Members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front orchestrated marches around the United States capital on Saturday, many obscuring their faces with white fabric masks and sunglasses. The demonstration coincided with the Fourth of July, marking 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Videos spread across social media showing rows of men in khaki pants, khaki baseball caps and dark blue shirts taking escalators down to the Washington, DC, underground rail system and boarding metro cars. They were then filmed marching in cadence through areas like New Carrollton, Maryland, and in front of the US Capitol.
Some marchers held US flags, drums and shields. A few waved Confederate flags, a banner some associate with Southern identity but others consider a sign of racist hate. The Confederacy attempted to secede from the US in 1861 to preserve slavery, sparking the American Civil War.
The Patriot Front’s Telegram channel indicated that the group expected more than 400 white nationalists to participate. Throughout the day, it reposted videos of marchers chanting “Reclaim America” to the beat of a drum. The group’s website appeals to people “born to this nation of our European race” to assert their “right to cultural independence”.
Experts at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism describe Patriot Front as a fascist organisation dedicated to “creating a white ethnostate in the United States”. Critics have accused the Trump administration of emboldening such groups, including by spreading false conspiracies like the great replacement theory.
According to experts, Patriot Front was created in 2017 after the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. Trump responded by saying there were “very fine people on both sides”.
In 2022, Trump dined at Mar-a-Lago with musician Ye and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, both criticized for anti-Semitic remarks. Trump called the dinner “quick and uneventful”. Senator Ed Markey called on officials to condemn the march, stating: “We cannot be silent in the face of white nationalists marching in our nation’s capitol.”
Source: www.aljazeera.com