IF THE gOOD lORD DID NOT WANT THEM FLEECED, hE WOULD NOT HAVE MADE THEM SHEEP:

Undergirding Patriot Front's activities is a rigid, top-down hierarchy, researchers say.

Rousseau is at the head. Lieutenants run departments of the group, including media production, recruitment and online security. Fifteen regional network directors organize local and national activities, and supervise members.

Once recruits become members, they are required to attend monthly roundups, hit a weekly activism quota, and show up to demonstrations, according to Moon. If they don't, Rousseau expels them from Patriot Front.

Internal chats obtained by extremist experts show members complaining about the ongoing expenses they incur paying for stickers, stencils and other mandatory propaganda materials, which Rousseau charges them for.

Rousseau charges members a premium for Patriot Front propaganda material, Tischauser said, adding that network directors are expected to push members to purchase flyers to go on several flyering runs a month. "In this sense, Patriot Front is close to a white nationalist pyramid scheme," Tischauser notes.

The tightly organized structure enables Patriot Front to be responsible for up to 14 hate incidents a day, according to the ADL. Under the direction of network directors, Patriot Front members defaced 29 murals honoring Black history, LGBTQ+ pride, migrant history and police shooting victims, said Tischauser. [...]

Recent events have somewhat disrupted the group's carefully constructed image. Earlier this year, the leftwing non-profit Unicorn Riot leaked the group's internal audio and chats, which helped investigators discover the identity of the national team, regional directors and many other members. And following the arrest in Coeur d'Alene, all 31 names of arrested members were broadcasted and published in local media outlets, along with their mugshots.

"They got kind of the opposite of what they wanted: they weren't able to disrupt the LGBTQ Pride events, and they got a whole lot of mainstream media attention," Piggott said.

The Idaho arrests also exposed that their members flew into the state from different parts of the country, Piggott added. "It lifted the veil a bit. They may not have the numbers they say they have."

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