400 masked men marching through the capital of the United States on its 250th birthday. Carrying the flag of traitors who owned human beings. Chanting “reclaim America.”
Reclaim it from whom?
For whom?
The answer is written in their white masks and blue shirts. They didn’t hide. They marched. In daylight. In the nation’s capital. On its birthday. That’s not a protest. That’s a declaration.
A Black woman on the metro. Sitting in a train car filled with masked colonizers preparing to march on her capital. The photo is viral. You felt the air leave the room. A Black woman trapped in a metal box with men who want her erased, on the day the country celebrates its freedom. Freedom for whom?
That image is the state of the union.
Not the men with the flags.
The woman on the train.
We need to stop calling them Nazis. Not because they aren’t fascists. They are. But “Nazi” lets America off the hook. It makes this a foreign infection. Something we caught from Europe. Bullshit. The Germans learned from us. The Nuremberg Laws were modeled after Jim Crow. Hitler praised the American eugenics movement. He studied how this country eradicated Indigenous people and kept Black people as property and then as second-class citizens. The Klan didn’t learn from the SS. The SS learned from the Klan. These men marching through the capital aren’t importing a foreign ideology. They’re continuing the American one. The original one. The one that was here before the flag. They aren’t Nazis. They’re racist colonizers hellbent on white first and only. And they’re doing what colonizers have always done in this country. Claiming it for themselves and erasing everyone else.
They carried the flag of armed insurrection against the United States. The flag of people who owned other people. The flag of traitors. And they carried it through the capital of the nation those traitors tried to destroy. On the nation’s birthday. And no one stopped them. The flag of the enemy, carried through the capital, and the state called it free speech. July 4th, 1776. A declaration that all men are created equal, written by a man who owned 600 of them. July 4th, 2026. Masked colonizers marching through the capital to “reclaim America.” The irony isn’t accidental. It’s the tradition. The hypocrisy is the American project.
They wear masks because they’re cowards. They know their views are repugnant. They know their employers and neighbors would recoil. So they hide. But here’s the horror: they’re hiding while marching through the capital in daylight. Brave enough to march. Just not brave enough to be seen marching. That’s the state of the union. Fascism that’s emboldened but still slightly ashamed. And the shame is fading. They call themselves Patriot Front. They claim to love America. But they carried the flag of traitors who tried to destroy America. That’s not patriotism. That’s terrorism in cosplay. The “patriot” is the mask.
The white hood is the truth.
The regular Fourth of July parades were canceled. But the fascist march went on. The family celebrations were called off. The colonizer demonstration proceeded. The state protects the fascists’ right to march while denying families the ability to celebrate. That’s the priority. That’s the state of the union. “MPD recognizes the rights of individuals to peacefully express their views.” The right to peacefully express views. The views being expressed are that non-white people should be eliminated. The police are protecting the rights of colonizers to advocate for genocide while the people they want to genocide sit on the metro and try not to make eye contact.
While colonizers marched, Trump gave a deeply partisan speech condemning a supposed “communist menace.” The communists aren’t marching through the capital in masks. The fascists are. 400 of them. Under the flag of traitors. On the nation’s birthday. And the president of the United States used that birthday to call the people who oppose them the menace. Not the men in masks. Not the men carrying the enemy’s flag. Not the men chanting for a white ethnostate. The people who say no to that. Those are the menace. That’s not a dog whistle. That’s a bullhorn. And where’s the outrage from the party that claims to love America? Where’s the condemnation? The silence is the permission. The silence is the endorsement. You can’t be silent about men marching through the capital under the flag of traitors and then claim you love this country.
They called this moment under Trump a “total Aryan victory.” That’s not hyperbole from critics. That’s their words. That’s what they believe this administration represents. And they’re marching to celebrate it. On America’s birthday. They believe white people are being replaced. It’s the same lie the El Paso shooter believed. The same lie the Buffalo shooter believed. The same lie that’s been mainstreamed by Fox News and Republican politicians. The march is the lie with legs.
The march is the spectacle. The policy is the substance. Voter suppression. Book bans. Anti-CRT laws. Trans erasure. The colonizers in the street are the visible symptom. The colonizers in the statehouse are the disease. The shields. The flags. The transportation. 400 men don’t just appear in the capital by accident. They’re organized. They’re funded. They’re protected. And they’re not an anomaly. They’re the tip.
The state of the union is this: Racist colonizers hellbent on white first and only march through the capital on the nation’s birthday, and the president calls the people who oppose them the menace. The state of the union is a Black woman on a train car full of men who want her erased. The state of the union is canceled parades and protected fascism. The state of the union is 400 men in masks chanting “reclaim America” on the day America was born, and no one in power gives a damn. They aren’t Nazis. They’re Americans. The original kind. The kind that built this country on stolen land and stolen labor and called it freedom. And they’re still here. Still marching. Still claiming. Still erasing. That’s not freedom.
That’s the funeral.
Follow the Vanguard on Social Media – X, Instagram and Facebook. Subscribe the Vanguard News letters. To make a tax-deductible donation, please visit davisvanguard.org/donate or give directly through ActBlue. Your support will ensure that the vital work of the Vanguard continues.
“They wear masks because they’re cowards.”
Is that the same reason that Antifa wear masks?