What History Teaches Us About the Far-Right’s Tactics

Let’s stop pretending this is new. The rise of far-right “fight clubs,” nationalist street gangs, and hypermasculine paramilitary cosplay isn’t some fringe phenomenon. It’s the modern reboot of a very old, very dangerous playbook — one we’ve seen before, often just before the world catches fire.

In gym basements, abandoned warehouses, and encrypted chatrooms, these groups are not just throwing punches. They’re building an ideology — one where violence is a sacrament, democracy is a joke, and enemies are anyone who doesn’t look, pray, or think like them. If that sounds familiar, it should. We’ve watched this movie before. It doesn’t have a happy ending.

Act I: Normalize the Violence

The Nazi Brownshirts (SA) and Mussolini’s Blackshirts didn’t rise to power with ballots. They rose with boots and fists. Street brawls, intimidation campaigns, and riots weren’t side effects — they were strategy. When violence becomes “just part of the discourse,” liberal democracy starts to bleed out. Today’s far-right fight clubs are walking that same path, rebranding hate as self-defense and selling street-level brutality as community building.

Act II: Offer Belonging, Then Indoctrinate

Radicalization doesn’t start with ideology — it starts with loneliness. The Brownshirts recruited disillusioned World War I veterans. ISIS recruited alienated teenagers. The new far-right taps into the same reservoir: young men desperate for purpose, identity, and someone to blame. The gym becomes the church. The fight becomes the sermon. And before long, the enemy isn’t just an idea — it’s your neighbor, your teacher, your government.

Act III: Undermine Institutions, One Black Eye at a Time

No authoritarian ever seized power by telling the truth about their own weakness. They do it by convincing people that everyone else is weaker. That the press lies. That the courts are rigged. That the police are corrupt — unless, of course, they’re our guys. And history shows they often are.

The Ku Klux Klan’s infiltration of law enforcement in the 20th century is well documented. And more recently, the Department of Homeland Security itself concluded that white supremacist extremists are “the most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland.” In some cases, police departments failed to screen out officers with white supremacist ties.

Act IV: Break Society into Tribes

The goal isn’t unity. It’s polarization. Division. Factionalism so intense it makes compromise impossible. Ask Yugoslavia. Ask Spain. Ask any society that slid from passionate politics into full-blown civil war. These modern-day crusaders want a society that can’t function, because only then can they claim the mantle of saviors. “The system failed,” they’ll say — right after helping burn it down.

Act V: Reinvent the Ideal Man

(Spoiler: He’s Armed and Angry)

There’s a reason the far-right obsesses over masculinity. In fascist Italy, it was the “New Man” — disciplined, dominant, allergic to emotion. In Nazi Germany, it was the SS: stoic, brutal, perfectly obedient. In today's fight clubs, it’s a similar fantasy: the warrior in waiting, strong enough to resist the “degeneracy” of a society that dares to acknowledge empathy, nuance, or basic decency. It’s toxic masculinity wrapped in camo and draped in national flags.

Act VI: Go Global

This isn’t just a local problem. From the U.S. to Ukraine, from Sweden to South Africa, far-right groups are networking — sharing tactics, funding, and propaganda. It’s not hard to imagine a future where domestic hate groups take inspiration, or even orders, from foreign counterparts. In many cases, they already do. Groups like Atomwaffen Division and The Base are explicitly transnational, and far-right online spaces are global echo chambers of hate.

What You Can Do

This isn’t the part where you sigh, share the article, and move on. This is the part where you act. Because the greatest threat to democracy is the belief that it can’t happen here. The truth is it’s happening here already.

We already have elected officials excusing political violence. We already have law enforcement with ties to hate groups. We already have citizens arming themselves not for sport or safety — but for civil war dressed rehearsals. The rhetoric is normalized. The flags are flying. The warning signs aren’t subtle; they’re marching in formation.

History doesn’t wait for you to believe you’re in danger. It just records what you did about it.

So here’s what you can do:

1. Educate yourself and others. Know the history. Talk about it. Teach your kids. Counter myth with memory.
2. Push your representatives. Demand increased monitoring of domestic extremism. Support legislation that roots out white supremacists in law enforcement and military ranks.
3. Support de-radicalization efforts. Donate to or volunteer with organizations like Life After Hate that help people exit hate groups.
4. Disrupt the recruitment pipeline. Engage young men. Support programs that offer identity, purpose, and community without turning to violence.
5. Refuse normalization. When a politician, pundit, or relative excuses or downplays this behavior, call it what it is. History doesn’t need your silence — it needs your action.

We know how this script ends. The only question is whether we’re finally ready to stop playing our part in it — or whether we’ll keep whispering “that can’t happen here” until it already has.