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What is Patriot Front, and what do members want?

The members of Patriot Front may be more sharply dressed than their neo-Nazi predecessors, but the 400 or so masked men who marched through Capitol Hill on July 4 share the same ideology.

Founded after the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Va., Patriot Front’s founder, Thomas Rousseau, wants to see the United States become a white ethno-state.

Here & Now‘s Indira Lakshmanan speaks NPR domestic extremism correspondent Odette Yousef, who says Patriot Front’s deliberate appeal to public sympathy belies their antisemitism and anti-Black, racist ideology. Yousef also reported on the rise of right-wing extremism on the “Motive” podcast from WBEZ.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2026 WBUR

Here & Now Newsroom