On 5 July 2023, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrested Patrick Gordon Macdonald, known in accelerationist circles by his digital alias, Dark Foreigner. Macdonald worked for years as a crucial neo-Nazi propagandist and played an instrumental role in crafting the visual aesthetic that, at one point, defined militant accelerationist networks like Atomwaffen Division, The Base, Sonnenkrieg Division, Feuerkrieg Division, and the Order of Nine Angles (O9A) offshoot, Tempel ov Blood. Macdonald’s infamous propaganda, designed to incite others to violence, amplified the preexisting violent narratives in militant accelerationist propaganda and bolstered recruitment efforts for less effective militant accelerationist networks. In essence, his contributions were a critical mechanism that made accelerationist recruitment and propaganda efforts more capable and sophisticated. Macdonald’s arrest signals a clear change in how Canadian and Western law enforcement are approaching militant accelerationism; the RCMP stated that this “is the first [case] in Canada in which an individual advocating a violent far-right ideology has been charged with both terrorism and hate propaganda.” According to the RCMP, Macdonald “allegedly participated in and facilitated the creation, production and distribution of three terrorist propaganda videos”—material the RCMP claims “was intended to promote the group and recruit members, and encourages the commission of terrorist activities.” Dark Foreigner has long been a subject of focus and monitoring for researchers at the Accelerationism Research Consortium (ARC), and our findings support the allegations of criminal wrongdoing by the RCMP. In 2021, VICE news reporters identified Dark Foreigner as Macdonald and articulated how he had become the “chief propagandist” for Atomwaffen Division, a listed terrorist organisation in Canada. At the peak of his popularity, his aesthetic style and hateful artwork became synonymous with the collective visual branding of militant accelerationism. Notably, the Dark Foreigner persona never hid its ideologically motivated activity, just the creator’s true identity.
via gnet research: ‘A New Image of Terror and Dread’: The Significance Of Dark Foreigner’s Arrest