The origins of Vanguard America lie in the now-defunct online forum Iron March, a hub for neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and far-right extremists from around the world.[2] From discussions on Iron March, fascists created a new group in 2015, “first named Reaction America, then renamed in 2016 as American Vanguard.”[3] In late 2016, a member of AV, Cooper Ward, “was exposed for offering up information to an antifascist group.”[4] Following this revelation, “IronMarch users and administrators began ‘doxxing’ AV members,” prompting AV to split from Iron March.[5] In early 2017, the group changed its name for a third time to Vanguard America.[6] While it is unclear who founded the group, the group’s leader, from early 2016, was Dillon Hopper, a native of New Mexico and a long-time member of the Marine Corps.[7] The group’s second-in-command or “Vice Commander” was Thomas Rousseau, a teenager from the suburbs of Dallas, Texas.
As a white nationalist and neo-Nazi group, Vanguard America believed that the United States should be an “exclusively white nation.”[8] Consistent with Nazi ideology, Vanguard America aimed to establish a white ethnostate in the United States.[9] On its website, VA declared: “The racial stock of this nation was created for white Christian Anglo/Europeans by white Christian Anglo/Europeans. All other ethnicities, races, religions and demographics are absolutely not compatible with this nation’s original culture. With such being stated, a mass exodus, isolation, apartheid, segregation and/or separation must be implemented to retain the good order and longevity of the country.”[10] Accordingly, the group expressed hatred towards Jewish people, Muslims, and immigrants.[11]
The majority of VA’s activity consisted of posting racist and anti-Semitic flyers in cities and universities across the United States. The group’s propaganda was “intentionally directed at young people, particularly those on college campuses.”[12]The Southern Poverty Law Center recorded ten flyering incidents attributed to VA in 2016 and forty-one incidents in 2017.[13] During the 2016-2017 school year, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recorded thirty-two flyering incidents in Arkansas, California, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.[14] During the following school year, the group’s flyering activity decreased, with the ADL recording only fourteen incidents in Arizona, Tennessee, Texas, and Massachusetts.[15] In addition to flyering, VA “organized small public events and participated in events organized by other white supremacist groups.”[16] Such events, at which members typically wore white polo shirts and khaki pants, focused on various issues, including preserving Confederate statutes, anti-Muslim bigotry, and protecting free speech.[17] In some instances, VA members openly carried firearms.[18]
According to the Anti-Defamation League, VA’s “high point was June 17, 2017, when several dozen VA members participated in a ‘Texas is Ours’ rally at the state capital in Austin.”[19] Both Dillon Hopper and Thomas Rousseau delivered speeches.[20] After the rally, Hopper expressed frustration with Rousseau, alleging that he had purposefully tried to present himself, rather than Hopper, as the group’s leader.[21] A few days later, Rousseau began taking control of VA’s servers on Discord and its website. In a message posted on Twitter, Hopper explained, "On June 20, Thomas underhandedly and deceitfully exiled me from all Vanguard discord servers that HE controlled due to ‘security reasons.’ I logged off…and when I got back an hour later I was banned from every single server, including the women’s server. It was literally a coup with the guise that I left to handle family matters.”[22]
A few weeks after the Austin rally, Vanguard America rose to national prominence in 2017 when it participated in the “United the Right” (UTR) rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 11-12, 2017. The ostensible goal of the rally was to protest the planned removal of a statue memorializing the Confederate general Robert E. Lee.[23] On the first day, VA members joined several hundred torch-bearing white nationalists as they descended on the University of Virginia campus.[24] The following day, on August 12, several dozen VA members, led by the group’s “Vice Commander” Thomas Rousseau, marched toward the protest at the city park where the statue was located while shouting “Blood and soil!” and other racist and anti-Semitic chants.[25] Dressed in the group’s standard uniform of white polo shirts and khaki pants, the members subsequently formed a barrier around the statue.[26] VA leader Dillon Hopper was noticeably absent from the rally.[27]
Among the VA activists present was James Alex Fields Jr., a young man from Maumee, Ohio, who, later that day, drove his car into a crowd of anti-fascist counter-protesters, killing one person, thirty-two-year-old Heather Heyer, and injuring dozens more.[28] Prior to the attack, Fields had been photographed marching with VA at the event and carrying a shield with the group’s logo.[29] Police arrested Fields about one mile from the attack.[30] In 2019, he was convicted of murder and numerous federal hate crime charges and sentenced to life in prison.[31]
Shortly after the attack, Vanguard America quickly attempted to distance itself from Fields, writing in a statement on Twitter, “The driver of the vehicle that hit counter protesters today was, in no way, a member of Vanguard America. All our members had safely evacuated by the time of the incident. The shields seen do not denote membership, nor does the white shirt. The shields were freely handed out to anyone in attendance.”[32] A spokesperson for VA claimed he was “personally disgusted” with the vehicle attack. He added, “We [Vanguard America] obviously do not condone violence. We don’t tell our members to do this kind of stuff. We are a political movement…nothing more.”[33]
Despite VA’s claim that Fields was not affiliated with the group, members openly celebrated Fields’ attack, as evidenced by leaked private chats obtained by the left-wing media collective Unicorn Riot. For example, one member, “SDO Philip-TX,” wrote, “This was the biggest victory for our movement[’s]history. It was glorious. We hospitalized dozens.”[34] “If this guy wasn’t such a loser,” wrote another member, “BraeJagerTX,” “I’d suggest we claim it. Sort of like how Islamic idiots claim random terrorists…it would be a funny trigger.”[35] Even Thomas Rousseau chimed in, “clarifying that Vanguard America’s statement distancing itself from Fields ‘never said that he did anything wrong, just clarified that he wasn’t a member.’”[36]
In the days and weeks after the UTR rally, Vanguard America “dissolved into chaos…particularly at the leadership level.”[37] Seeking to distance himself from the negative publicity of UTR, eighteen days after the rally, Thomas Rousseau formally broke with VA and founded a new group called Patriot Front. Numerous VA members, many from Rousseau’s native Texas, defected to his group.[38] Rousseau described his decision in an announcement posted on the group chat app Discord: “Due to the unwillingness to meet any semblance of a compromise to resolve ongoing disputes with disagreeing parties, we are rebranding and reorganizing as a new entity. Vanguard America, as you know it, will now be the ‘Patriots Front.’ Our focus will remain much the same, as will our overal [sic] goals…”[39] As Rousseau emphasized, the split with VA was “aesthetic, not ideological.”[40]
Vanguard America continued to exist following the split, and Dillon Hopper remained the group’s leader. However, the group’s membership and activity diminished significantly as Patriot Front “slowly siphoned away VA members from other parts of the country.”[41] Notably, in October 2017, Hopper spoke at a “White Lives Matter” rally in Shelbyville, Tennessee, where he was accompanied by only seven VA members.[42] Around this same time, Vanguard America became one of the targets of a lawsuit filed on behalf of ten private citizens of Charlottesville, Virginia. In addition to VA, the other defendants named in the lawsuit included two dozen white supremacists and hate groups who helped organize the Unite the Right rally, such as Richard Spencer, Jason Kessler, Christopher Cantwell, and Identity Evropa.[43] As part of the lawsuit, both Dillon Hopper and Thomas Rousseau were deposed.[44] On January 25, 2018, the plaintiffs filed a discovery request requiring Vanguard America to turn over “emails, text messages, recordings, or social media content related to the preparation, planning, transportation to, or coordination for” the events of August 11–12.[45] VA failed to cooperate with the discovery request and was consequently ordered to pay more than $16,000 in penalties.[46] Hopper later wrote in a letter to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia that he had “not complied with the court ordered discovery because of his finances and an inter-group ‘coup’ during the summer of 2017.”[47] In his own words, Hopper explained, “I’m flat broke, penniless, destitute and poverty stricken.”[48]
Vanguard America was subsequently “further diminished in January 2018 when more infighting and accusations of ineffective leadership led to the formation of a second splinter group:” the Nationalist Socialist Legion (NSL), a neo-Nazi organization that openly condones violence.[49] According to the Anti-Defamation League, NSL describes itself as a “revolutionary National Socialist organization” that is preparing for “the coming Racial Holy War.”[50] For a brief period in September 2018, Vanguard America and NSL discussed forming an alliance under the name “National Revolutionary Union”; however, this plan quickly collapsed.[51] While there is no evidence that VA formally disbanded, it has not shown any signs of activity since 2018. In addition, VA leader Dillon Hopper has, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “all but disappeared.”[52]
