Hate in the Lone Star State: Extremism & Antisemitism in Texas

Notable Extremist Activity

Texas is home to Patriot Front, the most prolific spreader of white supremacist content nationwide.
According to ADL Center on Extremism data, Texas had 855 incidents of white supremacist propaganda between 2021 and 2022, the highest total number in the United States. The overwhelming majority of propaganda content was produced by Patriot Front, a white supremacist group responsible for at least 604 instances, or 71%, of all white supremacist propaganda incidents in Texas during that period. This trend has continued through June 2023 as Patriot Front is believed to be responsible for at least 120 instances, or 55%, of white supremacist propaganda in the state.

Founded in 2018, Patriot Front is a Texas-based white supremacist group that fuses extreme nationalism with a neo-fascist ideology. Though the group is careful with its public-facing image and claims loyalty to America as a nation, the group ultimately seeks to form a new state that advocates for the “descendants of its creators,” namely, white men.  

The group frequently uses red, white and blue colors in its propaganda and has commonly avoided using traditional white supremacist language and symbols in its messaging, instead using ambiguous phrasing like “For the Nation Against the State,” “Reclaim America” and “America First.” However, in December 2022, they began reincorporating antisemitic and white supremacist phrases into their propaganda, and in the first six months of 2023, ADL found that Patriot Front distributed antisemitic propaganda six times in Texas that read: “No Zionists in government, we serve one Nation.”  

^{Members of the white supremacist group Patriot Front marched in Austin on July 8, 2023. (Telegram)}
Patriot Front remains active in their home state, where the group’s founder, Thomas Rousseau, continues to reside. On July 8, 2023, an estimated 100 masked group members recognized Independence Day by holding a flash demonstration in Austin while carrying riot shields, a banner reading “Reclaim America” and upside-down American flags. In addition, the group frequently distributes banners, fliers, posters and stickers in communities across Texas. For example, on April 10, 2022, approximately ten individuals associated with Patriot Front, including Rousseau, handed out white supremacist fliers in Fort Worth. 

Though based in Texas, Patriot Front has a nationwide footprint with members around the country. As such, their activities occur throughout the U.S., and the group was responsible for the vast majority – 80% – of nationwide propaganda distributions in 2022, a trend replicated every year since 2019. In addition, the group has held rallies in major American cities, including Washington, D.C., Boston, Philadelphia and Indianapolis. These events are frequently the largest public white supremacist gatherings in the country. On June 11, 2022, police arrested 31 members of Patriot Front – including Rousseau and six other Texans – after they stopped a U-Haul truck near a “Pride in the Park” event in Idaho and found the extremists inside the truck equipped with riot shields. Every present Patriot Front member was charged with criminal conspiracy to riot.

Extremists target the LGBTQ+ community, fueled by false narratives and baseless accusations.
Similar to the rest of the nation, Texas has experienced a surge of extremist activity surrounding LGBTQ+ issues, including many motivated by false narratives such as the baseless, dangerous groomer narrative. In total, ADL tracked 22 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents in 2022 across Texas; there were ten incidents through the first five months of 2023 alone. While some of these actions solely involved extremists, others involved more mainstream anti-LGBTQ+ entities, creating opportunities for extremists to expose new audiences to other forms of hate and potentially radicalize individuals to join their cause. 

Several white supremacist groups have engaged in extensive anti-LGBTQ+ activity across Texas:

• The white supremacist Aryan Freedom Network (AFN) demonstrated in Texas five times in 2022, with four of those demonstrations targeting the LGBTQ+ community. For example, in September 2022, approximately seven individuals associated with AFN gathered near a restaurant hosting a drag brunch in Pflugerville. Participants meshed anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs with their white supremacist worldview, displaying Nazi flags and signs that read, “Transvestite is not a gender; it is a mental disorder” and “It’s okay to be white.”
• Members of the much smaller American National Socialist Party (ANSP) have also targeted the LGBTQ+ community with their protests. In May 2022, ANSP and AFN held an “anti-grooming” protest in Austin. According to AFN’s leader, the groups were there to protest “the grooming of children at an Austin, TX school.” 
• The Goyim Defense League was responsible for many of the anti-LGBTQ+ incidents tracked by ADL in 2022, and thus far in 2023, as they spread propaganda accusing Jews of being behind “Disney child grooming.” These fliers illustrate how various forms of hatred and bigotry can be used to reinforce each other.    
• Texas white supremacists have also latched on to anti-LGBTQ+ rallies organized by anti-LGBTQ+ groups, giving them a larger platform to spread their hateful ideologies. In September 2022, Kelly Neidert, an anti-LGBTQ+ activist and the director of the anti-LGBTQ+ group Protect Texas Kids, organized a protest outside of a drag queen bingo event at a church in Katy that was attended by several individuals variously affiliated with AFN, ANSP, Patriot Front and the 14 First Foundation. Though Neidert has stated previously that neo-Nazis are not invited to events organized by Protect Texas Kids, they do not appear to be barred from attending, and white supremacists have shared Protect Texas Kids’ fliers in their telegram channels ahead of events.  

White supremacists’ attendance at these events increases the potential for violence. For example, in December 2022, AFN joined an anti-LGBTQ+ demonstration organized by Protect Texas Kids in Grand Prairie. Protestors waved AFN flags, held signs advertising the AFN website and screamed racist and homophobic slurs at passersby. A video captured during the December 2022 event shows a masked individual affiliated with AFN grabbing a concealed handgun and threatening counter-protesters.  

Unfortunately, this hateful activity is not limited to events. Patriot Front members have targeted and stolen pro-LGBTQ+ signs and flags, and have posted pictures and videos on social media bragging about their “activism.” In one such video, members are shown burning transgender pride flags as one member states, “For those who destroy our nation, we will destroy your symbols and all that you worship, to think that we will lay down and perish, you are greatly mistaken. Burn ‘em.” 

The violent, far-right Proud Boys have also attended numerous anti-LGBTQ+ events in Texas: 

• On December 17, 2022, a group of Proud Boys joined an anti-LGBTQ+ protest at a holiday drag show in Grand Prairie that also included Protect Texas Kids, AFN, Patriot Front and American Nationalist Initiative, a small white supremacist group.   
• On June 25, 2022,  video footage  showed a group of armed Proud Boys allegedly attacking an activist outside of an LGBTQ+ Pride family storytime event at the Roy and Helen Hall Memorial Library in McKinney. According to attendees, the Proud Boys called them “groomers,” “pedophiles” and “whores.” Parents and activists had to form a wall to block them from entering and disrupting the event. 
• On June 12, 2022, approximately seven Proud Boys joined a protest organized by Protect Texas Kids at a Disney Drag Brunch event in Arlington. Attendees claimed the purpose of the protest was “protecting kids” from the LGBTQ+ community, despite the event enforcing a minimum age requirement of 21. Video footage from the protest shows a Proud Boys member verbally confronting an individual, yelling anti-LGBTQ+ slurs and calling him a pedophile.  
• On May 28, 2022, approximately 20 Proud Boys gathered as counter-protesters outside of an NRA convention at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, allegedly shouting anti-LGBTQ+ slurs at a group protesting the convention after the school shooting in Uvalde four days earlier.  

Similarly, the Texas Defense Force Security (TXDF), a security company licensed by the Texas Department of Public Safety and owned by militia-aligned Robert Beverly, protested a New Braunfels drag show in May 2023. Beverly is the former president of This is Texas Freedom Force (TITFF), a far-right militia group that protested drag shows in the state, including a December 2022 holiday drag show in San Antonio.  

QAnon Takes Root in Texas
Over the last few years, Texas has been at the heart of several notable QAnon events and incidents. The state has been home to multiple QAnon-themed conferences, highlighting the mainstreaming of QAnon and other conspiracies among conservative communities and the GOP. The most notable was “For God & Country: Patriot Roundup,” which took place on Memorial Day weekend 2021. Organized by John Sabal, known online as “QAnon John” and “The Patriot Voice,” the event featured then-Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX), then-Texas GOP chair Allen West, Lt. General Michael Flynn, attorney and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell and various QAnon influencers. During the event, Michael Flynn seemingly endorsed a Myanmar-style coup in the U.S., although he has since backtracked on his remarks.  

However, QAnon activity in Texas is not limited to conferences; on November 2, 2021, hundreds of QAnon supporters descended upon Dallas’s Dealey Plaza to await the return of John F. Kennedy, Jr. despite his death in a 1999 plane crash. The gathering came after Michael Protzman, a fringe conspiracist who was known online as “Negative48,” predicted that JFK Jr. and his parents, former President John F. Kennedy (who was assassinated in 1963) and former First Lady Jackie Kennedy (who died from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1994), would reveal themselves to the world and usher in the reinstatement of Donald Trump as president, with JFK, Jr. as his new vice president. The Kennedys, of course, never showed. Protzman passed away in July 2023; however, before his death, he and a dwindling group of followers (who call themselves the “Protzmanians”) crisscrossed the U.S., attending Trump rallies and other events as Protzman continued to issue failed “predictions” about appearances of the Kennedys and various celebrities, such as Michael Jackson and Princess Diana.

^{Michael Protzman’s group gathers for a parade in Dallas on Dec. 4, 2021. (Telegram)}
In February 2022, the National Butterfly Center, located in Mission, closed temporarily following a slew of harassment and threats from right-wing conspiracists, who have long accused the center, which is situated along the U.S.-Mexico border, of being a hub for human trafficking and drug smuggling. The center had closed the weekend prior due to concerns that attendees at a nearby right-wing conference, “We Stand America,” would stop by during a “caravan to the border.” The ADL Center On Extremism found that at least two “We Stand America” attendees visted the National Butterfly Center during the conference. In a video uploaded to Rumble, Christie Hutcherson and then-South Carolina Congressional candidate Lynz Piper-Loomis, visited the center, asking aloud, “Why are you more concerned about butterflies than you are about the little children who are being trafficked right behind this center? They use the butterfly land to come up through and bring these children who are trafficked and these women who are trafficked.” 

The month prior, Kimberly Lowe, a Congressional candidate from Virginia, showed up at the center with a woman claiming to be a Secret Service agent, demanding access to the property so that they could see where migrants were crossing.