On the 13th of May, explicitly Fascist group Patriot Front staged another one of their “mass marches” of a hundred or so in Washington DC. A solo counterprotester called them out, demanding the “get a job,” calling them “incels,” the works.

It is known they came in on the Metro Red Line from Glenmont(what do you wanna bet their cars were parked there!) and that they apparently had to dump their flags and shields to get back on the Metro to escape the city. Unknown if they had anyone in position to retrieve them, or if someone else captured the whole lot.

Back on Dec 4, 2021, they tried U-hail trucks for transportation from their “vehicle exchange point.” Two of the three U-hauls were disabled, trapping them on the VA side of Key Bridge for hours after their rally. When they finally got back to their cars, every one of them had been trashed as well. Their sentry claimed to have been run off at gunpoint, but more likely was sleeping on watch. Explaining the damage to their two rented U-haul trucks may have been the high point of Dec 5 2021 for them. This time around, they rode Metro instead of driving…

Patriot Front boarded Metro at Glenmont, using only the last car

On the 13th of May, far-right Christian extremists again attempted without success to disrupt a drag show at a venue on Barracks Row in SE Washington DC. Again a solid wall of umbrellas blocked their view of people entering the venue, again loud music made their hateful words hard to hear.

Not even violent Proud Boys back on Feb 18 were successful in attempting to shut down a drag show in the DC area. The extreme right has been able to stage media events but not project serious raw power into the DC area since Jan 6, 2021. This while elsewhere in the US, drag shows are being banned outright by state legislatures in some places while in others armed neo-Nazis are held off by armed anti-Fascist activists. Christian nationalists are promoting outright genocide against the LGBTQ community in the South and the GOP is listening to them.

The 11th of May was the 3ed day of Occupy Polk, which is hard at work kicking off a ballot initiative that could overturn every last one of FL Governor Ron DeSantis’s abortion bans. In afternoon rush hour, activists relocated from the clinic to the Southgate shopping center, where there is considerably more traffic.

If this referendum reaches the ballot it is expected to pass, which would be a major strategic defeat nationally for Christian Nationalists. With abortion protected in Florida, nobody between Key West and Washington DC would have to travel more than 300-400 miles for abortion, and the effects could be felt all the way to Texas. This would also be a humiliating defeat for Ron DeSantis and could take the wind out of the sails of his planned Presidential campaign

Short of the 2024 election, defeating DeSantis (AKA DeathSantis) on abortion will make it more difficult to implement his genocidal anti-trans laws and blunt the momentum of his planned attacks on the rest of the LGBTQ community.

The 10th of May was the second day of Occupy Polk, which is camping on private property at a women’s clinic, out of reach of cops attempting to arrest them for or otherwise prevent them from camping. They are campaigning to put a referendum on the 2024 Florida ballot to guarantee abortion rights and overturn all of DeSantis’s extremist anti-abortion laws.

If this question reaches the ballot, it is very likely to pass as it has in other states in the 2022 election. All of those were states the GOP thought were solidly Christian Nationalist and antiabortion, only to have voters flush these assumptions down the toilet of history.

On the 4th of May, mushrooming financial and ethics scandals continued to embroil the Supreme Court. Protesters demanding a code of ethics for SCOTUS showed up by surprise marching past the Chevy Chase homes of “justices” Kavanaugh and Roberts. This pair of protests apparently took the Supreme Court and the police by surprise: a few US Marshalls were in front of the homes of these “justices,” but Montgomery County police were caught by surprise and did not show up at all.

Author’s commentary on the role of the Supreme Court (as packed by Trump and Mitch McConnell) in creating the current political chaos in the US

The GOP continues to scream about the fact that protesters have marched past the homes of all six antichoice “justices,” while saying nothing about this so-called “court” throwing out 50 years and more of settled law and throwing almost every personal right in the US into chaos and uncertainty. Even no-fault divorce is now on the chopping block in Texas, as sexual and gender taboos excalate to “one man, one woman, one time.

Kavanaugh and Roberts are two of the six “Justices” whose decision to permit states to ban abortion and potentially prosecute women for seeking abortion have pushed the United States to the edge of civil war. Beyond abortion laws, in states like Florida, Texas, Missouri, Montana, and worst of all Tennesee, a full-throated pogrom is underway against transgender folks and especially trans kids. This witch-hunt seemed to detonate out of nowhere weeks after the Dobbs decision came down.

First came hate-filled statements at conventions like that of Proud Boys linked “Moms4Liberty” and Turning Point USA, both in Tampa Fl. By CPAC in Jan 2023, these calls had escalated all the way to an overt call by a Daily Wire columnists to “eradicate” transgender people. Not long after the Tampa conventions, Fascists and overt Nazis putting hate into action began with attempts to storm drag shows, but stout defenses have bogged that offensive down. Not long afterwards, Nazis began targetting the Jewish community as well. As of early 2023, it is considered unsafe to open small neighborhood synagogues in Florida due to the threat from Nazi terrorists. All of this was set loose by the Dobbs decision back on June 24, 2022.

Then came January and state legislatures went back into session. Unbelievably extreme bills with the potential to cost thousands of lives were fast-tracked and signed into law. Speakers at rallies in Florida have warned trans folks to arm for self defense, and indeed many are.

Laws are being passed to take kids from their families, subject them to “conversion therapy” and attempt to destroy their identity. Under UN definitions of genocide, this qualifies. Roberts and Kavanaugh are as responsable as anyone in Florida or Tenn for this hellish nightmare.

Donald Trump in turn is responsible for Gorsuch, Kavanaugh(“Rapey Brett,” and Amy Coney Barret (“the handmaid”) being on the Supreme Court at all. Hopefully the corrupt “justices” voting for chaos and potentially civil war will end up going to prison alongside Trump, convicted of ethics violations for those millions of dollars in gifts more and more of these “justices” are being found to have received. If not, the IRS could take them down the same way they got Al Capone if this income was not declared on their tax returns.

On the 3ed of May, activists from Dream Defenders and other groups all over Florida took over the office of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The sit-in lasted 7 hours, and at one point a DeSantis staffer was caught on video brazenly feasting on cake in full “let them eat cake” fashion.

This was ten years after the first Dream Defenders takeover of the FL Governor’s office over the murder of Trayvon Martin. This time around, Dream Defenders was joined by activists from all over Florida, there to oppose his brazen Fascist, even genocidal agenda.

At least one journalist was expelled prior to the arrests, and doors to the entire FL state Capitol locked well in advance. The occupation lasted seven hours before being forcibly removed resulting in 14 arrests. Video showing police behaving violently towards blockaders (included in this video report) got out via an anonymous participant.

While protesters inside complained about DeSantis essentially burning down the state, his mansion-dwelling staffers feasted on cake. Marie Antwonette never actually said “let them eat cake” but DeSantis’s staffers just said it in deeds not just words.

On the first of May, a rally and march known both as the March for Our Dreams and as the MarchToExist gathered at Orlando’s Lake Eola. The rally focussed on LGBTQ and especially trans rights, due to the dire situation with ongoing pogromist activity by the FL GOP.

This was a much larger event than the previous two and the speakers were more liberal than radical. For all that, a sitting Congressman called DeSantis a fascist from the stage. Calls for gun control were a reversal of the message from the previous two rallies, where different speakers warned the trans community to arm for self defense against a likely wave of murder and persecution both inside and outside the law.

Fact is, you can’t vote your way out of Fascism. If the Fascists can’t win an election , they just change the rules, throw out ballots-or disregard the election entirely. In just the past three years the GOP has done two of these and attempted the last.

This is not a call to NOT vote or run for office, rather it is a call for not STOPPING at voting or running for office. The fact that fascists vote (and cheat at voting…) doesn’t stop them from stockpiling more guns than they can ever shoot. Casting a vote not to be shot by a Nazi works best while also wearing body armor. Stopping genocide and pogromist brutality is an “every tool in the toolbox” job.

None the less, this rally and march was HUNDREDS of participants on MayDay, shouting forth a resounding NO to DeSantis’s agenda of genocide and death. As the situation continues to deteriorate, talk today may beget action tomorrow-and people do meet oneanother at large rallies, for all the risk posed by undercover cops

Yesterday (April 29), Nazis held events in FIVE locations across Turtle Island without an effective counteraction on our part, probably as these were by surprise.

Possibly the worst of these with the siege of the Satanic Temple’s convention in Boston, where both Patriot Front and a bunch of theocratic Christian nationalists showed up. Some convention attendees found themselves beseiged in their hotel, unable to safely get out. Chicago’s extreme gun control laws are far more likely to be enforced against Satanists than Christians or even hard Nazis, so this was an exceptionally dangerous situation even without openly visible weapons on Patriot Front members.

Countering this requires two things: a rapid response network in urban areas where this is possible, and pre-emptive security at likely targets like drag shows and any event deemed hostile to Fundamentalist Christians.