White Supremacist Group Patriot Front Rallies During March For Life in DC
Patriot Front seems to know where their allies are.
It’s was a big week in DC for fascists. First Trump and his crew come to power, then that same day the violent hate gang The Proud Boys marched on the city in celebration. Later that evening the Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes is released from jail and hundreds of J6th insurrectionists sentences are commuted or pardoned.
On Friday, the annual anti-abortion March for Life rallied next to the Washington Monument and then marched to the US Supreme Court. As J.D. Vance took the stage to give an address to the thousands of religious school kids, priests and anti-abortion activists another group of fascists, Patriot Front started their march.
Who is Patriot Front?
Patriot Front is a explicitly white supremacist group run by Thomas Rousseau, a former Vanguard America leader who marched on Charlottesville during the Unite the Right rally alongside murderer James Alex Fields, Jr.
Rousseau who as far as we know is the sole proprietor of Patriot Front charges dues and sells members patches and clothing to keep the group running. While they say they don’t train with guns like many militias, they do train to fight, regularly carry shields and other things that can be used as weapons. The Southern Poverty Center has a pretty conclusive article about them here.
Why are they at March for Life?
I asked Rousseau this both times I’ve talked to him at the March for Life Rally, both times he skipped around the issue.
Rousseau: Well, there's going to be tens of thousands of people here. The vice president is going to be speaking. There's going to be a governor here. It's a huge political event. The inauguration was less than a week ago. I think it's a political event. We're a political group. I mean, it ain't hard to wrap your head around, is it?
It’s a truthful answer, but the fuller one is that March for Life - the anti-abortion rally that regularly sees Nick Fuentes’ Groypers, Christian nationalist group New Columbia and old Operation Rescue members - is the perfect place for them to recruit. They hand out flyers to people passing by, regularly getting cheers thank you’s and God Bless You’s. M4L attendees now recognize the hate group.
March for Life in 2022 responded, separating themselves from Patriot Front, but have been tight lipped since then. One would think that you’d want to truly separate yourself from a hate group, when so many of your attendees already have connections to clinic terror campaigns.
Patriot Front and Trump
Rousseau, like many white supremacist leaders tell media that they’re not fanboys of Trump, not MAGA cultists. Even long term Trump supporter and anti-semite Nick Fuentes has had a public falling out with the President (if you believe a word he says). Much of this dislike of the President comes after Trump had four years in the White House and didn’t accomplish the things that they wanted, and were promised - like mass deportation of immigrants or revenge against their perceived enemies. Many see Trump now as a useful idiot, ineffective but at least bringing people closer to their cause of white supremacy.
Rousseau: You know, I'm not exclusively supportive of Trump. You know, like I've said in various podcasts and interviews, I think some of the things that Trump is doing are in line with a more patriotic vision of the country. But, you know, he's got four years left, and I am very skeptical of politicians, but even so, I'm not going to make it my career to be anti-Trump at the same time.
Thomas Rousseau’s masked minions aren’t really allowed to talk to the media, at least sharing their opinions so we only get what the man in the odd hat has to say. Rousseau truly loves talking to the media. During the 3 hours that myself and a small number of other journalists followed them around DC from the Metro to the Washington Monument to the Jefferson Memorial and then back to the Smithsonian Metro he rarely stopped taking questions. There’s rarely much depth to his answers but they are long and somewhat well-informed.
Patriot Front is a white nationalist group. Their manifesto states “Our people must learn to internalize their natural identities and come to connect that re-emerging identity with their homeland. Americans are descendants of Europeans, but at the same time they are not European…” They want all non-white European people out of the United States, and to limit immigration to European nations going forward.
Birthright citizenship:
So, should people be citizens, purely by being born here? If our immigration laws were solid, if everything else was equal, then yes, but that's not the case.
On Trump’s Border Executive Orders:
Rousseau: I think they're interesting. I know they can be challenged in the court… Well, obviously, I think the border should be closed. I think not only should it be closed, I think immigration laws should be changed. I think legal immigration has been cut down. I think we should repeal the, the Immigration Act of 1965, return to the Immigration Act of 1924, which was in effect, for decades and decades and essentially lock the country's demographics in place.
We used to have a country that understood the value of demographics and the value of culture that plays into our style of government. Ultimately, if you do import millions and millions of people from governments that have nothing to do in comparison or similarity to ours, you will get a pressure on our government to be something it is not and was never meant to be.
Trump’s Border Czar Tom Homan who isn’t specifically an open white nationalist but has many of the same beliefs and holds many of the same conspiracies as a white nationalist, wouldn’t disagree with pretty much anything that Rousseau said. Homan, as I wrote in The Progressive magazine last week believes that the Democrats were keeping the border open to replace white people in America - that’s Great White Replacement Theory. Trump’s top advisor on immigration policy, Steven Miller is also a hardcore believer in the conspiracy.
The “Fed Op” to “Reclaim America”
Patriot Front only has a couple hundred members at best after 7 years. They are also up against a 2.75 million dollar Federal judgement after their members attacked a Black musician in 2022.
Many in the far-right like Alex Jones have labeled Patriot Front a fed operation, even the richest Nazi-fan in the world, Elon Musk thought they were feds. While the Proud Boys which was once led by an actual federal informant don’t seem to get this label, Patriot Front regularly has it chanted at them by people passing by. I witnessed it several times at the March For Life rally last week. The claim is that they’re not actual extremists, they’re just Federal Agents cosplaying as ones trying to get ‘patriots’ wrapped up in some sort of prosecution. As hilarious as this is, there’s zero evidence of it.
While it’s easy to see that Patriot Front is fledgling, their cause is winning, despite them. That said, any number of things could change and see them become a force, like the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers once were.
While Rousseau says that he’s not a Trump fan, and I tend to believe him as he’s a true believer in this shit and Trump is at his core, a grifter. Not to say that Tommy isn’t a bit of one as well - selling his patches and memberships to lonely white guys looking for something to do. That something mostly seems to be traveling the country in the back of a U-Haul truck breathing in exhaust fumes listening to a 27 year old tell you what to do. Maybe go to the movies or something.