Tischauser believes the decision by St Louis, Missouri-based Hate Club 1488 to demonstrate in Columbus was carefully calculated to stoke fears and be associated with Trump’s victory.
“It was a march at the right time. “They chose their location: a blue island in a red sea,” says Tischauser. “And the ways in which elected officials and Republican candidates used immigrants during the election really put Ohio on the map for groups like the Hate Club.”
Other extremist groups, such as the Proud Boys and Blood Tribe, are also active in Ohio. “White power groups are competing among themselves, among a finite resource of people they can recruit and fundraise,” Tischauser said. “They’re trying to say, ‘We’re the realest of neo-Nazis.'”
In August, a coalition of state activist groups formed Ohioans Against Extremism in response to what they saw as growing extremism on the streets and in the House of Representatives. Its executive director, Maria Bruno, says they were grateful for the national attention on the issue of growing extremism in Ohio after the Columbus rally, but she’s a little surprised it took so long. “At the same time, it’s hard not to think, ‘Where have you been?’ Bruno says. “This is something that I and Ohio’s marginalized communities have been screaming about for years.”
Blood Tribe settled in Ohio in 2023 and a series of alarming incidents followed. 20 members of the Blood Tribe appeared to a Pride event and a Jewish center in Toledo; 26 armed members of the Blood Tribe met outside a Drag story hour in Columbus, singing “There will be blood; to coalition of extremist groups including Blood Tribe, Proud Boys and White Lives Matter gathered in front of a drag queen story hour in Wadsworth; a member of White Lives Matter bombed a progressive church in Chesterland, Ohio, which was planning a drag queen story hour.
Earlier this year, Nashville, Tennessee, also emerged as a hotspot for neo-Nazi activity. In February, approximately 36 members of the Blood Tribe and another group called Vinland Rebels marched through historically black neighborhoods in Nashville, Tennessee, chanting “deport all Mexicans” and performing Nazi salutes. Over the course of several weeks in July, a network called the Goyim Defense League held several anti-Semitic rallies throughout Nashville. (Goy is a Hebrew term used to describe non-Jews, sometimes in a derogatory way, which has been co-opted by anti-Semites.)
In one case, about 30 members of the The Goyim Defense League wore T-shirts that read “Whites Against Replacement” and stormed the public meeting of the Nashville-Davidson Metropolitan County Council, performing Nazi salutes and berating the media and bystanders with insults. According to The Guardian, nashville police chief He had learned that the Goyim Defense League had secured temporary residence about 65 miles away, in Scottsville, Kentucky. They had apparently focused on Nashville because, like Columbus, it is a bastion of liberalism in a red state.
Tischauser hopes that these groups will intensify the demonstrations, as they imagine themselves influencing and participating not only in state policies but also in federal ones. And by clinging to Trumpism, whether MAGA likes it or not, they are trying to incite their supporters to support an increasingly extreme version of their president.