While much of the world in a post-Charlottesville environment has moved on to primarily focus on politicized, mainstreamed fascism in the Pig Empire, scholars and antifascist observers have by necessity also continued to track the organizational efforts and activities of neo-Nazis groups, street fascists and far-right gangs. You may not hear about them as much on the news these days, but violent fascist groups haven't disappeared in the time between 2017 and now; in fact, they're become more dangerous, organized, and resilient against efforts to stop them. This in turn means that as mainstreamed fascist political movements gain power in the Pig Empire, they have effective irregular armies of brownshirts to call on to do their dirty work; a situation that will be ominously familiar to anyone who has studied 20th century fascist movements in interwar Europe - like you know, the Nazis, Italian fascism under Mussolini, and the Francoist movement in Spain.
This August report by Jacob Wagner from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue looks at two such groups, Patriot Front and Active Clubs, to discuss how their organizational methods have changed to make them far more dangerous and resistant to opposition after the disastrous (for white nationalist street thugs) Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville:
https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/patriot-front-and-active-clubs-two-modern-models-of-white-nationalist-organizing/
Patriot Front and Active Clubs: Two modern models of white nationalist organizing
"Over the last decade, the organizational structures of the white nationalist movement have evolved to adapt to everchanging political and social landscapes. Groups across the broader movement have learned from their failures, resulting in restructuring efforts to make the groups more resistant to law enforcement disruption, reducing the reliance on a single leader or personality, and boosting opportunities for recruitment. The aftermath of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville represented a blow to the white nationalist movement. While many groups benefited from the increased attention, the wave of arrests, doxxings, and general exposure of group members resonated through the community and showed its vulnerability to both law enforcement disruption and measures taken by ideological opponents like antifascist groups. In the wake of this dislocation, analysts identified extremist groups discussing restructuring and changing tactics to adapt to the post-Charlottesville era of organizing. This Dispatch examines two groups in the US, Patriot Front and the Active Club network, and details how these groups have adapted, becoming harder to disrupt and more appealing to potential recruits.
Patriot Front’s strict hierarchy and the Active Club network’s emphasis on decentralization work in tandem toward their shared goals while withstanding attempts at disruption, posing new challenges for those seeking to counter their efforts."
The key takeaways here are that violent white nationalist groups have responded to pressure from both antifascist action and law enforcement efforts (such as they are) to stop them by completely reorganizing how their movements work. In the case of Patriot Front, this has involved establishing a strict hierarchal leadership chain and widespread compartmentalization. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Active Clubs, followers of Robert Rundo, and the larger movement that refers to themselves as "White Nationalism 3.0" have adopted a decentralized, "leaderless movement" model copied from early 80's era Klansmen; although ominously they appear to be a good deal better at operating that way than their white nationalist predecessors were.
Despite these two varied approaches, the effect of this reorganization effort appears to be the same; they are both far more resilient in the face of attempts to remove their leaders from the equation; which has until recently been far and away the most effective way to stop street nazis, white nationalist organizations, and far right gangs. When you cut off the head, the snake does not in fact die anymore. This in turn means that antifascists and law enforcement agencies (as much as they are useful in this endeavor, and believe me, it's not much) are forced to adapt their strategies to contain and ideally eliminate these movements and the "children" (movements) they will undoubtedly birth even if that effort is successful.
As you see in the UK now, we are rapidly escalating towards a war in the streets with violent fascist mobs that require no leaders to operate and can deploy rapidly using nothing more than social media incitement. Responding to this will require mass resistance, feet in the streets, and most importantly solidarity between everyone working together to stop these violent fascist groups; who are becoming increasingly bold as mainstreamed political fascism rallies new converts to their movements.
