By David Lawder and Jana Winter
WASHINGTON, July 4 (Reuters) – Hundreds of masked members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front marched through parts of Washington, D.C., on Saturday ahead of Independence Day festivities planned for the evening that have been criticized as divisive.
The group posted on social media that it had arrived in the capital with about 400 members, and Reuters photographers saw hundreds of people dressed in Patriot Front outfits traveling on D.C. Metro trains.
Videos posted on various social media platforms and shared on Patriot Front’s own Telegram channel showed the group marching to drummers near the U.S. Capitol and the Union Station transit center while wearing khaki pants and caps, blue shirts, white face coverings and sunglasses. Many were carrying the group’s flag, Confederate flags, and variations of the U.S. flag, at times chanting “Reclaim America.”
Around midday, they boarded Metro trains and exited at New Carrollton, Maryland, in Washington’s northeast suburbs.
Washington’s Metropolitan Police is tracking Patriot Front’s “First Amendment” activities, a spokesperson said, adding that there were no reports of arrests, complaints filed or calls for assistance associated with the group’s march.
“MPD recognizes the rights of individuals to peacefully express their views and remains committed to maintaining public safety and security for DC residents and visitors,” the spokesperson said.
Patriot Front, known for its uniforms, face masks and flash-mob-style demonstrations, formed in 2017 after the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, breaking off from the Vanguard America white supremacist group that was at the center of that protest, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
A manifesto on Patriot Front’s website says, “Democracy has failed this once great nation,” and a “hard reset” is needed to “return to the traditions and virtues of our forefathers,” identifying them as European settlers.
Patriot Front tries to paint itself as mainstream while touting “white supremacist and anti-immigrant ideological belief systems,” said John Cohen, who held various counterterrorism and intelligence roles in the Homeland Security Department during the Obama and Biden administrations.
“The fact that they feel empowered to engage in public demonstrations during Independence Day and other national holiday events provides a stark illustration of the issues this country is dealing with at this time as it relates to white supremacy,” Cohen said.
Luke Baumgartner, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, added that although the group’s symbolism tries to evoke patriotism with the red, white and blue colors of the U.S. flag, its logo uses similar iconography to the “fascio” logo of Benito Mussolini’s National Fascist Party from Italy in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s.
“At the root, they are indeed a white supremacist organization that is basically campaigning through these public appearances, whether they are flash marches, flyering events, protests, banner drops over highways, trying to spread this message that America is a country by and for white people only,” Baumgartner said.
(Reporting by David Lawder and Jana Winter; Editing by Sergio Non, Rod Nickel and Franklin Paul)
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