Photos and videos shared across social media in mid-May documented an unsettling sight in south central Kentucky: coordinated demonstrations by members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front in Bowling Green and Munfordville.
Experts who study extremist movements say the group’s tactics — including carefully managed public demonstrations and coded messaging — reflect a broader strategy aimed at normalizing white nationalist ideology while avoiding the overt imagery and rhetoric historically associated with hate groups.
More than a dozen men affiliated with Patriot Front gathered in downtown Bowling Green on May 9, marching through Fountain Square Park while carrying American flags, Confederate flags, and banners associated with far-right and libertarian movements.
Participants wore matching khaki pants, dark shirts, white face coverings, and hats — a uniform appearance common in Patriot Front demonstrations nationwide.
One banner carried by the group read, “America is not for sale.” Demonstrators also distributed printed literature promoting what the organization describes as the interests of the descendants of “original European settlers.”
Later that same day, a Kentucky Public Radio reporter driving in Munfordville, a Hart County community roughly 45 miles north of Bowling Green, reported seeing what appeared to be the same group assembled outside city hall and the old courthouse.
Munfordville Police Chief Ryan Riggs said local officials had no advance warning that the group planned to stop in town.
“It was a surprise to me,” Riggs said. “I came through town and I saw the folks, and no, I don’t believe they received any permitting.”
Riggs said the city does not require permits for public demonstrations, and officers received no reports of violence or criminal activity connected to the gathering.
“I had one officer out working that day, and he had let me know that nothing out of the way had occurred besides them being at the old courthouse here in Munfordville,” Riggs said.
The city’s police department is small, consisting of five full-time officers and one part-time officer, Riggs said. Because of those limitations, the department generally takes a hands-off approach to peaceful demonstrations regardless of political ideology.
“If what they believe is what I’ve been told, it’s a shame,” Riggs said. “But at the same time, free speech is protected, even hateful speech, unfortunately.”
What does ‘Patriot Front’ stand for?
Patriot Front emerged in the aftermath of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, one of the most infamous white supremacist gatherings in modern American history. It culminated in violence that killed one counterprotester and injured dozens of others.
The organization split from the neo-Nazi group Vanguard America following internal disputes after the rally.
Since then, Patriot Front has become one of the country’s most visible white nationalist organizations. The group regularly stages marches and demonstrations in cities across the US, often filming and photographing the events for online propaganda and recruitment.
Marcus Brooks, an assistant professor in Western Kentucky University’s Sociology and Criminology Department who studies extremist movements and right-wing political organizing, said Patriot Front reflects a broader evolution in how modern white nationalist groups present themselves publicly.
Brooks said many contemporary extremist organizations differ significantly from older public perceptions shaped by groups like the Ku Klux Klan or mid-century neo-Nazi movements.
“They’ve always been politically intelligent in terms of knowing what to say, when to say it, and who to say it to,” Brooks said.
According to Brooks, white nationalist movements have spent decades adapting their rhetoric in response to changing social norms following the Civil Rights Movement.
“The explicit racism that you saw before that is not quite as tenable,” Brooks said. “So we kind of entered this era that scholars call ‘The Era of Colorblindness,’ where the explicit racism has gone underground.”
But Brooks said the rise of social media, internet culture, and broader political polarization over the last decade helped move many extremist ideologies from fringe online spaces into increasingly public forums.
“What we’re seeing now is kind of an amalgamation,” Brooks said. “The groups themselves are becoming more visible and more public, but at the same time, they still have to use coded language.”
Brooks said Patriot Front in particular has become highly effective at what he describes as “information laundering” — repackaging extremist ideology into language centered around identity, heritage, fitness, activism, and community.
“The message that they’re giving out in their literature and their manifesto is about, ‘Let’s preserve the white heritage of the nation,'” Brooks said. “So, ‘we want to build strong white men so they can build strong white families that are headed by strong white women to build a strong white community.'”
Unlike traditional white supremacist propaganda, the pamphlets distributed in Munfordville did not contain racial slurs or explicit calls for violence. Instead, they emphasized concepts like discipline, physical fitness, family structure, and cultural preservation.
Brooks said that framing is deliberate.
“What this ad is offering people is a community,” Brooks added. “It’s safety, respect, dignity — both physically and within your community.”
Rather than publicly framing themselves around hatred toward minority groups, Brooks said many modern white nationalist organizations instead present themselves as defenders of white identity and culture.
“The public marketing is, ‘Oh, hey, we just love ourselves and we want to care for ourselves,'” Brooks said. “If Latino Americans can have their groups and Black Americans can have their groups, then white Americans should be allowed to celebrate their heritage too.”
Brooks said the underlying ideology, however, remains rooted in exclusionary ideas about race and national identity.
The group’s references to “European settlers” are especially important, he said.
“Patriot Front in particular sees descendants of European settlers as the real Americans — and not just Patriot Front, other groups too,” Brooks said. “That mythology and that heritage is what they’re offering people.”
Brooks said modern extremist movements also frequently combine white nationalist rhetoric with broader populist grievances surrounding economic decline, distrust of political elites, and feelings of social displacement.
The “America is not for sale” banner carried during the Bowling Green demonstration may reflect some of those broader themes, Brooks said.
“There’s kind of a rejection of the idea that we are going to be ruled by the 1% or the elite, even if they’re not in government, even if they’re just the wealthy class,” Brooks said.
Brooks argued that many far-right groups capitalize on real frustrations surrounding wages, economic insecurity, healthcare costs, and political distrust, but redirect those frustrations toward immigrants, multiculturalism, or minority communities.
As people’s material conditions stagnate, these groups see societal improvement as a zero-sum game surrounding race, where multiculturalism comes at the expense of white Americans, Brooks says.
He added that sense of victimhood has become central to many extremist organizations’ recruitment strategies.
Confronting Hate in Your Community
The demonstrations in Bowling Green and Munfordville prompted immediate reactions online from residents who described feeling disturbed, angry, or frightened by the group’s presence. Others questioned how communities should respond when extremist organizations appear publicly.
Brooks cautioned that direct confrontations or violent pushback with groups like Patriot Front can sometimes strengthen their messaging.
“They get a lot of currency on producing victimhood,” Brooks said. “When they are seen as attacked or pushed out of places, or seen as the radical left wing attacking them, that reinforces their narrative.”
Videos of confrontations can later be circulated online as propaganda portraying the group as persecuted for exercising free speech rights, he said.
Instead, Brooks recommends peaceful counterdemonstrations and visible community responses that reject extremist ideology without escalating tensions.
“I think a positive counterprotest is a way to situate a group in the same geographic space, and offer a counter message without directly engaging the group,” Brooks said. “Because in my perspective, that [engagement] is exactly what they want.”
The First Amendment broadly protects public demonstrations, including speech widely viewed as hateful or offensive, as long as participants do not directly incite violence or violate other laws.
That creates difficult questions for local governments and law enforcement agencies when extremist organizations appear in public spaces.
Riggs said Munfordville police monitored the gathering but did not intervene because no laws were being broken.
“As long as things are peaceful, we let people express their feelings,” Riggs said.
Riggs said demonstrations of any kind remain relatively uncommon in Munfordville, though the town has occasionally hosted religious activists and political demonstrations in recent months, including “No Kings” protests.
As for why Patriot Front chose Munfordville specifically, Riggs said he could only speculate.
“We’re a small town of 1,600 wonderful people that is peaceful and has a lot of great events and concerts and stuff,” Riggs said. “But as far as coming and protesting here, I couldn’t even guess why you’d want to come specifically here.”
Even so, many extremist groups intentionally seek visibility in smaller communities as well as larger cities because the resulting photos and videos can spread far beyond the demonstrations themselves.
While some communities may hope law enforcement alone can suppress extremist organizing, Brooks said the roots of radicalization are often tied to broader economic and social anxieties.
“I don’t think we can arrest our way out of this problem,” Brooks said.
Instead, he argued that improving wages, healthcare access, labor conditions, and broader economic stability may ultimately prove more effective at reducing recruitment into extremist movements.
“When people feel pinched, they look for someone to blame,” Brooks said. “That’s when we see people turn toward these groups.”
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