White Supremacist ‘Active Clubs’ Use Trump’s Fat-Shaming Tactics To Recruit For Race War

This is highly disturbing....

A growing network of white supremacist fitness clubs is emerging across the United States by openly fat-shaming former President Donald Trump and his supporters and recruiting men to prepare for a race war, Business Insider reported.

Known as “active clubs,” disenfranchised white men are the ideal members and are being recruited to prepare for a race war. Often promised a strong sense of community, with martial arts practice or workout regimens to cover up a cynical agenda, another tactic bonding over the disdain of Trump’s size. Once aligned with the viewpoints of the former president, members now openly criticize him for not moving fast enough to advance their extremist agenda or not being “a true revolutionary.”

“The groups I track have long since turned on Trump,” Southern Poverty Law Center researcher Jeff Tischauser said. He said many view Trump as a “puppet to Jewish interests who steal their nationalist rhetoric to win votes” and “cannot be counted on to enact nationalist policies.”

Videos, posted on an app called Telegram by the Alamo Active Club and Nashville movement associates, show clips of Trump rally attendees, described as either overweight or people of color, along with mocking Trump’s weight.

The concept was inspired by Robert Rundo, who founded the white supremacist MMA club, “Rise Above Movement.” His ideology of “white nationalism 3.0” advocates for nationalists to operate in smaller, decentralized groups to improve their online image and avoid issues with law enforcement.

Researchers are finding the clubs’ growth is becoming a key stable in white supremacy radicalization. “They are quickly becoming one of the most prominent vectors for white terrorist radicalization in the United States in recent years,” Jon Lewis, a Research Fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, said.

“They’re training for what they view to be this kind of inevitable race war, this inevitable violent clash for the future of civilization.”

Once welcomed in, the group’s extremist views are revealed, often filled with neo-Nazi imagery, racist and antisemitic memes, and racist articles about people of color and the LGBTQ+ community. A former member told Vice News things get started by simply making racist jokes to new members and beginning conversations about articles tackling ethnic-based issues.

Sooner than later, extremist ideology is introduced. “They believe that there’s an inevitable cultural war that’ll come, and because they tie culture directly to race, a culture war means race war,” the identified person said.

“They never were like, ‘You need to learn how to fight so you can beat up people of color. It was like, ‘You need to learn how to fight because people want to kill you in the future.'”

In 2023, a report from the Counter Extremism Project highlighted close to 46 active clubs in 34 states. Lewis said one of the most important strength values is their ability to recruit white men nationwide, encouraging them to organize and lead their own clubs.

“This is an unprecedented growth. I’ve never seen a network in right-wing extremism grow so fast. Usually, it takes years to build a transnational network,” Alexander Ritzmann, report author, said. “It’s concerning.”

These clubs don’t just find homes in the United States. Some have been found overseas in Denmark, France, Norway, Poland, Portugal and Canada. Once just housed online, members have begun to make real-life appearances, primarily at anti-LGBTQ protests.