Washington, D.C.’s Fourth of July week will go from a sweaty fete of fireworks, security checkpoints, tanks and sunscreen to what is shaping up to be a protest-fest, featuring some of the pro-Trump right’s most extreme groups two days after the Donald Trump-centric festivities.
Members of the far-right Proud Boys men’s group and their allies will rally in D.C. on July 6th, just a week after violence at rival Portland rallies ratcheted up tensions between groups on both the right and left. The Proud Boys event and a rival counterprotest threaten to add even more tension for what’s already shaping up to be a hot, strange week in Washington.
The Proud Boys — self-described “Western chauvinists” who adhere to a dizzying array of rules, including restrictions on how much they can masturbate — will be joined on by a number of right-wing internet personalities at the “Rally for Free Speech” at D.C.’s Freedom Plaza.
The event’s website lists a number of right-wing internet provocateurs, including conservative smear-pusher Jacob Wohl, anti-Muslim activist Laura Loomer, British far-right activist Milo Yiannopoulos, and former Pizzagate promoter Jack Posobiec. The bill also names a host of lesser-known social media figures, including YouTube prankster-turned-congressional candidate Joey Salads and “Copper Cab,” the YouTuber who became famous in 2010 for the viral “gingers have souls” video.
The rally, which will be held just blocks from the White House, is ostensibly about social media companies banning right-wing figures like Loomer and Wohl. According to Proud Boy leader and event organizer Luke Rohlfing, though, the event is also aimed at left-wing antifascist activists after Quillette writer Andy Ngo was attacked last weekend in Portland.
While an earlier free speech from the same group in San Francisco drew only a modest crowd in May, the crowd numbers in D.C. could be swelled by Trump supporters traveling to Washington for Donald Trump’s July 4th celebrations.
“A lot of people will be in town for the Trumpstravaganza,” Rohlfing said, referencing Trump’s “Salute to America” event on July 4th that will feature a speech from the president at the Lincoln Memorial, military plane flyovers and tanks.
While the Proud Boy event’s organizer says the event isn’t officially a Proud Boys rally, Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio is listed on the event’s permit as a supervisor. Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes is on the speaker’s list, as is Proud Boy and former Trump adviser Roger Stone. The rally organizers’ application for the Freedom Plaza space has been approved, according to a Park Police spokesperson.
Just across the street from Freedom Plaza, antifascists and other counterprotesters organized in a coalition calling itself “All Out D.C.” plan to rally against the Proud Boys.
“We are expecting a lot of Trump supporters, and especially battle-ready Trump supporters,” All Out D.C. organizer Jesse Sparks said.
After the main rally, Sparks says some counterprotesters will head to disrupt the “Demand Free Speech,” whose location hasn’t been made public.
“Folks might want to do some resistance,” Sparks said.
Rohlfing insists that the Proud Boys don’t intend to be violent, quipping that the only risk from having the Proud Boys in Washington is the local bars run out of beer. But Proud Boys have repeatedly been arrested for alleged aggressive behavior, including a brawl outside a McInnes speech in New York City last year. On his website, Tarrio sells shirts promoting “free helicopter rides” — a celebration of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s regime executing leftists by throwing them out of helicopters.
Ahead of the rally, Rohfling, other organizers organizers and right-wing websites have promoted the claim that antifascists are planning to attack the rally with acid. This claim is based anonymous messages on encrypted messaging app Telegram posted by an account called “Pound on Your Boy,” but there’s no evidence that anyone involved in the Washington counterdemonstration was behind those messages. Commenters on right-wing Facebook pages have responded to the thinly sourced threats by urging attendees at the “Demand Free Speech” event to carry guns.
So far, the Proud Boys and the other event organizers have faced more mundane challenges. Organizers had initially tried to sell tickets to a private after-rally pool party for $200. But the pool club that organizers claimed would serve as their venue backed out in May, claiming they had never agreed to host the rally goers. Event organizing website Eventbrite later deleted the rally’s page and refunded tickets for the VIP event, saying the organizers had failed to prove they had “an authorized location” for the party.
On Monday, some announced speakers started to pull out, with Posobiec tweeting that the anonymous acid threat had made his own participation “TBD.” Meanwhile, Rohlfing insisted that there wouldn’t be any threat coming from the Proud Boys.
‘We’re going to go there and have a fun time,” he said.
QAnon believers feel sure that Trump will drop some big bombshell at his July 4th rally, proving that their elaborate conspiracy theory was right all along. But a sizable QAnon splinter faction that believes John F. Kennedy Jr. faked his death to become the mysterious “Q” have become convinced that the real action will take place on July 5th.
That’s the day, they believe, that Kennedy will emerge from hiding and usher in a new golden age. Then he’ll team up with Trump and ship a huge number of top Democrats off to Guantanamo Bay.
In an effort to prepare for and a potential civil war, QAnon believers have started printing off pictures of JFK Jr.’s face and fashion them into crude masks in an attempt to identify fellow believers when he emerges.
QAnon promoters, including Instagram influencer Jennifer Mac, a dietitian who’s rebranded as a QAnon believer, have started distributing guides for how to make your own JFK Jr. masks. People who are convinced that Kennedy is still alive and living in disguise as a Trump supporter named Vincent Fusca—yes, they really believe this—are encouraged to wear the masks to Trump’s July 4th festivities and Trump campaign rallies.
The ludicrous idea of posing as a long-dead son of an assassinated president as some kind of political statement hasn’t stopped plenty of QAnon supporters online from making their masks.