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New Albany, Ohio. Now.
They saw me in my mask and one of them said “you wear a mask you’re probably voting for Biden.” I said “I can’t vote for Trump if he dies of COVID.” No immediate response.
Worst thing: people leaving the Starbucks across the street beeping horns, waving, and giving thumbs up. Range Rover. Audi. My neighbors.
I walked behind them. One was on his phone. He was saying “no one here. No BLM.” He was agitated. They want trouble.
The most frequent chant: “SAVE OUR CHILDREN.” In case you were unaware of the Q/white supremacist overlap.
They stopped on the bridge for photos. They spent a lot of time stage-managing it “so we look like the whole bridge is filled.”
There are about 1/20th of the people here for this that were here for a BLM March in July. There was no violence or property damage for that BTW.
They are now playing a recorded Reagan speech. Can’t tell which one.
“Where we goin’ now?”
“No idea. Nowhere I’d don’t think.”
He’s more right than he realizes.
“No idea. Nowhere I’d don’t think.”
He’s more right than he realizes.
The Proud Boys Express
This is the bus owner. He’s trying to explain the “core tenants” of the Proud Boys to my neighbor and me. He’s getting a lot of agenda-driven questions and is not quite realizing it.
This guy keeps coming back to how for him it’s all about “drinking beer and camping.” Which is what they did last night and again tonight. I asked where he’s camping. He said “nice try. Unless you really wanna come out . . .”
I asked him what they do if Biden wins. He said “nothing I guess. Keep drinking beer and camping.” Earlier he described the Proud Boys as “basically a fraternity.”
I asked him what he thought about Trump calling them out on Tuesday. He said "It was GREAT! We didn't think he knew who we were, really, but it was awesome."
Now they're chanting "WE LOVE BEER." They seem to have lost the plot.
I'm going home.
I'm going home.
Forgot something: I asked them "why are you in a rich, conservative, overwhelmingly white place like New Albany." He said "mostly because of Les Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein."
I prodded him to go on, and he said "we want to protect kids from abuse." He then denied that they have anything to do with Qanon. He said "We hear Ghislaine Maxwell is flipping on everybody."
When they stopped, they pushed him to the front and said "see, we're not racists." Many times. https://twitter.com/matt_hommeyer/status/1312440333582569473?s=20
Home now. Some final thoughts.
Hard to resolve the notions that these guys (a) are a potential brownshirt organization that could commit violence, spread hate, and could upend the election; and (B) come off as extremely dumb, disorganized, lazy, and all, constantly, talked about wanting to leave to go drink.
The vibe one gets is that they are just elated that they have been given permission to be like this. The comment from the debate the guy mentioned, etc., it all comes off as "YES, we LOVE that we have mainstream representation for our views! We need not live our lives in shadow!"
And I guess that's the crossroads: does someone, like Hitler did with beer hall thugs, whip them into something truly cohesive or does the energy go out soon? Trump was too unfocused and feckless to do it, I think. Someone else might. These are people begging to be led.
And that's where I'm left: these guys are fucking losers, the lot of them. I doubt they find their way back to their campsite after taking piss tonight without using the buddy system. But there are more people than just them who think like they do.
More intelligent white nationalists -- and they exist -- may not warm to Trump because he's a dumb, sloppy hot mess. The next one may not be.
Proud Boys rally. New Albany, Ohio. October 3, 2020.
The Mayor of New Albany released a statement about the Proud Boys thing. He did not mention them. I assume his reference to "other groups" means the "Trump Train" parade people. It was clearly coordinated but they seemed to be a different group. https://newalbanyohio.org/news/2020/10/a-message-from-mayor-sloan-spalding-2/
