On Sept. 12, protestors once again descended upon Northampton, this time to protest Senator Elizabeth Warren. Senator Warren held a town hall at Forbes Library. As attendees waited on folding chairs and blankets on Forbes Lawn, protestors competed with Senator Warren’s pre-event playlist. Indistinct chants echoed over the sounds of ‘9 to 5’ by Dolly Parton turned up to full blast.
Senator Warren delivered about ten minutes of pre-planned remarks followed by forty-five minutes of audience questions. The questions were chosen randomly. Anyone interested in asking a question listened intently for their raffle ticket number. The protestors temporarily suspended their heckling to communicate the numbers called to their cadre.
A variety of flags and protest signs lined the crowd: anti-COVID lockdown slogans, a cross flag used by mainstream protestants and a Confederate flag adorned with gay and trans pride flags, among others. A protestor from the Nancy Pelosi protests a week prior reprised his appearance, albeit this time sans pitchfork. He carried a red flag with a green star at the center – the official flag of Morocco, which is also used by members of the Moorish Sovereign Citizen movement. Members of the MSC movement often claim immunity against American laws, citing privileges accorded to indigenous people of the United States by a 1787 treaty the Southern Poverty Law Center characterizes as “fictitious.”
The protestor holding the Moroccan flag identified himself as a supporter of the Moors, the Boogaloo Boys, and a grab bag of other anarchist, libertarian and militia groups. He’s from Connecticut, but frequents demonstrations in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. He expressed outrage at police action at the Wakefield standoff, a confrontation between Moorish Sovereign Citizens and Massachusetts state police that took place earlier this year.
At one point, a person on a bike confronted the protesters about the exact wording of the Second Amendment. The protestor repeated a near-verbatim version of the Second Amendment. The man on the bike corrected him, and then pressed him for the reason members of the Moors were arrested.
“They were illegally arrested. Illegally arrested because the arms were secure and the magazines were detached…Their charges were carrying arms without a permit, which is unconstitutional.”
“But did they have a permit?” the biker responded.
The conflict escalated into shouting as the two sparred over the precise wording of the Second Amendment. The man on the bike took off, yelling behind him, “You’re a frigging idiot.”
The protestor turned back towards a reporter for The Sophian. “Gun control is racist,” he commented.
His Twitter bio includes #BLM [Black Lives Matter] and #M4M4ALL [March for Medicare for All]. He also expressed support for the Jan. 6 attack on the capitol and one of his protest signs called for justice for Ashli Babbitt, an insurrectionist killed by police. He claimed affiliation with a number of groups that either explicitly adopt white supremacist ideology or decline to eliminate violent white supremacists from their ranks.
The protestor claims to be an ex-socialist who became a right-wing anarchist once the government imposed COVID lockdowns. He called Trump a “totalitarian” whose predominant positive quality is not being President Biden. The protestor characterizeed Massachusetts and Maryland police as “fascists.” Connecticut police are, apparently, “less tyrannical.” The way he told it, he’s been involved in numerous confrontations with police, sometimes at pro-Trump rallies, sometimes at Moors-related demonstrations. He said the Maryland police once chased him all the way to the Washington D.C. border following a demonstration in support of Duncan Lem, a white man and Three Percenter militia supporter killed by police in 2020 in the course of a no-knock raid of suspected illegal arms manufacture.
“There’s no reason to ‘back the blue’ when they’re going to stab me in the back,” he said. “Militias are community defense.”
He complained that the thin blue line flag violates the flag code, but clarified that he didn’t mind the thin red line flag.
“They didn’t make a song that said ‘f the firepeople,” he said.
When asked how he squared pro-militia/right-wing anarchist affiliations with his pro-cop cadre of fellow protestors, he complained about a rally where libertarian Gary Johnson disinvited Trump supporters and gestured towards a sign he lent another protestor, which read “Trump 2024, Trump 2028, Trump 2032.”
“It just pisses people off,” he said, shrugging.
If being anti-cop in a mostly pro-police, pro-Trump crowd bothered him, he didn’t show it. When pressed, he redirected the conversation to other issues, mostly Second Amendment protections and COVID lockdowns. He gestured towards the rest of his signs. There were slogans in support of the Oath Keepers, the Boogaloo Boys, the [Redacted] Caucus and the Three Percenter militia group, all predominantly right-wing groups with an emphasis on Second Amendment and a tacit acceptance or explicit adoption of white supremacist ideology. The protestor bridged these sovereign citizen, anarchist and right-wing militia groups. He didn’t address contradictions in these groups’ objectives, nor did he reconcile the dissonance between a company of pro-police Trump supporters and an affinity for a group best known for a police standoff.
The common thread is a lack of faith in the political system and an affinity for citizen-organized overthrow. For the protestors, that seemed to be enough. Or, at least, there’s enough in common for them to show up and shout over Elizabeth Warren.
(Photo via Northampton Meet and Greet with Elizabeth Warren Facebook Page)
