Active Clubs are a modern, decentralized form of white-supremacist organizing that uses fitness, combat sports, friendship, and online culture as gateways into neo-Nazi and broader white-supremacist politics. Active Club leaders have explicitly described the combination of athletics and social activity as a way of introducing people who might not otherwise be interested in far-right extremism to white-supremacist politics. Over the past few years, neo-Nazi Active Clubs have been growing like wildflowers, with many dedicated to recruiting and training white-supremacist teenage boys and girls. The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism”s (GPAHE) most recent investigation into these white supremacist fighting groups has found “a 28 percent increase in Active Club (AC) chapters, along with a 142 percent increase in Youth Clubs, which are Active Club chapters reserved for teenagers aged 15 to 18 years old” (https://globalextremism.org/post/neo-nazi-active-clubs-increasingly-recruiting-teenage-boys-and-girls/). “These chapters, which now include girls-only groups,” GPAHE noted, “are using mainstream social media platforms, such as Instagram and YouTube, to recruit new members.” Including Youth Clubs, there are now 220 active AC chapters in 33 countries – representing a 28 percent increase in chapters from the 187 active chapters in 27 countries recorded by GPAHE in June 2025. Likewise, Youth Clubs (included in the above count) have seen their chapter numbers grow from 19 in 2025 to 46 in 2026, a staggering 142 percent increase. The United States alone saw the creation of thirteen Youth Clubs over the past year. Since 2023, GPAHE has identified 298 Active Club chapters, of which 78 have either had their social media accounts deleted, have not posted to their accounts since January 2026, or lack other evidence showing they are still functioning. It is unclear whether any of these groups have truly disbanded, simply been deplatformed, or are operating underground. Active Clubs first emerged as a network in 2020, when white nationalist Robert Rundo began developing the concept while in Europe. The network grew in the United States beginning in 2021. Rundo had previously founded the Rise Above Movement (RAM), a predecessor to the Active Clubs, in 2017. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Active Club profile, the clubs “first evolved from Rundo’s collaboration with Russian-German neo-Nazi activist Denis Yevgenyevich Kapustin, who is known in the movement as ‘Denis Nikitin’ and ‘White Rex’ (https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/active-clubs/).
via dailykos: From Fitness to Fascism: Neo-Nazi Active Clubs Are Recruiting Teens
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