The name sounds innocuous enough: Active Clubs.
But Alexander Ritzmann, senior advisor with the Counter Extremism Project, warns the estimated 187 Active Club chapters in 27 countries are really “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” There are an estimated 78 chapters across the United States.
“This is not just a … nationalist sports club,” Ritzmann told me. “In its essence, it’s the strategy to build a neo-Nazi militia.”
Here is how a March 2026 report by Ritzmann summarized the Active Club movement:
“Active Clubs (ACs) are a decentralized, transnational violent network of extreme-right/white supremacist groups that publicly promote combat-sports, fitness training, and white brotherhood. However, their own communications and several documented activities indicate that the AC-strategy actually aims to create a militant network of combat-ready men and small cells. To avoid early scrutiny by law enforcement, they cultivate a mainstream-friendly fitness aesthetic to ‘hide in plain sight.’”
The founder of the Active Club movement, Robert Rundo, was just featured in a 60 Minutes episode focusing on “disaster tourism” where white nationalists and militias show up following natural disasters to help White people.
What was not fully conveyed is what Ritzmann says is Rundo’s secret agenda.
I began by asking Ritzmann about a recent report in the Guardian that “a network of militant neo-Nazi active clubs from around the US has been participating in riot-style combat events with other white nationalist groups Virginia as part of what their founder called a ‘tip-off point for a fascist cultural revolution.’”
Please watch, then tell me what you think.
