Field Notes: Patriot Front's White Supremacists Propaganda Network

From handing out water and with White Supremist fliers in East Palestine, Ohio to posting racists stickers on college campuses, Patriot Front responsible for 'vast majority' of racists propaganda.

Members of Patriot Front in north Ohio. (Image: Telegram)

Patriot Front is a White Nationalist group which splintered from the neo-Nazi group Vanguard America in the wake of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and “rehabilitated the explicitly fascist agenda of Vanguard America with garish patriotism.” The group “justifies its ideology of hate and intolerance under the guise of preserving the ethnic and cultural origins of its members’ European ancestors.”

There are many on the far right that have dismissed Patriot Front as a legitimate organization, often claiming that Patriot Front is a “fed op” or “psyop.” Among the most common phrases used by the far right online to dismiss the group is “Patriot Front is everywhere.”

During 2023, there have been at least 44 documented incidents of activity by Patriot Front, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED). Patriot Front has been active in at least 20 states including Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Washington.

Patriot Front “was responsible for the vast majority – 80 percent – of propaganda distributions in 2022,” according to a recent report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

HateWatch Patriot Front Timeline

“The white nationalist hate group Patriot Front formed in 2017 in Texas and is one of the most active operating in the U.S. Over the years, numerous Hatewatch investigations have revealed the group’s racist intent and the destructive behavior of the violent young men the group attracts.”

Listen to my recent discussion on Twitter Spaces with Devin Burghart, executive director of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, and Steven Monacelli, special investigative correspondent for the Texas Observer, about Patriot Front and other neo-fascists groups.

This Week in Extremism: Patriot Front, WLM, and Rising Neo-Fascists

Patriot Front Recent Activities

Members of Patriot Front were charged with conspiracy to riot outside of a Pride event in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and 5 of the 31 have skipped court and “all 5 have active warrants out for their arrest.”