Shampoo maker heads ultra-right network that aims to make him 'warlord' of a collapsed US: Report

A former industrialist who founded a far-right network of "secretive, men-only, invitation-only fraternal lodges" in the U.S. claims to be “raising accountable leaders to help build thriving communities of free citizens” who will rebuild “the frontier-conquering spirit of America," The Guardian reported.

The Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR) was founded by Charles Haywood. According to the IRS, the group has three lodges in Idaho and another one in Texas.

The group condemns modern-day leaders who it says “[alienate] men from family, community, and God” and promises to “counter and conquer this poison."

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According to the Global Project on Hate and Extremism's Heidi Beirich, rhetoric on the group's website is an example of “palingenetic ultranationalism," a type of fascism that says a revolution can bring a national rebirth.

On the website, Haywood talks about his desire to serve as a "warlord" at the head of an “armed patronage network” after the collapse of America. The network is described as an “organizing device in conditions where central authority has broken down” where his responsibility would be “the short- and long-term protection, military and otherwise, of those who recognize his authority and act, in part, at his behest."

Haywood, who sold his Indianapolis-based shampoo manufacturing company, Mansfield-King, in 2020, writes about the possibility of “more-or-less open warfare with the federal government, or some subset or remnant of it."

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“At this moment I preside over what amounts to an extended, quite sizeable, compound, which when complete I like to say, accurately, will be impervious to anything but direct organized military attack," Haywood writes, adding that “it requires a group of men to make it work… what I call ‘shooters’–say fifteen able-bodied, and adequately trained, men.”

Political theorist and a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center, Laura K. Field, Haywood is an example of some on the far-right who "have taken on an apocalyptic view of America and think we’re already in a situation where our society is more conflict-ridden than we were before the civil war" and who have been “dabbling in talk of secession for years”, and “believe they need to use whatever they might need, including paramilitaries."

Read the full report over at The Guardian.