Confident that this year will see Roe v Wade overturned, thousands of anti-abortionists were in high spirits when they converged on Washington DC last Friday for a March for Life — until a group of Patriot Front members, led by its founder Thomas Ryan Rousseau, above, arrived to support them. They carried a banner declaring “Strong Families Make Strong Nations.“
According to Religion News Service, Patriot Front was not the only neo-Nazi group to rain on their parade. The America First group was there too, chanting “Christ is King!”
Asked about the presence of hate groups such as these, representatives for the March for Life passed along a statement from Jeanne Mancini, the group’s president.
March for Life promotes the beauty, dignity, and worth of every human life by working to end the violence of abortion. We condemn any organization that seeks to exclude a person or group of people based on the color of their skin or any other characteristic. Such exclusion runs counter to our mission which recognizes that all human lives are equal from the moment of conception: equality begins in the womb.
Footage posted to social media showcased pushback from at least some March for Life attendees. In one clip, a person can be heard yelling, “You ruined our motherfucking march!” as Patriot Front members paraded near the rally, surrounded by police.
Footage shows a large police presence that formed a barrier between about 40 members of Patriot Front and the rest of the protesters during the march. Rousseau, 23, led chants of “Reclaim America.”
On January 8, Patriot Front turned up at a March for Life event in Chicago but, according to this report, members were given a rough ride, largely due to the media attention and community pressure.
In addition to a raucous counter-demo, after multiple confrontations and angry hecklings, the fashionably-late Patriot Front decided to follow the marchers’ orders and quickly remove themselves and drive away in defeat.
Patriot Front, the report points out, is a spin-off from Vanguard America, one of the original white nationalist groups at the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, VA in 2017.
James Alex Fields, above, the fascist who drove his car into the crowd at the rally, killing Heather Heyer and injuring dozens of others, marched with Rousseau, who was then part of Vanguard America.
Soon after the rally, Rousseau formed Patriot Front as a splinter of Vanguard America.
Today, Patriot Front is one of the most active distributors of racist and antisemitic propaganda in the country, both online and via fliers, stickers, and banners. Per its manifesto, the group does not allow women to join and is actively working to create a whites-only ethnostate.
In 2020 Rousseau was photographed by police after he was arrested in Weatherford, Texas, for criminal mischief.
The Southern Poverty Law Center carries extracts from Patriot Front’s manifesto, including this one:
An African may have lived, worked, and even been classed as a citizen in America for centuries, yet he is not American. He is, as he likely prefers to be labeled, an African in America.
The same rule applies to others who are not of the founding stock of our people, or do not share the common unconscious that permeates throughout our greater civilization, and the European diaspora. The American identity was something uniquely forged in the struggle that our ancestors waged to survive in this new continent.
America is truly unique in this pan-European identity which forms the roots of our nationhood. To be an American is to realize this identity and take up the national struggle upon one’s shoulders. Not simply by birth is one granted this title, but by the degree to which he works and fulfills the potential of his birth.