I love Boston so much right now. I love Antifa, I love Black Lives Matter, I love all the random peaceniks and fighters for justice who showed up today, I love the Boston Police Department.
Just got back from today’s massive demonstration. There were about 50 Nazis, so few they could all fit on the bandstand. And it’s hard to estimate crowd size, but I’ve been to a lot of demos, and I think there were about 40,000 people on the anti-Nazi side. The crowd was peaceful, diverse, friendly, and happy. The signs were passionate and clever. The police did their job, and they did it well as far as I could see.
We watched some coverage of the demonstration after it was over and were disappointed and puzzled to see how the news focused on the few arrests and some scuffles where the paths of Nazis and protesters came too close together. How did they miss the monster party that the rest of us experienced? They described the atmosphere as “tense,” but 99% of us weren’t tense at all. We felt fantastic. Boston showed up to boo the haters out of our town, and we did it in style.
A few favorite moments: one or two of the fascists somehow got past the police barricades and were walking among the main crowd, some of whom as you might predict were following the guys and yelling at them. But other anti-Nazis kept them surrounded and safe until they could rejoin their pathetic little herd. That was a beautiful thing to see.
People handed out bottles of cold water. Somebody brought three sheet cakes to share, just like Tina Fey suggested – though they ignored her advice to stay home. If you don’t show up to protest Nazis, when are you going to show up? But free cake? That was a good idea.
Another moment: when the tens of thousands of marchers who started in Roxbury arrived at the Boston Commons, the tens of thousands of anti-fascists already there raised a huge cheer and chanted Black Lives Matter as they joined us. There was no tension. There was joy and celebration. The Nazis gave up their platform and slunk off with their police escort. The crowd sang, Na na, na na na na, hey hey, goodbye.