White Supremacist ‘Active Clubs’ Might Be Less Decentralized Than They Claim
Findings suggest some clusters of Telegram channels affiliated with the groups may be working in tandem or centrally controlled
TLDR
Open Measures found that 14 Telegram channels associated with white supremacist “active club” groups re-shared a single post featuring footage of a recent rally that Patriot Front, a white nationalist group, staged in Washington, D.C. Our analysis of when each channel reshared the post suggests the ostensibly decentralized, leaderless active club groups may be more centrally coordinated than they purport to be.
Patriot Front and Active Clubs
Patriot Front is a white nationalist hate group founded in 2017 by Thomas Rousseau, a longtime far-right activist and former member of the now-defunct white supremacist group Vanguard America, alongside other defectors and supporters. Rousseau launched Patriot Front weeks after the deadly “Unite the Right“ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, amid a flood of critical news coverage and disputes among “alt-right“ leaders about the racist movement’s future.
Rousseau intended for Patriot Front to solve what he considered to be an optics problem for white nationalism. In lieu of overt extremist aesthetics and violent tactics, Patriot Front’s public image is carefully curated, and the bulk of its efforts are dedicated to crafting and disseminating propaganda through flyering campaigns, flash demonstrations, and stylized social media content. To obscure its extreme beliefs, the group employs vague patriotic themes and co-opts mainstream conservative talking points; likewise, its members wear polo shirts and khakis and carry American flags to soften their public image.
Leaked internal documents recently revealed that Patriot Front counted more than 500 people on its membership roster this year and indicated that the membership had roughly doubled in size year-on-year since its formation. The documents also showed that Patriot Front had expanded its previously reported efforts to integrate with white supremacist “active clubs” in order to increase recruitment.
Active clubs are white nationalist groups that frame racist activism as a fitness-oriented “lifestyle” men can adopt to improve themselves while bonding with others. The groups are decentralized and leaderless, adhering to a “white nationalism 3.0“ model popularized by neo-Nazi Robert Rundo in 2020, though individual clubs frequently network with one another through social media and in-person events. As the number of active clubs has grown in recent years, proponents have also launched similarly styled “youth clubs,” which target teenage boys, and expanded the model internationally.
Hundreds of Patriot Front Members Stage Surprise Independence Day Rally in DC
This year, hundreds of uniformed Patriot Front members flocked to the nation’s capital to participate in an unannounced demonstration on the morning of July 4. The group paraded through Capitol Hill, displaying an assortment of American flags and chanting one of Patriot Front’s slogans: “Reclaim America.”
After the march, Rousseau delivered a brief speech in which he explained that the protest was meant to counterprogram the “shallow displays” planned for the nation’s semiquincentennial anniversary, which he claimed were intended to “conceal” the supposed “ethnic replacement” being perpetuated against white Americans. Rousseau said that Patriot Front hoped to spark a racial “revolution” against the “enemies of our people,” whom he specified to include “Jewish cabals,” “Mexican cartels,” “African criminals,” and “homosexual peddlers of vice and exploitation.”
Patriot Front’s protest generated headlines across national news media and reinvigorated longstanding debates about the group. For years, prominent right-wing media figures have baselessly claimed that Patriot Front is a fake organization created by antifascist activists and federal law enforcement to harm the reputations of conservatives who support President Donald Trump.
Over the days that followed their demonstration, Patriot Front and its online allies celebrated the online attention and news media interest they had garnered for their organization. Rousseau appeared on several podcasts after the event to boast about its success and call on his fellow white nationalists to take similar actions.
Active Clubs Share Footage of Patriot Front’s Rally Across Telegram Channels
Following Patriot Front’s rally on July 4, we used our platform to search for posts that mentioned the demonstration across more than 140 Telegram channels directly associated or closely affiliated with active clubs and youth clubs to see how they responded to the rally in the 24-hour period after it occurred.
Upon closer review of the posts we identified, we noticed that 14 different channels affiliated with active clubs had reshared the same post from a Patriot Front-affiliated channel, sometimes in rapid succession. This pattern suggests that a number of active club Telegram channels may be centrally controlled – and provides hints as to which active clubs may be linked to Patriot Front.
The majority of the posts we identified in active club and youth club channels were reshares of the same post from “Patriot Front Sightings”, a Telegram channel dedicated to highlighting the group’s offline activities. (While the channel is clearly supportive of Patriot Front, the account’s bio states that its posts “may contain sentiments not endorsed by the organization.”)
On the morning of July 4, Patriot Front Sightings shared a six-second video clip showing Patriot Front members arriving in Washington, D.C., ahead of their planned demonstration. About an hour and a half later, we saw the post begin to circulate among active club and youth club channels in short bursts.
Within the span of two minutes, the Patriot Front Sightings post was shared by two Telegram channels affiliated with active clubs in Texas and West Virginia, and a channel representing youth clubs across the US (“United Youth”). All times shown have been converted to Central Standard Time:
9:28 AM: United Youth (National)
9:28 AM: Lone Star Active Club (Texas)
9:30 AM: Appalachia Active Club (West Virginia)
Later that afternoon, the post was reshared by another trio of channels affiliated with an active club and youth club based in Kansas City, Missouri:
4:32 PM: Heartland Youth Club
4:44 PM: Heartland Active Club
4:44 PM: Heartland AC Public Chat
Half an hour later, the post was shared by five channels affiliated with active clubs in Florida in a single minute:
5:17 PM: Florida Active Clubs
5:17 PM: Florida Panhandle Active Club
5:17 PM: North Florida Active Club
5:17 PM: Central Florida Active Club
5:17 PM: SW FLORIDA Active Club
What We’re Watching
Open Measures will continue to track the growing number of active clubs and youth clubs using social media to spread propaganda and recruit prospective members. The rapid succession of identical posts about Patriot Front may indicate that the hundreds of social media accounts we track for such groups are working together more closely than their ostensibly decentralized structure might imply.
Further investigation is needed to confidently affirm the likelihood that channels affiliated with active clubs and youth clubs are run by a smaller number of individuals than they purport to represent, and whether their distribution of Patriot Front propaganda could indicate ties between those channel owners’ and the organization.