reagansghost
eternal
One of the things you notice about Joey Gibson after you observe him for a while is that the cast around him keeps … shifting.
Gibson, founder of the street-brawling group Patriot Prayer, brought his running far-right protest shtick to Seattle on Sunday when the local chapter of the hate group Proud Boys held a “MAGA Rally for Trump” event in the heart of downtown at Westlake Center. Once again, it was a fairly lame affair—only about 35 Proud Boys and their supporters faced with over a hundred counterprotesters— devoted mainly to a few shouted speeches about the “real fascism” in Seattle, followed by a brief march up the Capitol Hill area, followed by shouting antifascists.
There was a handful of familiar faces in the crowd—mostly diehard Patriot Prayer regulars from Gibson’s events in Portland, such as YouTuber Kerry Hudson and Skylor Jernigan, who created waves on social media last year with violent threats. But mostly, this was a fresh crop of Proud Boys and supporters, nearly every one of them from outside Seattle, there to tell the city how much it sucks. Oh, and to support Trump.
Certainly the cast was very different from the one Gibson organized in Seattle over a year ago when he pledged his eternal fealty to the Proud Boys. That, of course, was all before Gibson and the Portland-area Proud Boys had a big falling-out in which both sides were threatening each other, and before Gibson drifted off to try out a new career drumming up “constitutionalist” politics in rural areas.
The one constant in all these protests is Gibson, who preaches a fundamentally incoherent blend of InfoWars-style paranoid far-right politics and evangelical Christianity (on Saturday, he toted about a banner declaring “Jesus Christ: He Is King”) that is delivered with a high energy and zeal that pleases his followers. He’s great at jacking up crowds; however, the organizations he associates with have a history of crumbling apart rancorously, amid accusations of financial misdealings and interpersonal nastiness. His closest pals one week are personae non grata the next.
Saturday’s rally was part of a normalization blitz being put on by far-right activists like Gibson and the Proud Boys, attempting to convince the public that they are just normal, peace-loving conservatives who love America (except for the leftist and liberal parts), the innocent victims of evil violent antifascists. Yet as paltry as their numbers were, what was noticeable about Sunday’s gathering of “Patriots,” for observers who have been to many of these things, was who wasn’t there—both among the Proud Boys and among Joey’s crowd.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...-of-violent-extremists-and-white-nationalists
lol good luck with that shit losers!
Gibson, founder of the street-brawling group Patriot Prayer, brought his running far-right protest shtick to Seattle on Sunday when the local chapter of the hate group Proud Boys held a “MAGA Rally for Trump” event in the heart of downtown at Westlake Center. Once again, it was a fairly lame affair—only about 35 Proud Boys and their supporters faced with over a hundred counterprotesters— devoted mainly to a few shouted speeches about the “real fascism” in Seattle, followed by a brief march up the Capitol Hill area, followed by shouting antifascists.
There was a handful of familiar faces in the crowd—mostly diehard Patriot Prayer regulars from Gibson’s events in Portland, such as YouTuber Kerry Hudson and Skylor Jernigan, who created waves on social media last year with violent threats. But mostly, this was a fresh crop of Proud Boys and supporters, nearly every one of them from outside Seattle, there to tell the city how much it sucks. Oh, and to support Trump.
Certainly the cast was very different from the one Gibson organized in Seattle over a year ago when he pledged his eternal fealty to the Proud Boys. That, of course, was all before Gibson and the Portland-area Proud Boys had a big falling-out in which both sides were threatening each other, and before Gibson drifted off to try out a new career drumming up “constitutionalist” politics in rural areas.
The one constant in all these protests is Gibson, who preaches a fundamentally incoherent blend of InfoWars-style paranoid far-right politics and evangelical Christianity (on Saturday, he toted about a banner declaring “Jesus Christ: He Is King”) that is delivered with a high energy and zeal that pleases his followers. He’s great at jacking up crowds; however, the organizations he associates with have a history of crumbling apart rancorously, amid accusations of financial misdealings and interpersonal nastiness. His closest pals one week are personae non grata the next.
Saturday’s rally was part of a normalization blitz being put on by far-right activists like Gibson and the Proud Boys, attempting to convince the public that they are just normal, peace-loving conservatives who love America (except for the leftist and liberal parts), the innocent victims of evil violent antifascists. Yet as paltry as their numbers were, what was noticeable about Sunday’s gathering of “Patriots,” for observers who have been to many of these things, was who wasn’t there—both among the Proud Boys and among Joey’s crowd.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...-of-violent-extremists-and-white-nationalists
lol good luck with that shit losers!