The founder and sponsor of a far-right network of secretive, men-only, invitation-only fraternal lodges in the US is a former industrialist who has frequently speculated about his future as a warlord after the collapse of America, a Guardian investigation has found.
Federal and state tax and company filings show that the Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR) and its creator, Charles Haywood, also have financial ties with the far-right Claremont Institute.
SACR’s most recent IRS filing names Haywood as the national organization’s principal officer. Other filings identify three lodges in Idaho – in Boise, Coeur d’Alene and Moscow – and another in Dallas,
Texas.
SACR’s public-facing presence is confined to a slick
one-page website advertising the organization’s goal as “civilizational renaissance”, and a society “with strong leadership committed to family and culture”.
The site claims SACR is “raising accountable leaders to help build thriving communities of free citizens” who will rebuild “the frontier-conquering spirit of America”. It condemns “those who rule today”, saying that they “corrupt the sinews of America”, “[alienate] men from family, community, and God” and promising to “counter and conquer this poison”.
It also prominently features SACR’s cross-like insignia or “mark” which it describes variously as symbolizing “sword and shield” and the rejection of “Modernist philosophies and heresies”.
Finally, the site advises that SACR membership “is organized primarily around local groups overseen by a national superstructure” and “is by invitation only”, offering an email address for those “interested in learning more”.
The Guardian emailed the website contact address from a pseudonymous address but received no response.
Heidi Beirich is co-founder of the Global Project on Hate and Extremism and an expert of the far right. She characterized the rhetoric on the website as “
palingenetic ultranationalism”, a feature of fascism that proposes a revolution as a means of national rebirth.