Old Glory Club: The Most Dangerous Brotherhood You’ve Never Heard Of
Beneath the folklore and flag-waving lies a fascist fraternity—networked, god-drunk, and engineered to replace law with lineage.
One must admire, in a certain low and loathing way, the American capacity to mistake nostalgia for virtue. A republic born in revolution and stained in blood has again summoned its vigilantes—not from the frontier or the fog of Boston Harbor this time, but from the streaming gruel of a Substack paywall and the resentments of suburban men who think history owes them testosterone. They call themselves the Old Glory Club, a name Betsy Ross might have embroidered—had she taken PCP and joined the Proud Boys. Behind this quilt of heritage and fraternity lies something ancient and unmistakably squalid: the authoritarian fantasy of a Christian-nationalist brotherhood, soaked in militarism, racism, and the dream of Caesar.
A recent investigative report reveals that the Old Glory Club includes “current and former military members and police officers, and similar government officials”—a development “frankly shocking” to national security observers. But shocking is too soft a word. These are the armed stewards of the state moonlighting as foot soldiers for an ideological cult. The report further warns that this convergence “may ultimately pose a national security threat,” especially “as the Trump administration is abandoning efforts to root extremists out of the military while hiring racists, antisemites and QAnon believers.” That a parallel militia would flourish under such stewardship is not surprising. That it would dress itself in the drag of patriotism and be taken seriously is the real indictment.
Their aesthetic is equal parts fraternity kegger and fascist cell. Each chapter, of which there are more than 20, is named with the sort of overwrought regionalism that would make a Civil War reenactor blush—“Overmountain Men,” “James Oglethorpe Society,” “Regulators of the Rio Grande.” They operate by design as “invite-only” gatherings of at least “five American men over the age of 18,” with “quarterly and annual reporting requirements.” It’s less a club than a chassis—engineered for cohesion, obedience, and escalation. Ryan Turnipseed, one of their oracles, chirped on a livestream, “We no longer have to wait on a Caesar or a Franco to ‘unite the right’ … Instead, we can be effective with what we have now.”
No doubt. Franco’s march to power was paved not with battalions, but with brotherhoods bound by blood and myth—before the tanks, there were toasts; before the purges, the pledges.
And what a brotherhood it is. Their house philosopher, Pete Quinones—who seems to think Mein Kampf was merely under-edited—has repackaged antisemitism as consumer advice, urging the faithful to shun Jewish and Indian businesses with all the moral fervor of a boycotting toddler. “It’s Jews,” he declaimed. “You can’t live with them… you have to suppress them. But it’s better not to allow them in.” He has proposed apps to identify non-“heritage American” gas stations, saying, “Don’t do business with Indians… Alabama Old Glory Club are doing [an app]… to show which gas stations and hotels are not owned by Indians here.” Hatred has evolved its interface—a digital caste system, coded by bigots, curated for cowards, and sanctified by the illusion of tradition. He calls it “asking the Jewish question.” The last time that phrase was answered seriously, it cost the world 11 million corpses and a century’s worth of moral inheritance.
It gets worse. Wrapped in podcasts and state chapter maps, it functions as a syndicate of ideological engineering—humming with purpose, mapped for expansion, and hellbent on reshaping the republic from the inside out. It belongs to a new breed of extremist organization, designed to build offline networks as scaffolding for societal takeover. Their strategy is as modern as it is medieval—an algorithmic inquisition dressed in khakis and blog feeds, trafficking in what once spread by torch and creed. They organize through encrypted chats, podcasts, and livestreams, but their theology is unchanged: a world sanctified by exclusion, ruled by the elect, and consecrated through petulance and hate. It is the old fanaticism in a fresher font—calibrated for clicks, streamlined for obedience, and faithful to the myth of civic purity. One begins with a newsletter, builds a chapter, and ends with a statehouse. Their content—much of it locked behind a paywall—includes posts and podcast episodes titled “They Have to Go Back,” “Remembering Who We Are,” “Multiculturalism Is a Pipedream,” and “Imagine the Smell.” One cannot determine whether the scent in question is sulfur or sweat, but the stench of revanchism is unmistakable.
What animates this movement—what lubricates its rituals and livestreams—is not heritage but grievance. It is the theology of the lost cause, fused with the convenience of tech platforms and the reach of mass surveillance. Their gospel is written in the Book of Resentment, chapter and verse by the likes of Quinones. They do not seek merely to preserve history, but to enthrone a version of it that never was—an America without Jews, without “Indians,” without the burdens of pluralism or the inconveniences of memory. Their version of patriotism has no room for citizenship. It is a flag-waving tribalism, varnished in virtue, bloated with nostalgia, and fortified by fraternal zealots.
Every fascist movement begins in the fellowship of men—sometimes in beer halls, sometimes in reading rooms, often in prayer. Mussolini’s Fasci di Combattimento began as patriotic clubs, full of chants and flags, long before they became squads of violence. The German Freikorps trained together before they marched together. Not all clubs end in tyranny, but every despotism begins with men who pledge loyalty to one another before the law. When armed men gather under oaths of exclusion, quote Franco with reverence, assign ethnic groups to enemy status, and call it tradition—they cease to be civic. They are drafting the bylaws of a confessional state. The Old Glory Club wears no uniform, but it carries the same intention: to replace law with lineage, rights with rites, and throttle citizenship to submission.
There are those who will tell you this is free speech, or free association, or a harmless expression of masculinity. But let it be said without euphemism or retreat: this is a national security threat, a philosophical offense, and a civic disease. It recruits in the name of God, rallies in the name of country, and broadcasts its gospel in the name of heritage. The Old Glory Club is neither old nor glorious. It is a fraternity of radicalized fascists and fantasists, girded for theocratic battle. Every republic breeds its seditious enclaves. The tragedy is when they arrive dressed as its saviors.
It truly is nauseating. I could not let go of the fact that they had the audacity to use the Zia symbol on their fascist, racist, and clearly demented New Mexico Group. I am not surprised as a lot of these, so called "patriots" are so uneducated or flat out ignorant. Thank you for shinning light into the darkness of these racists groups!
Old glory hole club you mean.