Henry Stout runs the neo-Nazi Aryan Freedom Network with his partner. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
HOCHATOWN,
Oklahoma - Wearing cargo shorts, flip-flops and a baseball cap shading
his eyes from the sun, Dalton Henry Stout blends in easily in rural
America.
Except
for the insignia on his hat. It bears the skull and crossbones of the
infamous “Death’s Head” SS units that oversaw Nazi Germany’s
concentration camps – and the initials “AFN,” short for Aryan Freedom
Network, the neo-Nazi group Stout leads with his partner.
From
a modest ranch house in Texas, the couple oversee a network they say
has been turbocharged by President Donald Trump’s return to the White
House. They point to Trump’s rhetoric – his attacks on diversity
initiatives, his hardline stance on immigration and his invocation of
“Western values” – as driving a surge in interest and recruitment.
Trump
“awakened a lot of people to the issues we’ve been raising for years,”
Stout told Reuters. “He’s the best thing that’s happened to us.”
While
the Aryan Freedom Network and other neo-Nazi groups remain on the
outermost edges of American politics, broadly regarded as toxic by
conservatives and mainstream America, they are increasingly at the
center of far-right public demonstrations and acts of violence,
according to interviews with a dozen members of extremist groups, nine
experts on political extremism and a review of data on far-right
violence.
Several
trends have converged since Trump’s re-election, Reuters found. Trump’s
rhetoric has galvanized a new wave of far-right activists, fueling
growth in white supremacist ranks. Trump’s pardons of January 6 rioters
and a shift in federal law enforcement’s focus toward immigration have
also led many on the far right to believe that federal investigations
into white nationalists are no longer a priority.
[Trump] awakened a lot of people to the issues we’ve been raising for years. He’s the best thing that’s happened to us.
Henry Stout, a leader of the white nationalist group Aryan Freedom Network
And
the boundaries of the far right itself are shifting. Ideas once
confined to fringe groups like the Proud Boys – who helped lead the
January 6 siege – are now more visible in Republican politics, from
election denialism to rhetoric portraying immigrants as “invaders.”
Trump’s public support and pardons for far-right figures helped
normalize those views, the researchers said. As the Make America Great
Again movement has come to define the party’s identity, the line
separating the far right from mainstream conservatism has grown
increasingly difficult to draw, they added.
What
was once extreme now blends more easily into the broader far-right, not
because those extreme groups have changed, but because the terrain
around them has, said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project
Against Hate and Extremism, a nonprofit that tracks hate speech and
extremism. “A Proud Boy doesn’t even seem that scary anymore because of
the normalization process,” she said.
That
shift has coincided with a surge in white nationalist activity. White
extremists are committing a growing proportion of U.S. political
violence, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data
project, a nonprofit research outfit that tracks global conflicts. In
2020, such groups were linked to 13% of all U.S. extremist-related
demonstrations and acts of political violence, or 57 of the events ACLED
tracked. By 2024, they accounted for nearly 80%, or 154 events.
Ideas
once confined to fringe groups like the Proud Boys are now more visible
in mainstream Republican politics. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
Trump has denied that he supports white extremism, and the White House rejects the notion that his rhetoric promotes racism.
“President
Trump is a president for all Americans and hate has no place in our
country,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in response to
questions for this story. “President Trump is focused on uniting our
country, improving our economy, securing our borders, and establishing
peace across the globe.” Fields also pointed to a significant rise in
support for Trump among Black voters. In last year’s election, his share
of the Black vote nearly doubled from 2020 to about 15%.
Trump
has batted away accusations of racism. At a campaign rally last year,
he declared, “I’m not a Nazi. I’m the opposite of a Nazi.” A few months
earlier, he told an interviewer that he can’t be racist because he has
“so many Black friends.”
Even
as he has made inroads with non-white voters, Trump has consistently
drawn support from white nationalist and extremist groups while using
racially divisive rhetoric. He promoted the false claim that Barack
Obama, the nation’s first Black president, was not born in the U.S. In
his 2024 campaign, he suggested immigrants commit violent crimes because
“it’s in their genes,” a remark condemned by many as racist.
Stout
said his group opposes violence. Yet the Aryan Freedom Network openly
advocates preparing for a “Racial Holy War.” It promotes white
superiority ideology, seeks to unify elements of the broader white
nationalist movement and actively recruits former members of other
extremist groups.
The
Trump administration has scaled back efforts to counter domestic
extremism, redirecting resources toward immigration enforcement and
citing the southern border as the top security threat. The Federal
Bureau of Investigation has reduced staffing in its
Domestic Terrorism Operations Section. The Department of Homeland Security
has cut personnel in its violence prevention office.
Some
specialists in domestic terrorism say these moves could embolden
extremists by weakening U.S. capacity to detect and disrupt threats. The
DHS and FBI have defended the cuts, saying they remain committed to
fighting domestic terrorism. The FBI said in a statement it allocates
resources based on threat analysis and “the investigative needs of the
Bureau,” and that it remains committed to investigating domestic
terrorism.
“RACIST ROYALTY”
In
his first interview with any news organization, Stout met Reuters
journalists in April at a restaurant in Hochatown, Oklahoma, a quiet
town known for its hiking and fishing about an hour’s drive north of
their Texas home. He was joined by his partner, who goes by the name
Daisy Barr.
Stout
says AFN is focused on staying within the law. “We got to watch our Ps
and Qs,” he said. Then his tone turned apocalyptic: “And when the day
comes, that will be the day – that’s when violence will solve
everything.” While he offered no timeline, researchers who study
domestic extremism say the comment reflects a strategy among some
far-right groups: operate within the law while openly predicting a
moment of upheaval.
The
Aryan Freedom Network first drew national attention in 2021 after
organizing a “White Unity” conference in Longview, Texas. By the
following year, it was distributing flyers in cities across the country.
One in Texas featured racist caricatures of Black Americans – one
swinging from a street lamp amid rubble and an overturned car –
alongside the caption: “At the current rate of decline what will
America’s major cities look like in ten years?”
An
AFN flyer found in West Bend, Wisconsin, in a plastic bag. Photo via
West Bend Police Department. Image was redacted by Reuters to remove
group's website address.
Another
AFN flyer, targeting immigrants. The plastic bags were weighted with
wood pellets to make them easier for canvassers to toss into people’s
yards. Photo via West Bend Police Department.
AFN
also began staging protests, often targeting drag events and LGBTQ+
gatherings. Stout says the demonstrations were designed to attract
recruits. Its conferences and annual “Aryan Fests” have become
networking hubs for the far right, drawing attendees from groups such as
the Ku Klux Klan and other white nationalist organizations, according
to two individuals affiliated with those movements. Reuters was unable
to independently verify the claim.
The
pseudoscientific notion of a superior white Aryan race – essentially
Germanic – was a core tenet of Hitler’s Nazi regime. AFN gatherings brim
with Nazi memes: Swastikas are ritually set ablaze and chants of “white
power” echo through the woods. AFN’s website pays specific tribute to
violent white supremacist groups of the past, including The Order, whose
members killed a Jewish radio host in 1984. Two key members responsible
for the killing were sentenced to lengthy prison terms and are now
deceased.
Stout’s
beliefs are rooted in the Christian Identity movement, which claims
that white Europeans, not Jews, are the true Israelites of biblical
scripture and therefore God’s chosen people. Stout and Barr also claim
that Black Americans, under Jewish influence, are leading a Communist
revolution – an ideology that fuses racial supremacy with far-right
conspiracy theories.
Stout,
34, and Barr, 48, were born into self-avowed white supremacist families
with deep ties to the Ku Klux Klan, infamous for its white robes,
burning crosses and long history of racist violence, including decades
of lynchings and terrorist campaigns against Black Americans.
As
a child, Stout said he attended Klan ceremonies and white nationalist
youth camps. He recalls reading translations of SS training manuals from
Nazi-era Germany. And while other girls were playing video games, Barr
said she was wrapping torches in burlap strips, for secret KKK
cross-burning ceremonies.
Though
they now identify as American Nazis, their ideology is anchored in the
KKK and other white extremist groups. Their families are well known to
historians of the movement. Stout’s father, George Stout, was a “grand
dragon” in the White Knights of Texas, a KKK offshoot. He declined to
comment for this story.
Barr’s
late father was a KKK “grand wizard” from Indiana who was sentenced to
seven years in prison for holding two journalists at gunpoint. AFN
requires members to use aliases; she chose “Daisy Barr” after the name
of a female Klan leader of the 1920s who sold Klan robes and died in a
car crash.
AFN
leaders have links to the Ku Klux Klan. Here, a KKK member attends a
gathering marking the 160th anniversary of the of the Klan's founding,
outside Maysville, Kentucky, in May. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
One person familiar with the couple described their 2020 marriage as a union of “racist royalty.”
They
filed for divorce two years later, but Stout said the split was in name
only – a legal move to shield their assets in case they faced civil
rights lawsuits like those that once bankrupted the Klan and Aryan
Nations, a neo-Nazi group held liable in a 1999 civil suit for inciting
violence.
Stout
and Barr declined to share membership numbers but said AFN now has
nearly twice as many chapters as the 23 it claimed in early 2023.
The
Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium, a private research group
that monitors extremist movements, estimates AFN’s members have grown to
between 1,000 and 1,500. “We collect and record every event of theirs,”
said TRAC researcher Muskan Sangwan. Some of the earliest chapters,
including those in Texas, likely began with around 100 members each,
Sangwan said, suggesting the group may have had roughly 200 members in
its initial stages.
Chris
Magyarics, a senior researcher at the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish
advocacy organization that monitors antisemitic harassment, said he was
skeptical AFN was so big but said he had no independent data on its
size. “The previous largest neo-Nazi group only had a couple of
hundred,” he said, referring to the National Socialist Movement, which
has been in steady decline.
Reuters was unable to independently establish the extent of AFN’s membership.
Despite
the uncertainty over its numbers, AFN is on the radar screens of
independent researchers. Jon Lewis, a research fellow specializing in
domestic extremism at George Washington University’s Program on
Extremism, said the group has been “really popular” among far-right
“accelerationists,” a term used by white supremacists who advocate
violence to hasten a race war.
Stout
said his group has benefited from the decline of the Proud Boys
following the Capitol attack. Once prominent for street clashes during
the Trump administration, the Proud Boys have faced legal setbacks and
public scrutiny since many of its members were convicted – and later
pardoned by Trump – for their roles in the January 6 Capitol riots. The
group describes its ideology as “Western chauvinism.” Critics say the
group uses the term “Western” rather than “white” to veil its racism, a
charge the Proud Boys’ defenders deny.
Stout
described groups like the Proud Boys as “civic nationalists” –
movements that draw in followers with patriotic rhetoric, then serve as
stepping stones toward more overtly racist organizations like AFN or the
Klan.
“A lot of newbies, new people to the movement, join that type of movement before they join us,” Stout said.
Reuters was unable to reach a Proud Boy representative for comment.
Members
of the Ku Klux Klan take part in a cross-burning to mark the group's
160th anniversary, outside Maysville, Kentucky, in May. REUTERS/Jim
Urquhart
WEAPONS AND RACE WAR
Although
Stout said the Aryan Freedom Network rejects violence, firearms and
tactical training remain central to its identity and feature prominently
in its gatherings and recruitment efforts, according to a review of
federal court records.
One
former member, Andrew Munsinger, built and traded semi-automatic AR-15
rifles and other weapons, using a machine shop to fabricate untraceable
parts, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court. He boasted
to other AFN members of stockpiling ammunition and constructing
explosive devices, and claimed to have pointed a shotgun at a sleeping
prosecutor, the affidavit said.
Munsinger,
who went by the alias “Thor,” was arrested last year in Minneapolis on
federal charges of illegally possessing firearms. As a convicted felon,
he was barred under federal law from owning weapons. He attended at
least five AFN events in one year, the FBI said. Agents described him as
an adherent of accelerationism, which seeks to provoke a race war
through violence.
An excerpt from the federal arrest affidavit for Andrew Munsinger.
AFN
is “an umbrella organization for other white-supremacist
organizations,” the affidavit said. Documents relating to Munsinger’s
case, including testimony from an FBI informant who infiltrated the
group, offer a glimpse inside its operations: firearms training across
several states, encrypted communications focused on weapons, a
recruitment event at a lakeside bar in Ohio, and new members building
timber swastikas in a ritualistic initiation.
Stout
said he disavowed Munsinger, who was convicted by a federal jury in
April of illegally possessing firearms and ammunition, as well as
trafficking marijuana. He is awaiting sentencing. Munsinger and his
attorney did not respond to requests for comment.
Stout said his network has links to the Klan, which has splintered and shrunk dramatically since its peak a century ago.
In
May, Reuters attended a modern-day Klan ceremony held in a clearing
deep within the woods on private land in northeastern Kentucky. William
Bader, leader of the Trinity Knights, a small Klan faction, donned a
purple silk robe and conical hood as he presided over the swearing in of
about half a dozen heavily tattooed new members.