White supremacists’ July 4 march counts as free speech, US interior secretary says

Federal officials had no reason to stop a white ⁠supremacist group’s July ⁠4 rally in Washington because ⁠of free speech protections, US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said on Sunday.

Hundreds of masked Patriot Front members who marched through the nation’s capital on Independence Day on Saturday did nothing illegal, Burgum told CNN’s State of the Union programme.

Although the organisation’s ‌white supremacist, anti-immigrant ideology is “nothing that I could possibly agree with”, Burgum said, it is protected free speech, even if it “makes democracy messy”.

Protesters on Washington’s National Mall who criticise US President Donald Trump enjoy the same rights, “yet they’re allowed to go on because of free speech in our country”, Burgum said.

Patriot Front itself has criticised democracy. A manifesto on the group’s ⁠website says “Democracy has failed this once great nation” and a “hard reset” is needed to “return to the traditions ‌and virtues of our forefathers”, identifying them as European settlers.

The Patriot Front members marched to drummers near the US Capitol and the Union Station ‌transit centre before taking Metro trains to a District of Columbia suburb.