Thomas Rousseau

Thomas Ryan Rousseau (born October 20, 1998) is an American far-right activist known for founding and leading the neo-fascist and white supremacist group Patriot Front. The group, according to its manifesto, aims to create a white ethnostate.

Early life Rousseau is a resident of Grapevine, Texas, located between Dallas and Fort Worth, and attended Coppell High School. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Rousseau was a graphics editor of his high school newspaper, The Sidekick, where he wrote columns calling for banning transgender bathrooms and promoting guns on college campuses. Rousseau was a Boy Scout. He has also been on an FBI watchlist since he was in high school. In an interview with ProPublica, Rousseau's classmates said, "He seemed Republican, but he didn't seem crazy", and most people who knew Rousseau personally in Grapevine expressed surprise that he founded and leads a white supremacist group.

Political activities

Rousseau founded Patriot Front in the wake of the 2017 Unite the Right rally.

In the weeks before the rally, Rousseau took control of Vanguard America's website and Discord serveThe primary form of communication for VA's membership and leadership As Irizarry suffered from the fallout from the rally, Rousseau used the website and Discord server to launch a new group, Patriot Front, appealing to VA members in a Discord message: "Vanguard America, as you know it, will now be the 'Patriots Front', and that the focus and goals of the group would remain the same", however, VA and Irizarry continued to operate. Despite participating in the rally, Rousseau has since denounced it as "bad activism" that damaged the far-right cause in the United States. An aftereffect of Rousseau's feud with Irizarry is his refusal to use any formal title as the Patriot Front leader, rejecting the term "Commander", which had been used by VA. Patriot Front's core was the "Southern Front", a regional section of the VA, and it was intended from the start to be a more strategic, savvy, careful alternative, adopting American symbols such as red, white, and blue, the bald eagle, and patriotic language.

In 2021, Rousseau attended a conference with Jared Taylor of American Renaissance, a white supremacist website and magazine.

In 2021, Rousseau was the subject of a civil suit by the State of Virginia due to Patriot Front's defacing of a statue of African-American tennis player Arthur Ashe, which Rousseau never challenged, resulting in a default judgment pending for vandalism, should he ever set foot in Virginia again. Another key reason Rousseau's case was dropped was because his lawyer was able to convince the judge the lead prosecutor was unprofessional, "self-congratulatory", and "braggadocious," while some judges (At any given point, the case against the 31 Patriot Front members had up to nine different judges and the defendants had been tried individually, then as a group, and then individually again.) The prosecution handled the case so poorly that one of the judges went on record stating, "I have never, in my 10 years, seen anything that even approaches this level of failure to properly disclose evidence", as the prosecution failed to properly document objections, and fed evidence in "drips and drabs." North Dakota U.S. District Judge Peter Welte dismissed two parts of the lawsuit against Rousseau, which was filed by 10 unnamed individuals for vandalizing an immigrant bus station's mural, rejecting parts of the suit including the plaintiffs' rights to celebrate multiculturalism and diversity, as well as Rousseau's alleged trespassing with intentions to destroy the mural, but kept The Ku Klux Klan Act violations and civil conspiracy allegations on the table. The state of Virginia is seeking his extradition as the felony carries the potential sentence of 5 years in prison, while Rousseau and Patriot Front have denounced the charges as fabricated.

Rousseau has frequently denounced calls to violence, even within his own organization, with one Patriot Front infiltrator saying that Rousseau's biggest fear is a member of the group committing an act of terrible violence as that would "end the group." Vanguard American had become "radioactive" due to the Charlottesville car attack being perpetrated by one of its members.

Rousseau is also a strong supporter of anonymity, despite his own openness about his identity, mandating all members of Patriot Front be anonymous and refusing to divulge any details about the group or its inner workings and goals.