DC/Richmond "White Lives Matter" march no-show after their comms disrupted
Fascist "White Lives Matter" groups had announced plans over Telegram for April 11 marches in many major cites. For a month, Richmond was to be targetted, until their organizing chats turned chaotic. They whined on Twitter that antifa had taken over these chats, and attempted to salvage the DMV plans with a hasty plan to march on DC instead. That too fell apart, and on April 11 there were no signs of them in DC and no reports of them in Richmond either.
The only report of a significant turnout of "WLM" marchers was in Huntington Beach, California. They were seriously outnumbered by counterprotesters, and at one point police sent out text messages warning civilians to avoid the area because an "unlawful assembly" had been declared. Some of the fascists went seriously off their own message there, including at least one protesting covid-19 vaccines. Also a grand total of TWO fascists showed up in NYC, and no apparent reports of them in Richmond, DC, Philadelphia(had a counterprotest anyway at City Hall)
Nationally, it seems the temporary shutdown of Gab and Parler and permanent "suspension" of Donald Trump's Twitter account have seriously defanged fascist organizing. The effect can be compared to a salvo of shells hitting the bridge of a warship, taking out the ship's central nerve center, and perhaps also central fire control. Ever since, Fascists have had trouble pulling anything together. They failed to field a single fighter against Biden's Inauguration on Jan 20, the planned armed marches on Jan 17 failed to materialize almost everywhere (with Richmond as an exception), and the Qanon March 4 push turned out to be 4-8 people who travelled as a single crew and were zero threat.
Meanwhile, many fascist organizers are either facing charges or ducking warrants from Jan 6, when they fought to return Trump to power by force. When the military (whose loyalty Trump failed to obtain with his insults) refused to back the coup, Trump threw his failed insurgents under the bus, failing to pardon even one of his warriors.
The mess in Huntington Beach shows fascists are still out there, but returning to the WWII battleship analogy they are now like the ship's turrets firing under local control (being individually sighted), with no central command or control and little ability to hit anything. Those Parler, Gab, and Twitter shutdowns forced the fascists to move their organizing to venues where it seems they have little ability to keep their opposition from interfering. In fact, the NYC Telegram group suddenly revealed publicly with one day to go that they had been an "op" by Antifa (and a honeypot) from Day One and fascists there were screwed. With this going on, organizers coast to coast cancelled rallies and told their people (those they could reach and that would believe them) to stay home. When fascists show their faces in public, always there are efforts to photograph them, then put pressure on landlords to boot them and employers to fire them. This often deters fascists from showing themselves when they cannot gather great force, sort of setting a minimum for fascist rallies below which their commitments to participate drop as the day-of approaches and above which this grows. That might be comparable to the "R=1" point, analyzing Fascism as an infectious disease.
This isn't over by any means: based on statements those fash who still have Twitter accounts have posted, they seem to be well aware that their communucations were seriously disrupted. Probably they will move to create networks they can limit to vetted participants, potential methods will not be discussed here for obvious reasons. The 2022 election is coming, and Trump candidates are expected to run against other GOP candidates in primaries. GOP legislatures are passing new voter suppression laws, and these primary fights could bring more of the violence associated with the 2020 election.
Depending on the outcome of 2022 primary and election fights, Trump himself may attempt a comeback (his so-called "third term") in 2024, and if he loses that election may again violently challenge the results in the streets. Even if Trump goes to prison for the coup attempt or other offenses, his backers might find another, more effective Fascist candidate to replace him. Even the simple act of disqualifying him from running for President based on a felony conviction for the dead Capitol Police officers would superficially resemble election tampering in known dictatorships and likely would spark violence. Failing to punish and disqualify him risks violence whether he wins or loses, and sends an ugly message of impunity in office.
