Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, called out a Texas white supremacist group as a “fed operation” on Sunday after she claimed the group was placed there “to create racism, white supremacy, and racial division.”
On Saturday, a small group gathered in downtown Centerville, Texas, and were heard chanting “white power” as well as other racially-charged and homophobic comments. According to Rusty Surette, an anchor for local news station KBTX who recorded the protest, the group was there because it was the 1-year anniversary since escaped inmate Gonzalo Lopez “killed five members of a white family.” The group also chose to hide their faces by wearing masks because they claimed to be “from all over Texas.”
Greene responded to Surette’s tweets on Sunday morning, writing, “I want an investigation into who these people are. This group, just like the Patriot Front group that marches in DC, looks like a fed operation trying to create racism, white supremacy, and racial division where none exist. Take your masks off you cowards.”
In another tweet, the GOP lawmaker continued: “Think about what all this country has gone through to end racism. We had the civil rights era, desegregation of schools, and Americans worked very hard to end racism. And now it looks like the federal government is trying to create racism and white supremacists groups. What horrible people that would fund this garbage to create hate, division, and eventually war.”
Newsweek has reached out to Greene’s spokesperson via Twitter and the White House’s assistant press secretary via email for comment.
This comes after hundreds of white supremacists from Patriot Front marched to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., last month while carrying shields and battle drums. At least 150 members of the far-right group, also wearing masks to conceal their identity, were seen marching along the National Mall and in downtown D.C. Videos posted to Twitter also showed them carrying American flags and holding signs that read, “Reclaim America.”
Meanwhile, experts have warned about the rise of white supremacist groups and sentiment in the United States. According to a study from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published in March, there was a 38 percent increase in white supremacist activity from 2021 to 2022, with more than 6,700 incidents reported throughout the year.
The ADL describes the Patriot Front as a “white supremacist group whose members maintain that their ancestors conquered America and bequeathed it to them, and no one else.” The organization was founded in Texas in 2017 by Thomas Rousseau and has been involved in a number of right-wing demonstrations including the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
On Saturday, Surette asked a community member for his immediate reaction to the group’s protest in a video that was posted to Twitter.
“These are people that don’t know nothing about this community or this area,” the community member said. “They’re over there yelling ‘white power’ in this community within 30 miles any direction you go, there are more African American cowboys and families than any white families. We all co-exist; we all get along.”
Greene also responded to the community member’s comments and tweeted: “This man speaks on behalf of everyone I know and most Americans. The federal government or whoever is funding this group and others need to be exposed and it needs to stop. Take off the masks!!”
Newsweek has also reached out to the ADL via email for comment.
