american neonazi Robert RundoThe six-year “battle with the feds,” a fight spanning two firings, three appeal reversals and one extradition and deportation from at least two countries, concludes today with his federal prison sentence for attacking ideological opponents at political rallies in all of California. in 2017.
Together with several members of the Rise above the movementa fight club and street gang that Rundo co-founded with fellow extremist Ben Daley in Southern California during the height of the far-right movement, Rundo was convicted in 2018 on charges of conspiracy to violate the federal Riot Law to train and plan a series of attacks on political opponents at rallies in California and Unite the Right in Virginia the previous year. While Rundo may be locked up behind bars for years, the movement he created is going crazy around the world.
In the years since his initial arrestindictment, imprisonment, and fleeing the US after his case was initially dismissed in 2019, Rundo helped plan an international network of RAM clones known as “Active Clubs.” A transnational alliance of far-right fight clubs that closely overlap with skinhead gangs and neo-fascist political movements in North America, Europe, the Antipodes and South America, the Network of active clubs is proliferating internationally. There is dozens of Active Clubs in the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Germany, Holland, Scandinavia, Australia and Colombia, according to the presence of the groups on Telegram and extremism researchers.
Seemingly harmless from the outside, Active Clubs are small groups of young men who hike, train in combat sports, lift weights, and build camaraderie, all part of the original Rise Above Movement program. But the darkness is in the details: These groups’ membership often overlaps with other extremist organizations like Patriot Front, criminal skinhead groups like Hammerskins, and others. violent extremists in foreign nations. Some US-based Active Clubs are branching out into the political arena. intimidation and violencelike the Rise Above Movement before them.
“I definitely think that in the future there will have to be a mass movement, a mass organization, but when it comes down to it, do you really want a group of people who come strictly from the online world to join a mass movement without have to do it? Any experience or skills? Rundo said in a video posted online shortly before his arrest in March 2023 in Bucharest, Romania. “Active clubs are a great local way to get guys started as they move from the online world to the real world, to learn real skills.”
Hannah Gais, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center who has long investigated Rundo and his associates, says the Active Club model stands out for its low barrier to entry and its emphasis on positive community building to draw in new blood. from outside extremist circles. and an international network already prepared. “The model has really facilitated those transnational connections,” Gais says. “If you’re not an organization, you can network with whoever you want.”