Hundreds of members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front briefly marched through the nation’s capitol under triple-digit temperatures to commemorate the Fourth of July, chanting “reclaim America” while carrying American and Confederate flags.
Images from Reuters captured the large groups of uniformed Patriot Front members — many covering their faces with white masks and sunglasses — traveling on Saturday morning by train, surrounding other passengers, and ascending from a station to begin their procession through the nation’s capital.
Roughly 400 people were captured on social media marching in military-like formations while chanting “reclaim America” and “life, liberty, victory” as the neo-fascist group paraded around D.C.
The group, formed in the wake of the lethal Unite the Right rally in 2017, promotes the idea of a homogenous, white ethnostate while viewing immigration and a multi-racial democracy as an existential threat to their vision of the U.S., according to the George Washington University Program on Extremism.
Patriot Front espouses the so-called “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which alleges a Democratic plot to replace a “native” white American electorate with non-white immigrants. The group is “known for its propaganda campaigns, including distributing flyers, staging marches, and defacing public art, all aimed at spreading its white nationalist message,” according to George Washington University.
The city’s Metropolitan Police Department didn’t report any arrests.
“MPD recognizes the rights of individuals to peacefully express their views and remains committed to maintaining public safety and security for D.C. residents and visitors,” a spokeswoman said in a statement.
Patriot Front has been deemed responsible for the vast majority of white supremacist propaganda efforts in the years that followed lethal violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, during the Unite the Right rally, according to the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center, which designates Patriot Front as a hate group.
Over the last few years, Patriot Front has made its physical presence known by marching as counter demonstrations at rallies, protests and other events across the country. Members were recently seen marching though Virginia Beach over Memorial Day weekend.
In 2022, police in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, arrested 31 members for alleged plans to disrupt an LGBT+ Pride event with shields, metal flag poles and a smoke grenade. Members were seen outside the event organizing in military-like formations after coming out of a U-Haul truck.
That same year, roughly 100 members of the group — including group leader Thomas Rousseau, who also joined the group in D.C. — marched in a “flash demonstration” through downtown Boston with fascist flags and a banner with the phrase “Reclaim America.”
When the group encountered Charles Murrell III, Patriot Front members used their shields to shove him on the sidewalk, pressed him against a concrete light post, “knocked him to the ground, and continuously hit and kicked him” for several minutes until law enforcement intervened, according to a federal lawsuit.
In 2024, Murrell was awarded $775,000 in damages for his physical and psychological injuries, pain and suffering, lost wages and future earnings, and $2,000,000 in punitive damages.
Right-wing figures, echoing claims that Patriot Front is made up of federal agents, predicted that the group would disband after Donald Trump’s election and FBI Director Kash Patel’s confirmation.
Last year, Republican Sen. Mike Lee shared a post on X reading, “Who wants to bet ‘Patriot Front’ disappears now that Kash Patel has been confirmed as Director of the FBI?”
He added that he hopes Patel “fires the ‘Patriot Front’ wing of the FBI before tomorrow morning.”
Two days after Patel was confirmed, group members marched around the Iowa Capitol Complex in Des Moines, and others rallied near the Massachusetts State House in Boston, according to local news reports.
In a post on its website addressing “fed” allegations floated on Joe Rogan’s podcast with Elon Musk last year, Patriot Front wrote that “Rogan and other social media influencers will have to invent increasingly elaborate narratives to justify PF’s continued activity despite their misinformed claims that PF has disbanded.”
