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.
Haywood has become more active and prominent as a blogger and commentator on the far-right podcast circuit since selling his solely owned Indianapolis-based shampoo manufacturing company, Mansfield-King, to a competitor for an undisclosed price in September 2020.
On his personal website, The Worthy House, where he styles himself “Maximum Leader”, Haywood has written that the sale made him “rich beyond the dreams of avarice and looking to cause trouble”. Mansfield-King was reportedly “on track to do $45m in revenue” in the year before its sale.
He has featured on Claremont Institute podcasts like The American Mind and shows run by Claremont Institute staffers and alumni, like the New Founding podcast. He has also written for Claremont’s website, The American Mind.
Indiana company records show that Haywood incorporated SACR as a domestic non-profit in Indiana on 22 July 2020, just ahead of the sale of his company. IRS records show that on SACR was approved as a non-profit fraternal organization – with provision to create subsidiary lodges – under section 501(c)(10) of the Internal Revenue code.
The organization’s structure, aims and apparent secrecy are striking in the light of some of the ideas Haywood has promoted in articles on the Worthy House website.
One idea he has repeatedly raised on the website is that he might serve as a “warlord” at the head of an “armed patronage network” or “APN”, defined as an “organizing device in conditions where central authority has broken down” in which the warlord’s responsibility is “the short- and long-term protection, military and otherwise, of those who recognize his authority and act, in part, at his behest”.
The “possibilities involving violence” that APNs might face, Haywood writes include “more-or-less open warfare with the federal government, or some subset or remnant of it”.
Further on, Haywood writes: “At this moment I preside over what amounts to a extended, quite sizeable, compound, which when complete I like to say, accurately, will be impervious to anything but direct organized military attack”, adding that “it requires a group of men to make it work … what I call ‘shooters’ – say fifteen able-bodied, and adequately trained, men.”
These “shooters”, Haywood explains, “can operate my compound, both defensively and administratively”, meanwhile, “I have the personality, and skills, to lead such a group.”
Haywood was one of the first on the right to try to rehabilitate the rioters who stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Just over two months after that incident, he praised it as an “electoral justice protest”, commenting that “the Protest was pretty awesome in every way. Its most precise analog in American history … is the Boston Tea Party.”
The Guardian requested comment from Haywood via text message and email after attempting to contact him via telephone but received no response.
Laura K Field is a political theorist and a senior fellow at the Washington DC-based thinktank the Niskanen Center who has written and spoken extensively about the “reactionary conservatism” of the Claremont Institute and those in its milieu.
In a telephone conversation, Field said that “some of the Claremont Institute’s leaders 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”.
Their fears of “unyielding technocratic tyranny” mean that some in Claremont circles have been “dabbling in talk of secession for years”, and “believe they need to use whatever they might need, including paramilitaries”.
Haywood’s ideas have seen him characterized as an extremist even by others on the far right including the former American Conservative columnist Rod Dreher, who wrote last December that Haywood was “seriously, batshit crazy” and characterized him as writing from a “Midwestern Führerbunker”.
State and federal tax filings, however, indicate that Haywood has succeeded in attracting men to help him build a network in line with his ideas. Although there is no public membership list available, federal and state filings from regional lodges identify their officers along with those who initially incorporated each lodge.
In particular, Skyler Kressin of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, appears to serve a key role in SACR. Idaho and Texas company records show that Kressin incorporated lodges in Boise, Coeur d’Alene and Dallas; serves as a director of the Coeur d’Alene and Dallas lodges; and was named as the principal officer of the parent organization on its 2020-2021 tax return.
Like other members revealed as officers in the filings, Kressin appears to be an affluent professional working as a tax accountant.
The Guardian emailed a request for comment to Kressin but received no response.
According to tax records Haywood has funded SACR through his Howdy Doody Good Times foundation, for which he and his wife, Alison Murphy, are both listed as directors. In the 2020-2021 tax year the foundation gave $30,000 to SACR, followed by $10,000 the following year, according to its 990 filings.
Further funding for SACR was provided by the Claremont Institute, which gave $26,248 in 2021 in one of only two grants the organization distributed that year, per its own IRS filings.
In another indication of what appears to be a mutually supportive relationship, Haywood’s foundation contributed $50,000 to the Claremont Institute in 2020-2021.
The Guardian emailed a Claremont media spokesperson, David Bahr, inviting comment.
On Haywood’s sponsorship of SACR and his Claremont ties, Field, the political theorist, said: “What’s creepy about the local-level stuff is that this country has a history of local autocracy … the way they’re acting undermines the rule of law.”
