When “a little army” of men with shields and other riot gear was spotted near a Pride parade in Idaho on Saturday, authorities soon linked the men to a relatively new White nationalist group and charged them with conspiracy to riot. “It is clear to us based on the gear that the individuals had with them, the stuff they had in their possession, the U-Haul with them along with paperwork that was seized from them, that they came to riot downtown,” Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White said. Among those arrested was Thomas Ryan Rousseau — the leader of Patriot Front, the sheriff’s office said. In total, 31 people from at least 12 states were arrested and charged with conspiracy to riot. All have been released on bond. Most of the men arrested had logos on their hats “consistent with the Patriot Front group,” and some had other clothing associated with the White supremacist group, White said. (…) “Patriot Front is a white supremacist group whose members maintain that their ancestors conquered America and bequeathed it to them, and no one else,” the ADL said. “Patriot Front justifies its ideology of hate and intolerance under the guise of preserving the ethnic and cultural origins of its members’ European ancestors.” The group’s manifesto claims those in America who are not of European ancestry are not truly American.
siehe auch: Who are the Patriot Front, the 31 masked white supremacists arrested in Idaho for targeting a Pride event?Patriot Front is a white nationalist organization that sprang from neo-Nazi group Vanguard America. Patriot Front has committed numerous acts of vandalism and targeted marginalized communities. 31 members were arrested and identified on Saturday near a Pride rally in Idaho. (…) Patriot Front originated in 2017 following the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The movement formed as an offshoot and rebrand of Vanguard America, a neo-Nazi group whose ideology shares many similarities with Patriot Front’s, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. James Alex Fields Jr., the white supremacist who killed Heather Heyer and injured numerous others after driving into them at the rally, was associated with Vanguard America. Patriot Front’s belief system revolves around white nationalist ideas of crusading against what it euphemistically calls “replacement populations”—a reference to the white nationalist conspiracy of non-white immigrants “replacing” white citizens, which has been cited by multiple far-right mass shooters. The group promotes a white ethnostate for America, according to the SPLC.