Written and photographed by the collective force of @clarkcounty161 on Twitter.
A year ago the world was stunned, largely by the awful rupture of reality that was Donald Trump’s entrance into the oval office, much to the chagrin of his cohorts, a large majority of whom never expected him to actually win. Immediately following this, the world stood fast as we watched a massive spike in hate crimes, the eruption of neo-nazi, white supremacist, fascist, and (ethno)nationalist sentiment and action occur within our country. We lost years of progress as we watched the neo-gestapo, ICE, inject themselves into our communities, cities, and homes as they destroyed families, split relationships, arrested, detained, and deported many wonderful people across our collective community.
So, we responded as a collective. We’ve armed ourselves with the weapons and words of war needed to make a change. We took a stand — and we stood tall. We defended our communities by any means necessary. We disrupted, sabotaged, infiltrated, disbanded, and destroyed the enemies of our inclusive and progressive societies. We forced prominent members of the alt-right out of their homes and communities, just as they advocated to be done to innocent people. Some members even had to flee the country (shout out to ‘Millennial Matt’, of Allston, MA.)
January 20th, dubbed J20 large and wide, was a major 2017 landmark in the fight against the brutal, greedy, imperialist war machine of the United States, domestic and abroad. Partisans of all ideals took to the streets of DC and every major area across the nation to protest the incoming regime of fascism, bigotry, and hate that was dumped upon the shoulders of every person within our nation. Nearly 200 protesters were rounded up and arrested, being informally and unofficially detained in the streets in the freezing cold for hours without access to restrooms, food, and water — all because they were wearing black within the vicinity of a broken window.
Truly, we all realize that this is nothing more than an excuse to silence the rightful anger that boils within the veins of every activist, protester, partisan, ally, accomplice, and fighter that rightfully demands a resistance against the state as it stands. We remember the day. We fought hard. Some members of our local area went to testify for the freedom and justice of our friends — and we’ve been winning. Charges against many of the wrongfully detained protesters were dropped — but the fight still rages on. And so, we’ve decided to spearhead that fight every year, on J20, until we emerge inevitably victorious.
We gave peace a chance. It didn’t work.
So, we took to the streets on J20, 2018, to express solidarity and to defend our communities with every modicum of our collective anger and ability, arm in arm with every member of our community dedicated to resist and persist despite this garbage administration. We brought our cameras and our friends.
Noon — Solidarity In The Thousands
Over 2000 people converged on Portland’s Terry Schrunk Plaza, packing the amphitheater with massive crowds. The atmosphere was jovial and full of energy as defiant citizens held up signs, conversed, and waited for the action to begin. It seemed everyone had a homemade sign with heartfelt and sometimes humorous messages. Colorful signs with phrases like “Drain the GOP Swamp!”, “Impeach The Shithole”, and “Together we stand!” were a constant backdrop, as well a vast amount of pink knit-hats, dubbed ‘pussyhats’ by mainstream media.
We met up with some of our friends and were immediately given parade-route flyers to hand out to the thousands that had converged at Terry Schrunk. Within an hour, as we organized into the park, we began to notice a select few familiar fascist faces who had staged acts of violence against our community members and against our medics in the past.
They’d decided to keep their distance in an adjacent park. They were gone for the march — and didn’t rear their ugly heads until after. As we marched, the parade marshals — signified by a yellow armband, provided compelling arguments against the system that created Trump, at each landmark we stopped to occupy, prompting many who have never been exposed to this rhetoric before to give pause. Largely, the bloc occupied the immediate space before the march to ensure that there was no interference from opposition or traffic, monitoring the police alongside the National Lawyers Guild and the local CopWatch contingency.
The march continued its course, winding around prominent Portland landmarks, banks, and financial institutions: fixtures of institutionalized oppression and subjugation of the working class. With thousands of people marching as one, we took to the streets. It was plain to see this space that we had created welcomed everyone of every color, orientation, and identity. Whether young, elderly, or differently abled, everyone was welcome and that diversity truly was our strength.
The police eventually appeared with motorcycles and bicycles as we reached the end of the rally, watching, but not interacting, while they held open roads with their flashers engaged. However, they were quick to disperse, leaving only the ones watching us by the war memorial. Although throughout the day, we watched as riot police vans drove up and down Naito Parkway, occasionally flanked by 3 or 4 undercover SUVs.
Arrival at the ‘Battleship’ was marked by a chance to meet and greet with everyone participating in the march, a social hour held as the collective conversed and had a chance to meet with one another and speak together, sharing a moment of proper relaxation while the anti-fascist presence milled around, stopping to communicate with some of the organizers and individuals handing out literature as they handled a perimeter of security for those gathering together.
Much of the initial impeachment march migrated back towards downtown in one large group. It wasn’t long after that we’d had been notified by someone that Sam Resnick, noted local opposition/rapist, had arrived on scene blocks prior. Immediately a detachment of local anti-fascists met to counter them, preventing them from coming anywhere near the march, and rally. We sat down, as smaller groups of participants hung around the area for a moment to gather our friends and bearings, swap batteries, and reformat our SD cards, preparing for the local fascist and nationalist ‘evangelical’ group, Patriot Prayer, to show up in order to confront them half a mile up the waterfront at Salmon Street Fountain.
Evening — Patriot Prayer, ProudBoys, Threepers
It wasn’t long after that, that a member of Common Sense Conservative media arrived, camera in tow. Alongside him, a man, a prominent preacher, signified by the arrow, arrived on scene, spitting terms such as “Faggots”, and “Homos”, at our LGBT friends, and protesters. He stood in the middle of the crowd, purposely misgendering our trans comrades, and spitting hateful rhetoric against Trans folk, and other LGBTQ individuals. One of the major reasons that we spend so much time on this one in particular, is because of his constant tendency to become violent, irate, and the nature of the disgusting threats that leaked from his shithole of a mouth.
As more of the fascist opposition rallied at the fountain, eventually members of the PNW ProudBoys came around. First one on scene was Caleb Sketi, known for taking a ‘nice-guy’ stance at Patriot Prayer events, and wearing his plate-carrier (with plates in it, surprisingly), to events where there shouldn’t be any firearms present.
As Patriot Prayer waited for their whole contingency of members to show, the arguments and debates continued, with antifascists holding their ground at the fountain, as we collectively disrupted their intention to organize and rally at the fountain, specifically. Gibson was extremely passive, he had very little to say, and instead left the hateful rhetoric to the street preacher, and other friends. It was worth noting that various youth arrived on scene, shaking hands with, and hugging Joey Gibson — obviously a result of his attempt to ‘reach out to the youth.’ Other young people that have organized with Joey Gibson have been noted to be seen flying ‘Kekistan’ flags, carrying knives with Swastikas on the pommel, wearing the white-laced boots, a neo-nazi accessorizing tradition, standing and holding ‘It’s okay To Be White” signs, banners, purposely attempting to get into fights with anti-fascist organizers, as well as taking photographs with their crowd, holding up signs of the Americaball meme, with text that said “Deal with it,” and “#triggered.”
It’s no surprise that the younger members of his organization are actively seen wearing patches purchased from stores that often organize on 4chan, and /pol/, specifically. The youngest members of his organization are mostly pulled in via Patriot Front groups, a fascist re-branding of the Vanguard America group that is responsible for James Field Jr, the fascist neo-nazi that murdered Heather Heyer. Many of these types of individuals have often tried to claim that Heyer died of a heart attack, attempting to interject with fake photos of Heyer into discourse about the murder. Some of the youth members of patriot prayer have been seen giving Nazi salutes, at his events.
The cops kept an eye, as they sat around, on their phones, drinking coffee and getting paid overtime on a ‘security detail,’ as they monitored the situation from about 6 feet back. They did very little, besides take more money out of the working class’s pockets.
Night — Walking, Shouting, and Confrontation
Shortly after, Patriot Prayer departed, with a larger anti-fascist contingency in tow, behind them, as we marched them away from their rallying spot, up the street to Chapman Square and Terry Schrunk. Again. Cops didn’t follow.
Joey didn’t have much to say. It was quite obvious that he was trying (and failing spectacularly) to mimic, in reverse, the same route that the impeachment march had taken, and attempting to copy the system of stopping at various landmarks to deliver a quick speech about his thoughts about each landmark. Was he protesting the monument? Was it just some drug and alcohol-fueled babbling? Probably, but we don’t know for sure, because every time he tried to speak, he was drowned out by the collective crowd of antifascists, and megaphone sirens.
Regardless, Joey and his band of roving asshats were marched all over the city. Everywhere he went, antifascists followed, speaking over the crowd with megaphones about the various acts of violence and hatred perpetrated by himself, past and present members of his group, as well as some of their dox, to put the icing on the cake. Occasionally, they’d stop somewhere to host a prayer circle, while antifascists disrupted their odd display of public prayer with noise, drums, and colored smoke.
As the march stagnated around Pioneer Square, the presence of an Oregon Three Percenter was apparent. Marked below by the red arrow, they were seen hanging around with a women’s rights pink beanie on. They had their hands in their pockets the whole time, we’re still not sure if they were concealing a weapon at the protest, or not. We’ve seen this happen before, at other Patriot Prayer events. They stopped to attempt to speak, but were immediately drowned out.
As we arrived in Terry Schrunk plaza, Patriot Prayer took to the amphitheater, which has been locally dubbed ‘The Snakepit’, due to the frequency of fascist rallies being held there. Members of RASH NW confronted Tiny, as he began to step chest to chest to protesters in an effort to intimidate them. Things became extremely heated, as everyone quickly became sick of Tiny’s attempted tough-guy stance, trying to talk protesters into swinging on him, trying to urge for a violent fight, as he stood flanked by ProudBoys signified by their polos and hats, carrying mace, some carrying knives. For most of this chunk of the action, many people were on the brink of fighting, or using their cans of mace. It had gotten to the point where most of us were standing, holding the line against the group of ProudBoys, visibly carrying mace, tazers, and stunguns, on both sides.
Tiny, alongside a few ProudBoys, attempted to start a shoving match with a few RASH NW members. The ProudBoys quickly withdrew once a stungun started going off and a few cans of mace were put up in their face. Probably a smart idea, on their part. Various antifascists held the line in solidarity with our RASH friends as they slowly withdrew into the crowd. Soon after, Tiny was standing chest to chest with an antifascist event organizer, who was reading Lawrence Britt’s 14 characteristics of fascism through a megaphone, the diminutive organizer being quite literally half the size of noted man-child Tiny.
Eventually, the crowd of fascists withdrew into the snakepit to rally together. A road flare was lobbed into the crowd, causing a large panic within the crowd of fascists as they yelled, “Watch out, watch out!” for absolutely no reason. Smoke bombs started being lobbed into the pit filling the air with the smell of sulfur. The fascists managed to kick one smoke bomb out into a pit of dry brush, but one of the antifascists sprinted around the perimeter of the park, grabbed it, and threw it back in, bouncing it off one of the ProudBoys’ large, bulbous bodies. Shoving matches and threats of violence from potentially armed Patriot Prayer members and Three-Percenters continued for upwards of 20 minutes, a front line of a black bloc forming around them to push them further into the snakepit and backwards out of the park.
Patriot Prayer was again pushed out of Terry Schrunk Plaza and followed back down the street towards the Hawthorne Bridge. Their original plan to get onto the bridge in order to use the stairs to access the waterfront park almost immediately stopped by Portland Police Bureau. At this point, a group of antifascists broke off to intercept as Patriot Prayer members argued with cops. The park was held again by a large group in bloc as Patriot Prayer hung around out of reach for a good 10 minutes, still arguing with police before they went back the way they came, lining up against SW Naito Parkway. We watched on from the fountain while they shouted slurs across the road, backed by a few American flags. Fitting.
They made it across, purposely looking to agitate. They moved to the Salmon Street Fountain again, where a large group of police started to form. Shouting matches between antifascists and the fascists took hold as more police started to form up around the area. More and more police vans slunk around the parkway as Patriot Prayer quickly dissipated, chunk by chunk, making their way away from the fountain and back towards whatever carpark that they came from (speculated to be Couch St).
It wasn’t soon after Patriot Prayer had vanished that the cops did as well. None of them interacted with any of the non-CopWatch protesters, and probably got sick of being filmed. But hey, at least they didn’t shoot or beat any of us this time.
This event, despite being a repeat of every one of Patriot Prayer’s attempts at intimidation and agitation against Portland’s communities, was a transparent success on behalf of the counter-protestors. This victory is largely due to counter-protest occupying their space beforehand and physically marching the fascist presence out of the city. After they had dissipated in response to the rising police presence, and the fervor of the counter-protest had stayed to confront them.
This also serves to show a trend within the local Portland area where younger members of the community are progressively becoming more involved in Joey Gibson’s bigoted, violent rallies. Between the constant presence of the same members of the PNW ProudBoys, and other violent agitators, Patriot Prayer again serves only to exist for the explicit purpose of acting as a large-scale springboard for the Alt-Right, white supremacists, ultranationalists, ethnonationalists, and various flavors of neo-nazis to organize, rally, and unite.
We, as a collective contributing to the footage, photography, and documentation of this hateful movement, feel that the best thing that we could’ve done was achieved — that being the occupation of their initial meeting points in large-scale numbers, ready to counter them.
Thanks to the National Lawyer’s Guild of Portland for hanging around for eight-ish hours, following us across downtown PDX in the cold and rain, as well as our various street medics.
“If you can’t be bothered to oppose these people because they’re fascists, at least oppose them because of how cringe-worthy they are.”