Donald Trump has faced condemnation for failing to forcefully reject white nationalists during his two terms as president.
Members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front have orchestrated marches around the United States capital, many obscuring their faces with white fabric masks and sunglasses.
On Saturday, videos spread across social media showing rows of men in khaki pants, khaki baseball caps and dark blue shirts taking escalators down to the Washington, DC, underground rail system and boarding metro cars.
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They were then filmed marching in cadence through areas like New Carrollton, Maryland, part of the capital’s metropolitan area. Others appeared in front of the US Capitol.
Some of the marchers held US flags, drums and shields. A few waved Confederate flags, a banner some associate with Southern identity but others consider a sign of racist hate. The Confederacy attempted to secede from the US in 1861 in a bid to preserve slavery, thereby sparking the American Civil War.
The demonstration coincided with the Fourth of July, the Independence Day holiday in the US. This year was a particularly poignant anniversary, marking 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The Patriot Front’s Telegram channel indicated that the group expected more than 400 white nationalists to participate in Saturday’s events. Throughout the day, it reposted videos of the marchers, some of whom chanted “Reclaim America” to the beat of a drum.
The group’s website appealed to people “born to this nation of our European race” to assert their “right to cultural independence”.
Experts at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism have described the Patriot Front as a fascist organisation dedicated to “creating a white ethnostate in the United States”.
Critics have accused the administration of President Donald Trump of emboldening such groups, including by spreading false conspiracies like the great replacement theory, a racist belief which posits that white Christians are being supplanted by minorities.
According to experts, the Patriot Front was created in 2017 after the “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017.
That rally saw white supremacists and neo-Nazis converge on Charlottesville, Virginia. One white supremacist, James Alex Fields Jr, attacked nearby counter-protesters by driving his car into a crowd, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
Trump, who was midway through his first term as president at the time, responded to the incident by saying, “You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides.”
Critics have repeatedly slammed Trump for refusing to forcefully reject the support of white nationalists.
In 2022, for instance, Trump dined at his Mar-a-Lago resort with musician Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, both of whom have faced criticism for anti-Semitic remarks.
“We had dinner on Tuesday evening with many members present on the back patio. The dinner was quick and uneventful,” Trump wrote at the time.
Trump himself has faced multiple accusations of racism, including after posting a video earlier this year depicting former Democratic President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama as apes.
Senator Ed Markey was among those calling on officials to condemn Saturday’s march.
“We cannot be silent in the face of white nationalists marching in our nation’s capitol. From Massachusetts to Washington D.C. hatred and bigotry have no place here,” Markey posted on social media.
