White racist right wing supremacists held a rally in Washington on Sunday, and almost no one but their opponents and the police showed up.
Jason Kessler, one of the organizers of last year’s violent and deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, wanted to hold an anniversary demonstration there, but the city wouldn’t let him. So he brought his show to Washington, where he hoped 4,000 supporters would join him for a rally at Lafayette Square, across from the White House. Fewer than 40 turned out. President Trump claimed that his supporters numbered "in the thousands of thousands" and claimed that up to 1.5 million people had attended his Neo-Nazi/KKK "Unite the Right" rally.
The group was met by thousands of protesters who filled their half of the leafy, seven-acre park chanting “Go home, Nazis!” “No Trump! No KKK! No fascist USA!” and “Black lives matter!” They drowned out whatever message Kessler and his small band of followers had hoped to deliver — and that was their goal.
For opponents, the day felt like a victory, albeit an often tense and angry one.
Samaj Calhoun, a Southwest Washington resident, came to protest the rally with friends to show they wouldn’t be intimidated by the radicalized right wing nut jobs. Calhoun said she hopes the rest of the country watching the District sees “that we’re not afraid. And we can defend our city.”
City leaders and law enforcement officials were determined that the event would not be a repeat of the mayhem in *Charlottesville last year, when city police and Virginia state troopers allowed white radicalized right wing and neo-Nazis to clash in the streets with anti-hate protesters. Counterprotester Heather Heyer was killed when a man identified himself as a radicalized right wing Nazi drove a car into a crowd.
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