Statement on Patriot Front Marching in DC
Date: July 8, 2026
Media Contact: For all press inquiries, please contact media@mdcdsa.org.
Washington, DC: Metro DC DSA fully condemns the open rally of hundreds of Patriot Front white supremacists who marched in Washington, DC on the weekend of July 4th. We call on all Americans to oppose the military occupation and second-class citizenship of the District of Columbia that allows this state of affairs.
Metro DC DSA has long stood opposed to white supremacy. Our chapter was proud to march in protest against white supremacists and neo-Nazis when they organized a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, VA in 2017. It is horrifying, but not surprising, that the descendants of those same forces now feel emboldened to show their face in our nation’s capital on July 4th, Independence Day.
They are trying to send the message that America, and Washington DC, belongs to them by right, and that all other Americans exist at their whim. All people of good conscience must oppose these fascists, and oppose the Trump administration and Republican Party which march in lockstep with them.
The spectacle of Patriot Front has been enabled by the nearly year-long military occupation of DC, and the white supremacist, anti-democratic, pro-fascist actions of the Trump administration. Patriot Front’s presence in DC this weekend evoked the horrors of slave patrols, lynch mobs, and violent colonists who enslaved, terrorized, and murdered millions in this country’s past. Patriot Front openly claims and defends this history, as does Trump’s DHS in its social media posts. Patriot Front wants to abolish birthright citizenship; a shocking number of Trump’s Supreme Court Justices agree. National Guard officers—deputized by Trump to fight so-called “rampant crime,” and today patrolling and occupying much of the District—have been documented harassing and criminalizing residents of DC, including those who engage in civil disobedience against the occupation. Patriot Front marched with full protection of the law. Their baseball caps, masks, and sunglasses consciously ape the ICE agents who have been kidnapping immigrants and people of color across the greater DC region.
These fascists have the confidence to march in our nation’s capital on its 250th anniversary because they feel the White House is behind them. It is up to we, the people, to make that impossible.
The only cure for fascism is democratic socialism. The District of Columbia does not have the same rights as other states, because we are not a state. Our residents are deprived of representation in Congress; we are more heavily policed than any state in the Union, per capita; we have been occupied by armed troops; and now we are subject to fascists marching through our neighborhoods. Self-determination is a democratic socialist principle, and DC residents deserve it just as much as anybody does.
Metro DC DSA looks forward to working with our incoming democratic socialist mayor, and a wave of democratic socialist and progressive energy on the DC Council, to preserve DC’s autonomy and fight for statehood and equal rights for all DC residents. We call upon all Americans of good conscience to pressure your elected representatives: ensure DC autonomy, oppose any legislation that would weaken it, return National Guard forces to your respective states, and fight for our statehood. #FreeDC!