ALL OUT FOR CHICAGO 2022: Patriot Front at March for Life

From January 2022

Grab your friends, and some masks, and make a plan to confront the losers who think that people of color and Jews are the reason their lives are miserable and they don’t have a girlfriend. Patriot Front, an American Fascist organization, will be attending and recruiting new white nationalist members at the March for Life Chicago rally on January 8, 2022, from 1-3pm at Federal Plaza in Chicago. Counterprotesters will be nearby at 219 S Dearborn, starting at 12:30pm

For context, Patriot Front is a rebrand from one of the original white nationalist groups at the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, VA in 2017. The fascist who drove his car into the crowd, killing Heather Heyer and injuring dozens of others, marched at the rally with teenager Thomas Ryan Rousseau of Vanguard America, a neo-Nazi group. For more information on James Alex Fields, click here. Soon after the rally, Rousseau formed Patriot Front as a splinter of Vanguard America. Today, Patriot Front is one of the most active distributors of racist and antisemitic propaganda in the country, both online and via fliers, stickers, and banners. Per its manifesto, the group does not allow women to join and is actively working to create a whites-only ethnostate.

Since 2017, Patriot Front has also held several “flash mob” events, where they are easily spotted in their uniform of khaki pants, polo shirts, ball caps, and white gaiter masks, and carrying American flags, smoke bombs or other props. At these events, their uniformed members will unload from the back of a rented U-Haul or Penske box truck, then briefly march along their planned route through the city, usually at night when there are few bystanders. The purpose of these marches is to generate footage for a few minutes of flashy recruitment videos for their social media channels.

Thanks to comrades at Atlanta Antifascists, we share this audio from a meeting where Patriot Front leader Thomas Rousseau announces to his fellow white nationalists that their plans include attending the March for Life Chicago at downtown Federal Plaza starting at 1pm on Saturday, January 8, 2022, with counterprotesters meeting at 12:30pm. Patriot Front says they’ll be in Washington DC on January 22, 2022.

Let's review some key points from Patriot Front's latest private meeting, shall we?

It sounds like they experienced some disruptions at their D.C. march last weekend, causing them to postpone their awards ceremony.

Also, Thomas has pretty strict rules about clapping. pic.twitter.com/2s78g10skB

— Front Range Antifascists (@FrontRangeAFA) December 11, 2021

Above find more highlights from the Nazis’ conference call, (archive here) punctuated by clapping, courtesy of Front Range AFA. It is important to note that Patriot Front has been angling for greater access to the March for Life’s large conservative, anti-abortion population since 2018, and in the above audio, the leader says they’ve achieved it. Links to press coverage of their presence are here, over here, there and finally, here.

To tie everything together, the group intending to show up at March for Life, Patriot Front is a white supremacist and fascist group that uses the language of patriotism and conservative causes, including anti-choice agendas, along with public spectacle in order to grow their numbers, and ultimately to further normalize their agenda. Patriot Front has made a point of showing up at events with generally mainstream conservative causes, like March for Life and fascist political party events, both to reach a greater audience who they see as more likely to become sympathetic to their own and to create the false perception that they’re already being embraced and accepted by the mainstream of right-wing movements. The latter intending to remove the perceived stigma attached to their violent ethno-nationalism. In some cases, their presence has even been opposed by the organizers of these conservative events, doubtless afraid of the image involved in being pictured along neo-nazis.

Whether the organizers of March for Life wish to allow Patriot Front to march with them and continue to organize in their midst or not, Chicago as a community and the surrounding areas will respond to their planned presence. Goals include disrupting their spectacle and organizing as well as showing them they are not welcome in our city. Bring a friend, bring a mask, bring your yelling voice. On Saturday, January 8 at 1pm at Fedaral Plaza in Chicago, IL stand with us all to face them, frustrating their ability to continue to increase their membership, making clear to their current membership that they will not have a friendly reception anywhere they go, and denying them the appearance of public acceptance, we can make sure that they are only seen as a Patriot Fail.

Nazis are not supposed to be debated. They are to be stopped. Join comrades and other counterprotesters to the March for Life and Patriot Front will be gathering at 219 S Dearborn, Chicago IL at 12:30pm. Everyone is welcome!