lifestyle Fitness.xlsx – October 2021

Weekly Check Ins Lifestyle Fitness.xlsx – November 2021

Writeup of scouting

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About this post

Categories: Racism

Tagged: Abortion, Alan MI, Alt-right, American Renaissance, Benjamin MI, Benjamin WI, billboard, Black Lives Matter, bus, Capitol Hill, Charlottesville, Clark WA, colorado, Colton Brown, Colton Michael Brown, DC, December 4, Denver, Detroit, Distributed Denial of Secrets, Eric MI, Eric Striker, far right, Far-Right Investigations, fasces, fascist, FBI, george floyd, Georgia, Harriet Tubman, Identity Evropa, Jackson County, Jacob Stephen Sundt, Jacob Sundt, James TX, Jared Taylor, Journey to Freedom, Lucca Corgiat, Luke Paule, Matthew Heimbach, Media2Rise, Michigan, Mike Enoch, Mike Peinovich, mural, National Justice Party, ND - Carter MO, ND - John WA, ND - Johnny MN, neo-Nazi, NJP, north carolina, Olympia, Patriot Front, pool party, Proud Boys, Rise Above Movement, Rob Rundo, RocketChat, Samuel VA, Seattle, stencil spray paint, The Right Stuff, Thomas Rousseau, Tony Hovater, traditionalist worker party, Trevor Valescu, TRS, TWP, Unite The Right, Valaska, vandalism, vehicle exchange, Vincent VA, Washington, Will2Rise, Wisconsin, yard sign

Published January 21, 2022

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https://www.mediamatters.org/libs-tiktok/right-wing-media-spread-doctored-footage-drag-queen-concoct-fear-pride-events

A drag queen who performed at the Idaho Pride event targeted by white nationalists in June is suing a right-wing blogger who doctored footage of his performance to falsely claim he had exposed himself to children. Even though the video was swiftly debunked by local news, right-wing media — including Libs of TikTok’s Chaya Raichik and others who initially helped drive harassment against the Pride event — pushed the edited footage, leading to abuse against the performer.

On June 11, police in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, arrested 31 members of the Patriot Front near Pride in the Park, a planned Pride event. Authorities said evidence showed the white nationalists, who had gathered at the park from across the country, were planning to riot at the event and in multiple areas around the town. Patriot Front has a history of anti-LGBTQ actions, including burning trans pride flags and vandalizing a memorial for the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting. The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated it as a hate group.

The event was also targeted by a far-right biker group that announced it was holding an event nearby at the same time as Pride in the Park, with organizers saying there were “going to be going after the groomers” while alluding to possible violence. 

One of the performers at the event was Eric Posey, whose drag name is Mona Liza Million. Following Pride in the Park, right-wing blogger Summer Bushnellposted footage from Posey’s performance that blurred his crotch. In her posts, Bushnell erroneously claimed Posey had exposed himself to minors and called for her audience to report the video to police. The video, which was debunked by local news two days after the event was held, led to harassment against Posey after it went viral on social media. Now Posey is suing Bushnell, claiming she defamed him in an effort to gain popularity as part of the nationwide effort to malign LGBTQ people and Pride Month events.

A key instigator in manufacturing outrage over the event was Chaya Raichik, who runs the social media account “Libs of TikTok.” Raichik not only targeted Pride in the Park after Idaho-based white nationalist Dave Reilly called for her to do so, but she also helped spread Bushnell’s video weeks after it had been debunked by both the media andauthorities. On July 31, Raichik retweeted a tweet with Bushnell’s video and calling Posey a “pedophile,” with Raichik adding, “This is what a ‘family-friendly’ drag show looks like.” Commenters reacting to Raichik’s post falsely accused Posey of being a “groomer” and “pedophile,” while others threatened extreme acts of violence against him, including multiple threats to castrate him.

Although the tweet she quoted was later removed for violating Twitter’s rule on hateful conduct, Raichik’s tweet was never deleted.

[twt vid libs]

raichik was joined in sharing the doctored video by anti-LGBTQ trolls including right-wing podcaster Liz Wheeler and Gays Against Groomers, with the latter writing, “If gay rights do get rolled back, it will only be because of things like this.”

The renewed social media pickup of the doctored video led to an article published by right-wing blog Post Millennial headlined “Drag queen accused of exposing self to children at 'family friendly' Pride event.” The article promoted conspiracy theories that antifa was involved in targeting the Idaho Pride event, and the header for the article included a still from Bushnell’s video, with the edited video embedded.  

The Idaho Family Policy Center, a right-wing Christian nonprofit that partners with extreme anti-LGBTQ group Alliance Defending Freedom and multiple other anti-LGBTQ organizations, posted a petition on September 8 denying law enforcement’s debunking of the video and claiming it had “reviewed the unedited footage and can confirm it portrays public exposure of the performer’s genitalia.” Included with the petition, which called for drag performances to be banned from taking place around children, was a still from Bushnell’s video. The petition remains active as of publication date. 

Far-right conspiracy theory outlet Infowars posted an article also featuring a still from the doctored video. The article suggested the targeting of the event by Patriot Front was “a federal false flag operation” and criticized the “mainstream media” for “ignoring a potential child sex crime occurring at the very same event.”

The article cited a press release from the local sheriff’s department saying police were investigating the video. The announcement came after a local outlet had already debunked the claims and released the unedited video, and despite law enforcement officials acknowledging that their investigation stemmed entirely from reports by individuals who had seen Bushnell’s doctored footage and none of whom had seen the performance in person. The stunt culminated on July 1 with the city prosecutor stating what had been demonstrated weeks earlier — Posey had not exposed himself.

Disregarding available evidence, right-wing media widely used the release to push the false narrative and disseminate the doctored footage. Stephanie Hamill, a contributing writer for Media Research Center and ambassador for Turning Point USA, tweeted Bushnell’s video while adding that the “dancer's genitals were reportedly exposed on the main stage with children viewing the ‘dance.’”[twt vid]

right-wing author Janie Johnson tweeted a link to the video to her nearly 200,000 followers, attempting to excuse the white nationalists who targeted the event and writing, “Wonder what ticked the Idaho dads? This drag demon exposed himself to children.”

The incident is nearly identical to another manufactured controversy pushed by right-wing media in which an edited photo of a drag performer reading to children at a library in 2019 was blurred and paired with the claim that they were exposing themselves to children. That smear, too, was quickly debunked, which did not prevent the ensuing harassment and an attempt from lawmakers to strip libraries of their funding.

The targeting of Posey and the broader attacks on Pride in the Park followed an escalating campaign of harassment against drag and Pride Month events that falsely accused participants of abusing children. This harassment, and the escalating rhetoric of maligning LGBTQ people as groomers, has largely been enabled by the failure of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to adequately handle the targeted harassment.

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ref no lnx

upon realizing that threatening a community gay pride event with a bunch of guns might not be the best look, officials with the far-right Idaho bikers club Panhandle Patriots are backing off somewhat, claiming that the two spokesmen who told an evangelical organizing event that they intended to “go head to head” with the annual Pride in the Park gathering in Coeur d’Alene on June 11 gave out “incorrect information.” Complaining that the media have misrepresented them, they’ve announced they’re changing the name of their event the same day from “Gun d’Alene” to “North Idaho Day of Prayer.”

But their hateful rhetoric identifying the LGBTQ community as pedophilic “groomers” is still going full roar. "We're going to be going after the groomers," the group’s founder recently told his comrades. Their vice president, Justin Allen, recently told another gathering that presenting LGBTQ-friendly material to children in a park setting was “unacceptable”: "I am not a violent man. But I am not a peaceful man, either."

Two weeks ago, two leaders of the Panhandle Patriots—Allen, their vice president, and Jeff White, their “sergeant at arms”—got up before a “gameplan” organizing session to oppose “inappropriate materials in our schools and libraries” at a northern Idaho evangelical church and told the gathering their group was planning to confront the Pride in the Park event. White told them:

:{:{}:

}:

We are having an event the very same day. That very same day we actually intend to go head to head with these people. A line has to be drawn in the sand. Good people need to stand up. And she was talking about the repercussions. We say, Damn the repercussions. Stand up, take it to the head. Go to the fight.

However, a spokesperson for the Patriots who only identified herself as “Bear” told the Coeur d’Alene Press that those men had misspoken, claiming White was only a club member and not a spokesman: “We are wanting this to be an extremely peaceful event,” she said.

Earlier this week, the group issued a statement blaming the media for misrepresenting its intentions: “It is the media’s goal to instigate a conflict, take photos of that conflict, and then produce media stories labeling our group and everyone associated with us as violent, racist, and hateful while ignoring the antics of Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and LGBT extremists,” it said.

As a result, it was changing the name of the event to the “North Idaho Day of Prayer,” adding: “The event popularly known as Gun d’Alene will be moved to a later date that is yet to be determined.”

“Gun d’Alene,” in fact was billed as an anniversary of the day in 2020 that armed “Patriots” flooded the streets of Coeur d’Alene in response to hoax rumors of the impending arrival of buses full of evil black-clad “antifa” vandals who mysteriously never showed up anywhere they were rumored to be going. Dozens of people showed up on armed patrol, toting AR-15s and wearing body armor, at a downtown shopping strip mall.

Panhandle Patriots claimed that “our event has been hijacked by extremist groups. On the Left, we have seen evidence to suggest that Antifa radicals are planning on coming to disrupt our event to provoke violence. It has also come to our attention that a White Nationalist group called White Lives Matter is also planning to attend. While these two groups are planning on causing violence, the media plans on using them to condemn and tarnish our peaceful group.”

In spite of the surface shift in tone, the statement continues in typical far right fashion, urging Idahoans to turn out in numbers “to take a stand against the progressive left-wing, which is moving into Idaho, and into our schools and libraries, with intent on grooming our children and turning them into LGBT activists.” It concludes by identifying the Pride organizers as “groomers”:

As always, the Panhandle Patriots are a Christian group that stands against violence in all its forms, and will not allow our event to be hijacked by extremists on either side of the political spectrum. We implore the Christian community to come together and show these LGBT groomers that North Idaho stands firmly against their sick agenda and that God still rules in the Panhandle.

An online media site called the Idaho Tribune helped stir the extremist pot further with an article—widely distributed on far-right social media—headlined “Antifa Coming to Coeur d’Alene for June 11 LGBT Event in CDA Park to ‘Protect Gay & Trans People.’” It claimed that “Antifa members from across the country are planning on coming to Coeur d’Alene Idaho” for the event, based on a single Twitter account urging community defense.

“Antifa and LGBT groups have taken a particular interest in North Idaho as the predominantly conservative area is viewed as a challenge to the progressive liberal groups,” it claims. It also risibly claims that “antifa” is helping to campaign for conservative Republican Gov. Brad Little.

Journalist Daniel Walters of The Inlander was unable to find any person living in the region with the name of the article’s ostensible author, "Samantha Collins." The likely person behind the website is white nationalist David Reilly, who lost a 2021 campaign for the Post Falls school board and has been involved in attempts to secretly take over the Democratic Party apparatus in Kootenai County.

Among the Panhandle Patriots themselves and their supporters, the rhetoric has been similarly incendiary and eliminationist. Walters attended one of their gatherings, where one audience member claimed he’d seen "groomers—that's the only word for it" distributing condoms to little kids surreptitiously at Coeur d’Alene’s Fourth of July parade.

"We're going to be going after the groomers," the group’s founder, Michael "Viper" Birdsong—who took an active role in the Jan. 6 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol—told his cohorts. "Violence is the last thing we'd ever want to bring. But it doesn't mean we're not incredibly good at it," he added. "Mess around with a kid and find out."

Another northern Idaho white nationalist and notorious antisemite with a huge social media following, Vincent James Foxx, has posted modified copies of the flier for Pride in the Park,with its lines drawn to resemble a warped Star of David. He also has posted the names of every sponsor on a spreadsheet with addresses and contact information.

Panhandle Patriots say they intend to start their day on June 11 at around noon in downtown Coeur d’Alene, from where they say they plan to march through the downtown area to finish up at the waterfront park where their event is scheduled on Lake Coeur d’Alene.

However, the Coeur d’Alene city clerk told the Press that while Panhandle Patriots had a permit for their event, there has been none issued for a downtown parade or march.

"I only have the parks reservations," Clerk Renata McLeod said. "I have not received any special event/street closure, nor parade request for that day yet."

The waterfront space where Panhandle Patriots intend to hold their gathering, McEuen Park, is less than three-quarters of a mile from Coeur d’Alene City Park, where Pride in the Park is planned. However, the latter event is scheduled to begin at 10 AM and at end at 3 PM, while the “North Idaho Day of Prayer” is now scheduled to kick off at 3 PM after the downtown marchers arrive.

Local residents are voicing their concern. One woman whose son is involved with North Idaho Pride Alliance, the organizers of Pride in the Park, told the Press that she contacted the city parks department to voice concern about allowing two such opposing groups to hold events on the same day.

“I said, 'This could be a big problem, and I don't think anyone realizes,'" she said. "There’s going to be a lot of vulnerable people in the park, parents with kids who want to have a fun day. People are concerned, 'Should I bring my kids? What if something happens?'"

The North Idaho Pride Alliance issued a statement urging everyone to remain peaceful in the face of the threats and provocations:

Law enforcement is aware of statements made about this summer's events. We are working to make north Idaho a more inclusive and happy place to live. We will continue to take steps to support public safety. North Idaho Pride Alliance will not be intimidated or deterred from organizing community events.

Our leadership strongly encourages the public NOT to engage with protestors they may encounter outside events or online. We ask that supportive community members and partners focus on promoting events with positivity for a successful Pride Month celebration.

Noncriminal hostile online content can be sent privately to nipridealliance@gmail.com or be reported on the Love Lives Here CDA reporting tool at https://lovelivesherecda.com/report-an-incident/. Criminal threats should be directed immediately to law enforcement.

Our highest priority is to have a fun and safe event. We have confidence that strong early interventions and keeping law enforcement aware will ensure a successful Pride month and safety for all who choose to participate.

"The threats haven't been this bad in quite some time," Joey Pugmire, vice president of the North Idaho Pride Alliance, told Walters. "I do think this could be like one of the more aggressive years for the far right."

He says the planners of Pride in the Park are well aware of the threats and are working to ensure the safety of everyone at the event.

"If people are going to try to threaten us, that's their prerogative," Pugmire says. "That's on their conscience, but we're going to try to ignore the fear-mongering as best we can."

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• MacKenzie Ryan @ The Guardian: ‘A white nationalist pyramid scheme’: how Patriot Front recruits young members.

Tags: Alex JonesDoug Mastriano Greg Gutfield Jeanine Pirro Kristina Karamo Ron DeSantis Round-Up Patriot Front

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‘A white nationalist pyramid scheme’: how Patriot Front recruits young members

Group of men wearing blue shirts and khaki pants and balaclavas standing with shields

Members of Patriot Front, a far-right group, hide behind shields after marching in Washington DC in 2021. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

The rightwing group’s workings resemble a media production company more than a classic neo-Nazi group, researchers say

MacKenzie Ryan

Fri 2 Sep 2022

In June, police in Idaho arrested 31 members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front packed into the back of a U-Haul near a Coeur d’Alene Pride event. The group had planned to riot during the LGBTQ+ celebrations, authorities said, and carried riot gear, a smoke grenade, shin guards and shields.

Stephen Ayres and Jason Van Totenhove Testify Before Jan 6 Committee Hearing, Washington, District of Columbia, United States - 12 Jul 2022

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI/REX/Shutterstock (13028181b) Jason Van Tatenhove, who served as national spokesman for the Oath Keepers, is sworn in before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol's seventh public hearing at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC on Tuesday, July 12, 2022. Stephen Ayres and Jason Van Totenhove Testify Before Jan 6 Committee Hearing, Washington, District of Columbia, United States - 12 Jul 2022]

[Trump sought to mount ‘armed revolution’, militia ex-spokesman says

Read more]

The mass arrest not only revealed the names of members of an extremist group that had long worked to keep those hidden, it provided extremist experts with new insight into how the group is meticulously planning, financing, organizing and publicizing armed demonstrations at public events that celebrate diversity.

Patriot Front’s fundraising and mobilizing efforts, those experts say, reveal a corporate-style organization that more resembles a media production company with satellite offices than a classic neo-Nazi group.

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“No other white supremacist group operating in the US today is able to match Patriot Front’s ability to produce media, ability to mobilize across the country, and ability to finance,” says Morgan Moon, investigative researcher with the ADL Center on Extremism. “That’s what makes them a particular concern.”

When white nationalism meets media production

Patriot Front was founded after the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville by Thomas Rousseau, a former member of the small, neo-Nazi group Vanguard America.

Disaffected members of Vanguard America left to join Rousseau’s organization, and for two years, primarily stickered college campuses and dropped banners with slogans like “Reclaim America” over highway overpasses.

[A man with a beard and long brown hair wearing a cowboy hat surrounded by members of the Patriot Front

Thomas Rousseau founded Patriot Front after the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Photograph: Bryan Dozier/Rex/Shutterstock]

In the 18 months after the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, many anti-government extremist groups, like the Proud Boys, Oathkeepers and Three Percenters, have lain low. But Patriot Front has geared up. The group has made unpermitted demonstrations its “bread and butter”, says Moon, making sure each event is heavily publicized on social media.

Since last December, the group has organized five such flash demonstrations. Two of them – the event in Idaho and a contentious march along Boston’s Freedom Trail on the Fourth of July holiday – resulted in national media attention.

At the rallies, Rousseau typically addresses the crowd, urging onlookers to rise up physically and “reclaim your country”.

To capture different angles of a rally, several camera operators circulate and shoot video while members wear body-worn cameras, according to Jeff Tischauser, senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Then, the media team edits the footage and circulates a video package on alt-tech platforms like Gab, Odyssey and Telegram.

No other white supremacist group ... is able to match Patriot Front’s ability to produce media, ability to mobilize across the country, and ability to finance

Morgan Moon]

Afterward, Patriot Front’s social media team monitors the group’s mentions, shares news coverage on private servers, and tells members which social media accounts to harass, Tischauser says.

The video packages are specifically designed toward attracting a younger audience, says Stephen Piggott, program analyst with Western States Center, a Portland-based non-profit that promotes inclusive democracy. And while other far-right and white nationalist groups are engaging in meme culture and recruiting people online, the group has been effective at attracting young radicals and getting them off their laptops and into the streets, he adds.

Throughout its propaganda, the group is careful to craft an image that will appeal to younger users, promoting the “idea of a young warrior” and becoming the “warrior elite”, says Moon, the ADL researcher. The group emphasizes fitness, diet and training and often holds paramilitary drills before demonstrations.

Group of men wearing balaclavas covering their faces and khaki colored caps stand in front of a row of US flags

The young recruits find the anonymity Patriot Front provides attractive. Photograph: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times/Rex/Shutterstock

Also attractive to young recruits is the premium the group puts on anonymity. Banner drops and mural defacing typically happen after dark, and members keep their faces covered. Internal chats show members using code names. At protests, Rousseau is typically the only person whose face is shown.

‘A white nationalist pyramid scheme’

Undergirding Patriot Front’s activities is a rigid, top-down hierarchy, researchers say.

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Rousseau is at the head. Lieutenants run departments of the group, including media production, recruitment and online security. Fifteen regional network directors organize local and national activities, and supervise members.

Once recruits become members, they are required to attend monthly roundups, hit a weekly activism quota, and show up to demonstrations, according to Moon. If they don’t, Rousseau expels them from Patriot Front.

Internal chats obtained by extremist experts show members complaining about the ongoing expenses they incur paying for stickers, stencils and other mandatory propaganda materials, which Rousseau charges them for.

[Group of men wearing blue shirts, khaki pants and balaclavas carrying the US flag

Members of Patriot Front gather for an unpermitted rally in December 2021 in Washington DC. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images]

Rousseau charges members a premium for Patriot Front propaganda material, Tischauser said, adding that network directors are expected to push members to purchase flyers to go on several flyering runs a month. “In this sense, Patriot Front is close to a white nationalist pyramid scheme,” Tischauser notes.

The tightly organized structure enables Patriot Front to be responsible for up to 14 hate incidents a day, according to the ADL. Under the direction of network directors, Patriot Front members defaced 29 murals honoring Black history, LGBTQ+ pride, migrant history and police shooting victims, said Tischauser.

Patriot Front did not respond to a request for comment.

‘It lifted the veil a bit’

Recent events have somewhat disrupted the group’s carefully constructed image. Earlier this year, the leftwing non-profit Unicorn Riot leaked the group’s internal audio and chats, which helped investigators discover the identity of the national team, regional directors and many other members. And following the arrest in Coeur d’Alene, all 31 names of arrested members were broadcasted and published in local media outlets, along with their mugshots.

“They got kind of the opposite of what they wanted: they weren’t able to disrupt the LGBTQ Pride events, and they got a whole lot of mainstream media attention,” Piggott said.

The Idaho arrests also exposed that their members flew into the state from different parts of the country, Piggott added. “It lifted the veil a bit. They may not have the numbers they say they have.”

[Men in handcuffs kneeling on the grass

Members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front arrested near an Idaho pride event in June 2022. Photograph: Georji Brown/AP]

Still, civil rights groups are increasingly concerned about violence breaking out at flash demonstrations. During Patriot Front’s unpermitted rally in Boston this July, for example, members of the group allegedly assaulted a Black artist and activist, Charles Murrell.

[Memphis shooting: man arrested after ‘senseless murder rampage’]

Murrell did not respond to an interview request.

The ADL, the Western States Center and other civil rights groups have urged the Department of Justice to launch a comprehensive investigation into the group, arguing that some of its activities could violate federal legislation.

“More must be done to hold the group accountable and ensure they do not continue to intimidate historically marginalized communities,” the organizations wrote in a letter to the US attorney general, Merrick Garland.

“This is particularly true at a time when Patriot Front is becoming increasingly emboldened and coordinating its activity at a national level, targeting specific locations across the country,” they added. “The Department of Justice may indeed be the only entity able to address these concerns effectively.”

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patriot front, proud boys 31? arrested pride

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/idaho-cops-inundated-threats/

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/patriot-front/ video fun

twt: Kieran Patrick Morris.

He's from the northeast but has been living in the Patriot Front headquarters in Haslet, TX for a while now.

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/patriot-front-2657499955/

no lnx pix twt

on Saturday, June 11, 31 members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front were arrested in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho for allegedly planning to attack a local gay pride event. Historian Thomas Lecaque, in an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on May 13, stresses that this alleged plot shouldn’t be viewed as an isolated incident, but as one example of the far right’s campaign for “overturning democracy.”

“The arrest of dozens of members of extremist group Patriot Front over the weekend shines a light on the new agenda for the militant factions of the far right,” Lecaque explains. “Their energies are now being focused on another goal: prosecuting a renewed culture war against sexual minorities. Packed tightly into the back of a rented U-Haul truck with their flags and weapons, members of the accelerationist fascist groupwere en route to the Coeur d’Alene Pride rally when they were pulled over and arrested.”

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The historian adds, “Police made the stop on the basis of a tip from local residents. Images of the men, kneeling and zip tied in a field next to their truck, spread quickly on social media.”

Lecaque, a professor at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, describes Patriot Front as part of the openly violent wing of the far right; other examples include the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.

“As has been the case at other times in history when political instability has drawn extremist groups into open street-fighting — a Proud Boys calling card — these groups represent the sharp end of the ax that the far right is driving into American society,” Lecaque warns. “On January 6, 2021, their goal was to overturn the results of the recent presidential election. In June 2022, however, their goals have shifted.”

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Lecaque notes thatPatriot Front was founded in 2017 by Thomas Rousseau, who is among the members charged with conspiracy to riot. Rousseau had been a member of Vanguard America, one of the white supremacist and white nationalist groups that was part of the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that year. But after that event, where activist Heather Heyer was murdered, Rousseau left Vanguard America to start his own group.

“Patriot Front members believe themselves to be the ruling heirs to the continent by dint of their racial connection to its European colonizers and consider their racial identity essential to American identity more broadly,” Lecaque observes. “Of course, this is just the sort of blood genealogy nonsense one expects from Nazis…. What makes them significant, however, is their media savvy.”

Lecaque stresses that Patriot Front should be viewed as part of a broader far-right anti-democracy movement.

“Patriot Front is just one distinctive group of many,” Lecaque warns. “Other extremist groups gathered in Coeur d’Alene to watch and harass the pride march, including Three Percenters, Ammon’s Army, PDX Liberation, Proud Boys, and Atomwaffen. These groups have their own ideologies, own brands of violence, and many of them — Atomwaffen being an incredibly clear example — are much readier to engage in violence first, foremost, and often.”

Lecaque adds, “The Coeur d’Alene pride event was not the only target. Christian fascists in Dallas protested at an LGBTQ bar at the beginning of the month as part of a coordinated far-right assault on Pride Month. American Nationalist Initiative, a neo-fascist group, planned to link up with Proud Boys to flash mob outside of a Planned Parenthood in Plano, Texas this weekend, while other planned to harass a Pride Drag event in Arlington.”

The push for anti-gay violence, according to Lecaque, “goes beyond the White supremacists and militias” — and he cites far-right evangelical pastor Dillon Awes as an example. During a June 5 sermon, Awes called for murdering gays.

“Violent fantasies about murdering marginalized communities and overturning democracy are not new,” Lecaque writes. “We have seen them before.”

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/reopen-protests-stir-up-the-far-right

right-wing protest events against states’ stay-at-home orders and nonessential business closures have sprouted up across the country, attracting far-right activists who see a friendly avenue for their own extreme messages.

​Protesters rallied in at least six states last week in opposition to measures taken to curb the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, including orders to avoid public spaces, cancel social events, and close businesses deemed nonessential. The ​”Reopen” events are the manifestation of a push by a powerful coalition of right-wing groups​, including FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity​, and the Heritage Foundation, to advance the reopening of the U.S. economy.

The Michigan Freedom Fund, a group linked to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ family, is helping organize ​the state events on Facebook, and NBC News found that a family-run network of pro-gun Facebook groups is responsible for some of the largest protest pages.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the protests have received glowing coverage in right-wing media. Fox News has advertised the protests ​while the network​’s hosts have spoken favorably about participants. The sudden spark of big-donor groups, state organizing, and right-wing media coverage invokes strong parallels to the astroturf ​origins of the Tea Party movement.

Minutes after a Fox News segment Friday about the protests, President Donald Trump tweeted, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!,” “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!,” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!”​ All three states are led by Democratic governors.

[twt]

NBC News reported that Trump’s tweets led right-wing extremists online “to speculate whether the president was advocating for armed conflict,” which extremists have spent decades claiming is inevitable in the United States. According to NBC News, the Network Contagion Research Institute recorded a major spike in the term “boogaloo,” which is a phrase popular with far-right extremists online to refer to a supposedly inevitable modern civil war.

In Michigan, protests reportedly attracted members of the violent hate groups, anti-government militias, anti-vaccination groups, and religious-right fundamentalists. The Guardian reports​ GUK that members of the Michigan Proud Boys hate group participated in a vehicle convoy​, and an activist from Michigan Liberty Militiawhose Facebook page “features pictures of firearms, warnings of civil war, celebrations of Norse paganism and memes ultimately sourced fromwhite nationalist groups like Patriot Front” was interviewed by local radio.

At the Texas state capitol in Austin ​last weekend​, members of the Infowars entourage including conspiracy theorist Alex Jones reportedly attracted hundreds of protesters for a rally called “You Can’t Close America” organized byInfowars host Owen Shroyer.As Right Wing Watch reported earlier this month, Shroyer had threatened to encourage the Infowars audience into “revolting” against social distancing measures if they were not lifted​ in a week.After protests in Michigan​ last Wednesday, Shroyer followed through on the promise and announced the Texas rally, wh​ich anti-vaccine activists ​attended.

[A QAnon supporter is seen protesting at an anti-quarantine rally in Olympia, Washington, on April 19, 2020. (Photo courtesy of Troy Schulz)]

The Colorado Times Recorder reported that “anti-vaccination activists, conspiracy theory advocates (including a Q-Anon supporter) and members of the Proud Boys hate group” were present at a “ReOpen Colorado” rally Sunday. Nathan Bernard reported that a “ReOpen Maine” rally Monday was organized in part by a state representative who “is known locally for spreading white nationalist conspiracy theories,” such as the claim that abortion and immigration are part of a plot to eliminate white people.

Protesting against stay-at-home orders has become a common cause for those among the far​-right ranks. By calling COVID-19 a big hoax, asserting that the threat is overblown for political reasons,​and advancing conspiracy theories about the search for a coronavirus vaccine, right-wing activists and media figures have created an environment ​for these protests to take hold. Meanwhile, unabashed extremists see ​the “Reopen” protest movement as fertile ground for their agendas–whether it be fomenting a rebellion against the government or ​targeting minority groups for hate.

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/they-are-racist-and-some-of-them-have-guns-inside-one-white-supremacist-group-hiding-in-plain-sight/

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They are racist — and some of them have guns: Inside one white supremacist group hiding in plain sight

Royalty-free stock photo ID: 1079286779 CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA - August 12, 2017: Members of a white supremacist group at a white nationalist rally that turned violent resulting in one death and multiple injuries.

Written by ProPublica November 9, 2019

In the hours after the slaughter in El Paso, Texas, on Aug. 3, a final toll emerged: 22 dead, most of them Latinos, some Mexican nationals. A portrait of the gunman accused of killing them soon took shape: a 21-year-old from a suburb of Dallas who had been radicalized as a white supremacist online and who saw immigrants as a threat to the future of white America.

While much of the country reacted with a weary sense of sorrow and outrage, word of the mass killing was processed differently by members of Patriot Front, one of the more prominent white supremacist groups in the U.S.

In secret chat forums, somePatriot Frontmembers embraced the spirit of the anti-immigrant manifesto left behind by the accused gunman. Others floated false conspiracy theories: the CIA was behind the murders; the accused killer was actually Jewish. Still other members cautioned that the group had its own “loose cannons” to worry about. It would be a bad look if the next mass murderer was one of their own.

But there was little, if any, regret over the loss of life.

“It shouldn’t be hard to believe that the group facing the harshest oppression from our ruling elite are producing shooters,” one Patriot Front member wrote. “White men are being slowly destroyed in a way calculated to produce resentment and a sense of helplessness. Of course, some of them decide to lash out.”

Several Patriot Front members alerted others to the need to be careful, for the killings in El Paso would likely make the group a target of the FBI.

“Watch your backs out there,” one wrote.

Patriot Front was formed in the aftermath of the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.While many on America’s far-right cheered the rally, its violence struck others as a public-relations debacle for the white nationalist brand that was sure to attract greater oversight by law enforcement.

Patriot Front aspired to help chart a new way forward: spread propaganda espousing its version of a nascent American fascism; quietly recruit new members worried about a nation overrun by immigrants and a world controlled by Jews; avoid talking about guns or violence online, but engage in a mix of vandalism and intimidation to foster anxiety; wear masks in public and communicate secretly.

“The organization is not about its members,” the group’s leader, Thomas Rousseau, once wrote to its members in the secret chats. “It is about its goals. Each person behind the mask is just another a_{woke}_n member of the nation, who could be anyone who’s had enough.”

ProPublica spent several months examining the makeup and operations of Patriot Front, which records suggest numbers about 300 members.

While the group is careful not to talk about guns online, two members in the last year have been arrested with arsenals of illegally owned high-powered rifles and other weapons. While many of the group’s propaganda “actions” are legal exercises of free speech, its members have been arrested in Boston and Denver in recent months for acts of vandalism. In Boston, three members engaged in a nighttime propaganda effort last winter were arrested on suspicion of weapons possession and assaulting a police officer. What the group touts as political protests have felt to those targeted like acts of menace, as was the case in San Antonio, Texas, last year when Patriot Front members filmed themselves trashing an encampment of immigration activists.

One person whose establishment was targeted by Patriot Front in recent months spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing the group’s return.

“Ordinarily would you call the police if somebody put a big sticker on your door? No,” the person said. “However, once you find out what this is all about, and who is involved, and what they are promoting? Then, yeah, now we are in hate speech space.”

To the Southern Poverty Law Center, Patriot Front is a white hate group and a genuine criminal threat. To some of the more avowedly violent neo-Nazi groups in the U.S., Patriot Front is a laughable collection of clowns and cowards, content to chat online and put up stickers while a race war awaits.

But for law enforcement, gauging how serious a threat Patriot Front might pose is difficult. Patriot Front shares qualities both with groups engaged in real domestic terrorism and with fringe political groups.

Asked about the group, the FBI issued a statement that reflected these complexities and the limitations they place on police agencies.

“When it comes to domestic terrorism, our investigations focus solely on the criminal activity of individuals — regardless of group membership — that appears to be intended to intimidate or coerce the civilian population or influence the policy of the government by intimidation or coercion. We would encourage you to keep in mind that membership in groups which espouse domestic extremist ideology is not illegal in and of itself — no matter how offensive their views might be to the majority of society.”

Rousseau, a Boy Scout and high school journalist before he founded Patriot Front, has much the same profile as the accused gunman in El Paso, Patrick Crusius: both grew up in middle-class suburbs of Dallas — Crusius in Allen, Rousseau 35 miles away in Grapevine; both were seen as unremarkable teenagers before being inculcated in their racist ideology online; both talk of a desire to reclaim America for “true” or “pure” patriots; both regard immigrants as a poisonous and present danger.

In the days after the rampage in El Paso, Rousseau told his members in the secret chats that such acts of wholesale violence were not for him. While fascist causes like Patriot Front’s could survive the blowback from such killings, he said, real success for the group would come from spreading its ideology and increasing its numbers. Of the alleged El Paso shooter, Rousseau wrote in a chat, “He’d have made more progress toward his goals by swallowing the first round in his magazine instead.”

In the months of chats obtained by ProPublica, Rousseau is by turns amateur philosopher and historian, as well as the group’s sole spokesman and its online policeman. He warns members that they will be kicked out if they don’t stay busy — pasting up flyers and conducting banner drops, joining street actions and posting regularly in the chat forums. He has put together a security guide to help Patriot Front members stay anonymous. He waxes admiringly about certain far-right groups in Europe, and he sees them as a model for how to become more serious political players in the years ahead. He has the secret chats routinely deleted, and he tells members to avoid ever writing or saying anything that might later be of interest to a prosecutor.

“It should be known,” he wrote to members recently, “that political dissidents are subject to unjust scrutiny.”

Pete Simi, a professor at Chapman University in California and an expert on white supremacists in the U.S., said Rousseau’s stewardship of Patriot Front is deeply familiar.

“It is very common for the leadership of these groups to disqualify violence, while doing things that are encouraging violence,” Simi said. “It is part of their strategy to avoid liability, while simultaneously promoting hate. When they say they are not violent, this is a lie. They are promoting violence by their goals.”

“Thomas’ Biggest Fear Is Someone Doing Something Crazy”

To gain an understanding of Patriot Front — its origins and ambitions, both the careful talk and the criminal behavior of its members — ProPublica examined hundreds of online postings, interviewed a person who infiltrated the group, obtained police records, reviewed its leader’s public statements online and in a variety of far-right podcasts, collected video material recorded both by the group and members of the public, and traveled to the homes of its founder and two of the members who had recently been arrested.

The person who infiltrated Patriot Front in recent years — posting in the group’s chats and accompanying it in its propaganda actions — sketched out a portrait of its members, which appear to be exclusively male:

They come from seven or eight regional “networks,” and the vast majority of them are recruited online; the typical member is around 25 years old and can be from blue-collar backgrounds or be working as “white-collar tech geeks”; many of them are gamers; few have wives or girlfriends; they can look like “the nerdy boys that sit next to you in high school,” but they clearly sympathize with “right-wing terrorism.”

The person who infiltrated Patriot Front said he applied for membership on the group’s website — the one with the mission statement written by Rousseau. American democracy was dead. The government had been taken over by Jews and other “elites.” Land claimed by descendants of the country’s original white settlers had been surrendered to immigrants of color. The dream was of a white ethnostate, in which all that was good and true and pioneering about the America of long ago could be restored.

The person who gained entrance to the group said Rousseau was one of three Patriot Front members who interviewed him on the telephone when he applied. He was asked to explain his political evolution, to say which political figures he hated and admired most, to state the circumstances in which the use of violence would be OK and to articulate the greatest threat to America. He was told Mussolini’s “The Doctrine of Fascism” would be required reading.

The chats reviewed by ProPublica show Rousseau spends lots of time online pressing members to take part in targeting streets, parks and colleges with the group’s propaganda.He and others delight in seeing their actions reflected in the SPLC’s nationwide map recording acts of hate and in the media. Last spring, the group tried to stage protests in front of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s offices in multiple cities, including New York.

“One minute of action is better than 10,000 books on ideology,” Rousseau told his members.

Rousseau, still a teen when he founded Patriot Front, makes clear in the secret chats reviewed by ProPublica that he is in charge, though he’s happy to go without a formal title.

“The title commander gives me bad flashbacks,” he wrote in a chat once. “If I absolutely had to have a title, it would probably be general director. But my name works just fine for now.”

The chats show some members regard Rousseau as a disciplined and effective spokesman for the group, and they appear to heed his repeated scoldings about preserving their anonymity.

“The enemy cannot attack you if they do not know who you are,” Rousseau wrote.

Using the pseudonym Samuel, a member from New York expanded on the idea in response.

“I would say the biggest accomplishment of masking up is obfuscating our total numbers,” he wrote. “We can make them feel as if there are thousands of us when it’s only a few hundred, and we could be anyone and no one. Next time they are at the CVS and see a white kid with a neat haircut, it could be us. Fear of the unknown is the greatest fear of all.”

Rousseau, when he isn’t criticizing members who violate the ban on talking about guns or violence, can often be found policing the group’s ideological thinking. Nazism, however popular among members, can’t now be the goal, Rousseau said.

“This is not Germany, this is not the 1930s,” he chastised. “Get a grip on the fact that we’re activists, not re-enactors trying to scratch some self-indulgent itch for a political fantasy.”

Rousseau conducts his online leadership from the home he shares with his divorced father in Grapevine, a largely white, solidly middle-class city between Dallas and Fort Worth. ProPublica went to see Rousseau there this summer, and we found the shades drawn in every window and a rusting boat filled with fallen leaves on the property.

Rousseau came to the door, but he closed it quickly and would not talk. The following day, the red sports car in the driveway had been reparked, making it hard to see the lone license plate on its rear end.

Interviews with people in and around Grapevine — those who went to school with Rousseau, those who participated in the Boy Scouts with him, a man who dated his mother — produced a unanimous sense of surprise that he’d started an organization committed to an all-white America.

He’d mixed easily with the diverse array of students at his high school, and while he was against gay marriage, he was regarded more as a nice, conservative boy than a threat. He wore his hair long, in braids or a bun, and was obsessed with working out and the state of his physique.

At the student newspaper, he wasn’t regarded as an impressive writer, but he won a national award for editorial cartooning. Classmates saw him as a lazy student and a bit of a loner, but he had a knack for argument and a stubborn streak about never being wrong. The school had its share of racial incidents, but he was never involved and wasn’t seen as condoning them.

When Donald Trump was elected president, some senior boys at the school made a show of chanting, “Build a wall.” Rousseau, for his part, was certainly an ardent Trump supporter — he wore a Make America Great Again hat and carried a Trump lunchbox. But his enthusiasm wasn’t seen as menacing.

“He seemed Republican, but he didn’t seem crazy, said one fellow student.

To someone who was with him in Boy Scouts, Rousseau seemed serious about the organization, and he was elected patrol leader. At the same time, Rousseau could be difficult with adults, developing what the person called an “authoritarian defiance.”

“I’m saddened,” the person said of Rousseau’s embrace of white supremacy.

Simi, the professor at Chapman University, said enough research exists on modern-day white supremacists to develop a profile: young men, isolated and angry in some way despite their relatively privileged upbringing in middle class or affluent circumstances, and vulnerable to invitations to join up with others with similar grievances.

In years past, Simi said, groups like Patriot Front used to recruit potential new members by waiting outside schools for the last children to leave, the loners wandering off long after the final bell. Now such groups don’t have to work so hard to find targets. They have the internet, Simi said.

“It is a central aspect of these groups to take the frustration and anger and combine it with the special feeling and insights of being part of a group,” he said.

Rousseau, then just 18, was in Charlottesville in 2017, marching in the “Unite the Right” rally as a member of Vanguard America. The Anti-Defamation League calls Vanguard America a neo-Nazi group formed in 2016 that, like Patriot Front after it, was chiefly engaged in spreading propaganda. James Fields, the white supremacist convicted of murdering a young protester at the Charlottesville event, was photographed there carrying a Vanguard America shield, though he was not a member of the group.

Vanguard America splintered after the debacle in Virginia. Some wanted to abandon efforts to disguise their Nazi leanings and simply be brazen in their public look and violent aims. Rousseau took a different tack, and he started Patriot Front as an ostensibly more strategic, savvy, careful alternative. It would embrace more homegrown symbols — the flag, the bald eagle and patriotic language. Such shifts might attract a wider membership.

“I did go to Charlottesville. Some bad activism there,” Rousseau wrote in one of the secret chats. “I’ve done my part to learn from my mistakes.”

While Rousseau publicly and in the chats reviewed by ProPublica disavows violence, some Patriot Front members have shown support for a white supremacist group that embraces it: the Rise Above Movement. Eight RAM members have been arrested on charges related to violence in Charlottesville and in California.

“Gotta love RAM,” a Tennessee member said in the chats. “I hope they see us as 100 percent allies.”

In the chat logs, a Patriot Front member from Texas provides a list of addresses for 11 people in prison or under house arrest, referring to them as “POWs.” The list includes four members of RAM, numerous men arrested for violence in Charlottesville including Fields, and an imprisoned white supremacist in California. The Texan urged Patriot Front members to write to the prisoners and provided links to send some prisoners money directly. He also listed a donation link for a fund tied to Augustus Sol Invictus, a lawyer known for defending white supremacists.

Later in the chats, a member from New York shared a link to a white supremacist online fundraiser, saying proceeds would be given to a legal fund for RAM. He then chimed in that nearly $2,000 had been donated. “When they crack down we double down and become stronger,” he said. “Hail Victory!”

Observers of white hate groups credit Rousseau as a talented in-fighter, and they portray his breakaway from Vanguard America as a shrewd coup.

According to the person who infiltrated Patriot Front, Rousseau worries greatly about his members making the worst strategic mistake: carrying out an act of terrible violence. It would end his group, he has said.

“Thomas’ biggest fear is someone doing something crazy,” said the person who infiltrated Patriot Front.

“We Are Regular People”

Jakub Zak was in bed in the Chicago suburb of Vernon Hills when police, accompanied by his father, shook him awake. The police had been told that Zak, 19, was a member of Patriot Front, and that he might have a stash of illegal guns.

“He appeared nervous and tried to cover a few items on his bed as he put on his blue jeans,” police records say.

The police, though, had a clear view of what couldn’t be hidden: a gun safe meant for rifles, as well as magazines of ammunition on the bedroom floor.

Zak asked his father to make the police leave. His father would not.

“I advised Jakub that we would like for him to be cooperative, and explained to him cooperation goes a long way,” one detective wrote in a formal report, dated April 2018. “I explained to him the decision is for him to make, and he should think what is best for him.”

Zak spoke with his father and then offered the code for the safe. If there were guns in the house, the police wrote, Zak’s father wanted them out.

The police found a loaded 9 mm pistol and then, in a second safe, four more guns, including three high-powered semiautomatic rifles. The police records show Zak’s only concern was whether he could get his case for carrying the guns back after their confiscation.

It is unclear when or how Zak joined Patriot Front. The initial tip sent to law enforcement identified him as a member, one who often posted in the secret chats under the pseudonym “Hussar.” Postings under that name — portions of which were first published by Unicorn Riot, a media organization — suggest Zak was a frequent participant in the group’s propaganda efforts in the streets.

Online, Zak posted a mix of Patriot Front slogans and images — “America: Revolution is tradition”; “Deport them all.” But there was also much more explicitly violent material: a young black man lying prone on the street and about to be stomped; a Glock pistol.

Zak, who had no prior criminal record, ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor gun possession charge and was sentenced to probation. Whether local police referred his case, and his affiliation with Patriot Front, to any other law enforcement agency is unclear.

But the basic facts of Zak’s case amount to one of the hard-to-identify, hard-to-quantify, hard-to-assess threats in the U.S. today: an enthusiastically racist young man exposed to a steady diet of like-minded white supremacists, who doesn’t find it terribly hard to get his hands on dangerous weapons. Crusius, the accused El Paso killer, had no prior record; he lived with his grandparents; his mother is reported to have anonymously called law enforcement, worried once her son had bought a gun, even if it was legal; the parents of a classmate of Crusius’ told a local news organization in Dallas that their son had been encouraged by Crusius to join him in a white supremacist group.

In a brief interview at their home in Vernon Hills, Zak’s parents would not let him be interviewed.

“There is nothing to talk about,” his mother said, claiming he was not a member of any white hate group. “He is going through rough times, and he is in a better place now. I don’t want to start anything. He is getting his life together and planning [for] the future.”

“We are regular people,” his father added.

Concerns about how effectively federal authorities have been in thwarting the threat of white supremacists extends back years, covering both Democratic and Republican administrations. In recent months, though, there has been a series of arrests suggesting that federal and local authorities are being more aggressive.

In a recent report, the Department of Homeland Security took care to restate the balance law enforcement has to strike.

“The Department must take care, while addressing the scourge of violence, to avoid stigmatizing populations, infringing on constitutional rights, or attempting to police what Americans should think,” the report said.

Last February, a Patriot Front member, Joffre Cross, was arrested on gun charges in Houston. At a probable cause hearing, authorities said they got on to Cross through phone records belonging to a white supremacist in Texas who was convicted on assault charges this year.

Cross, 33, fits what experts see as another familiar profile for potentially violent white supremacists: a former Army soldier whose association with white supremacists dates back to his active-duty days. Disaffected former soldiers are a prime recruiting target for white hate groups, prized for their gun and bomb training and their possible access to weapons. Cross, while on active duty, was convicted on drug charges and imprisoned for five years. As part of the investigation, the authorities developed information that he was eager to secure weapons for white supremacist groups.

Cross, who has pleaded not guilty, was charged with felony weapons possession after police found guns and body armor in his home.

“If you don’t know me,” Cross once posted on Instagram, “consider this your trigger warning.” Cross and his attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

Cross is a regular participant on the Russian social media platform VK, whose terms of service about extremist content are not strictly enforced. His posts are rife with Nazi videos, Holocaust denial material and white supremacists beating protesters.

One post reads: “Help more bees; plant more trees; save the seas; shoot refugees.”

In the Patriot Front chats, Cross continued to post even after his arrest.

“We have to build a foundation that can weather any storm, anything they throw at us,” he wrote last April. “We just have to keep pushing.”

“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. “I’m a dumpy middle-aged English teacher. I’m not going to get out my sword and face them down.”

She added, “I do think it’s 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.

Members give one another tips about where to place posters and stickers legally, and they urge one another to wear gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints. But in practice, Patriot Front members frequently target storefronts or places of worship, which is vandalism. Additionally, many colleges and universities, another favorite target for postering, prohibit flyers from nonstudent groups. White supremacists see campuses as a strategic location for flyering: a place to recruit potential members while attracting press coverage to amplify their propaganda.

In Columbus, Georgia, three months ago, two Patriot Front members posted flyers on and around a local synagogue, Temple Israel. “Reclaim America,” read one. “Life, liberty and the pursuit of victory,” read another. And the address of Patriot Front’s website was printed at the bottom of the flyers. The temple’s leadership became aware of Patriot Front’s history and said it was clear the synagogue and its members were targeted because of their faith.

“To me, the sinister aspect is this particular group disguises themselves as patriots, Tiffany Broda, the temple’s president, told the Ledger-Enquirer last July. “Yet they are a hate group, a nationally recognized hate group. And though we don’t want to give them publicity, we think that it’s important to bring this out of the shadows.”

“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 don’t hide our heads in fear.”

Patriot Front members make clear in their chats that such actions — almost always recorded by one of the masked members — have multiple aims: to frighten, to provide material for their own propaganda efforts on social media, and to recruit. The drive to recruit might help explain why college campuses are Patriot Front’s most common targets.

Late last month, Patriot Front launched what it claimed were coordinated actions to distribute flyers and stickers and posters at more than 100 campuses across the country. The group posted on Twitter what it said was evidence of success at 90 schools.

Michael Loadenthal, a visiting professor of sociology at Miami University in Ohio, said Patriot Front had recently been targeting the school.

“Fascists having a public presence is organizing; this is recruitment,” Loadenthal said, adding that the simple idea that “white supremacists are individually radicalized people in their basement at home is wrong.”

“They are a network,” he said. “No particular node is dangerous until they are.”

Simi, the professor in California, said Patriot Front had hit the campus of Chapman University three times in a single month recently. The school, he said, had set up a permanent conference dealing with the nation’s southern border, and Patriot Front had singled out posted materials related to the conference to be defaced or covered up.

“People on the campus get intimidated,” Simi said.

He said the school had to add security cameras and police protection.

“This is part of their strategy,” Simi said of Patriot Front. “These are things they want to happen.”

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