Far-right activists disrupted a student meeting at MTSU hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America this week. Two groups — the Patriot Youth and the Tennessee Active Club, the latter a local paramilitary group that outwardly identifies as Nazis — claimed responsibility for the event with a video posted on Telegram.
A caption posted with the video claims the groups spent weeks monitoring the DSA, particularly its student book clubs. The video includes screen captures of online DSA materials being vandalized and deleted.
Examining the history of white supremacy in Nashville, modern far-right hate groups, and Williamson County as a seat of right-wing politics
The Tennessee Active Club has close ties to the Lewis Country Store, where members post about training for physical violence in an upstairs gym. The group supported former Franklin mayoral candidate Gabrielle Hanson, a far-right alderman in the Williamson County capital who was ultimately trounced in city elections earlier this week. (Journalist Matt Masters covered the race for Scene sister publication The News extensively.) Patriot Youth appears to be a youth branch of Tennessee’s white supremacist organizing infrastructure.
The harassment follows a national uptick in violence by white supremacists and the far right and local incidents of public Nazi organizing. This year, Nazi groups have intimidated ideological rivals, held demonstrations and distributed antisemitic flyers in Nashville neighborhoods.
