"Groups like the Old Glory Club are a new class of extremist organization whose goal is to first build an offline social network and then take over society," explains Harry Shukman from Hope Not Hate.
By Jason Wilson
In the U.S., there is a network formed by dozens of far-right fraternities, all-male, with hundreds of members, according to their own claims. A Guardian investigation has identified active and retired military personnel within this network, as well as lawyers, public employees, and well-known antisemitic influencers.
The Old Glory Club has at least 26 chapters across 20 states in the country. It had attracted little attention until now, but it is an example of the alarming growth in recent years of racist political movements, especially with the rise of Donald Trump and his return to the White House.
The group is dedicated to organizing conferences and meetings, among other events. Some of its key members, such as podcaster Pete Quinones, use their platforms on social media to spread far-right ideas about immigrants and Jews. Others use their online outposts to react to political events and propose measures, such as creating a “cancellation insurance” for network members whose professional lives are hindered due to the extremism of their political views.
"Groups like the Old Glory Club are a new class of extremist organization whose goal is to first build an offline social network and then take over society," explains Harry Shukman, researcher at the British NGO Hope Not Hate. A month ago, this anti-fascist NGO published a report about the British group Basketweavers, affiliated with the Old Glory Club. "They aim to make it easier to join the far-right and are proving attractive to a cohort of predominantly male members, some of whom had never engaged in any kind of activism before," he adds.
According to Heidi Beirich, co-founder and strategy director at the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, the Old Glory Club "appears to be another new large network of racists, one of many emerging in the Trump era." The group is "promoting violent ideologies, including racial hatred and antisemitism, and has links with well-known far-right figures," she says.
"The state wants you dead or trans"
The Old Glory Club (OGC) was officially registered on June 16, 2023, according to its records in Virginia, but the organization had been taking shape for over a year through real-world conferences and online communications.
The Old Glory Club's Substack began publishing in October 2022, with an X social media account launched in the same month. According to podcast aggregators, the Old Glory Club's podcasts appeared as late as November 2022.
At that time, however, the organization seemed to be conceived as a means of collaborating on content production. In a November 2022 podcast, the YouTuber under the pseudonym Charlemagne, a central figure of the OGC, told far-right podcaster Auron Macintyre (who has become a personality on Blase Media, founded by Glenn Beck) that the Old Glory Club was “a group of American gentlemen who decided to organize a social club to publish content and try to find a new political deal for Americans.”
Also in October 2022, the YouTuber under the pseudonym Prudentialist asked for donations for the Old Glory Club during a podcast. “One day it will be used for mutual aid for our friends who are fired, victims of doxxing [the revealing of personal information online], or affected by natural disasters and other acts of God,” he said about the money raised.
In April 2023, Prudentialist stated in podcasts that the Old Glory Club was part of a far-right strategy to "create sponsorship networks [and] political support" with the aim of "maintaining not only a certain appearance of power but the opposite of fragility in the face of a state that wants you ruined, dead, or trans."
Prudentialist added that the Old Glory Club would offer its members the opportunity to "meet, organize conferences, and in the future support people like that Virginia firefighter who was fired just for donating to Kyle Rittenhouse's legal defense fund," in what seems to be a reference to a 2021 Guardian report that published leaked information from a Christian crowdfunding site with the names of people who had donated to Rittenhouse's legal defense fund [Rittenhouse is known for shooting three men, killing two, during the 2021 Black Lives Matter protests in Wisconsin].
Other key members of the OGC have advocated for a decentralization strategy for the far-right to create organizations that can engage in long-lasting activism.
Ryan Turnipseed, a founding member and frequent spokesperson for the Old Glory Club, lamented in a speech at the Tennessee Scyldings right-wing conference (the speech was republished on July 10, 2022) that Francisco Franco "failed to secure his succession line" despite propaganda and purges. "This is a lesson we must learn," he said.
Turnipseed proposed a decentralized network to "leverage the knowledge and abilities of these groups." "We no longer have to wait for a Caesar or a Franco to 'unite the right' into an effective fighting force; instead, we can be effective with what we already have," he said.
Others emphasized the importance of in-person meetings and referred to similar initiatives abroad. In July 2022, the user under the pseudonym Red Hawk posted on Substack that the application process for creating local chapters was open. The requirement was that these chapters must consist of at least "five American men over 18 years old" and submit quarterly reports on affiliates and finances. According to that post, and subsequent podcasts, both the chapters and the overall organization would be supervised by a central committee of the Old Glory Club.
The group's leading members have set up four annual conferences, the last two under the Old Glory Club banner. After the latest in-person conference of the Old Glory Club in May, an internal report stated that membership had grown over the past year. The Old Glory Club now has "literally hundreds" of members, it said. "We are so numerous that we have surpassed the point where the Central Committee can know all, or even most, individual members... As a whole, we have created a very effective organization."
“Threat to National Security”
It remains unknown which internet pseudonyms are used by the individuals identified in the records of the parent organization and its chapters. However, these records have revealed that among the members, there are influential far-right figures, active and retired military personnel, law enforcement officers, judicial officials, and U.S. government contractors with security clearances.
The Guardian has contacted all the mentioned members for comments.
Turnipseed is a founding member of Old Glory Club, the parent organization, and frequently writes on his Substack, speaks on podcasts, and has participated in conferences of Old Glory Club and Scyldings. In May 2024, he briefly became a cause célèbre in the online far-right when the First Lutheran Church of Ponca, his hometown in Oklahoma, excommunicated him over a viral Twitter post in which he criticized the new catechism of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod for accommodating progressive political stances.
In February 2023, anti-fascist researchers identified Turnipseed among the members of an emerging “white supremacist faction within the Lutheran faith.” That same month, the president of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod called for the excommunication of those who “spread the radical and anti-Christian views of the 'alt-right'.” Shortly after Turnipseed’s excommunication, Immanuel Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas, defied the ban and accepted Turnipseed among its congregation.
Other members of the Old Glory Club also have connections to the broader right-wing political landscape. In the records of the founding of Yellow Dog Pack, a chapter of the Old Glory Club in Florida, Matthew Pearson from Tampa Bay (Florida) is listed. Pearson regularly contributes to American Reformer and Truthscript, two publications focused on Christian nationalism, where he has written praising the social theories of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt and speaking favorably of a book urging Christians to be anti-gay.
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