“Stop the Steal” supporters cried “Destroy the GOP!” on Saturday in a demonstration that appeared to antagonize even the Republican Party amid President Donald Trump’s loss in last month’s election.
Nick Fuentes, far-right host of the podcast “America First,” lead the refrain, saying, “we are done making promises.”
“It has to happen now, we are going to destroy the GOP,” Fuentes trumpeted into a megaphone.
And the new MAGA chant is… “Destroy the GOP!” https://t.co/aYmtyQTAeV
— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) December 12, 2020
Trump seemed to praise his various supporters tweeting early Saturday that “thousands of people” were congregating in the nation’s capital to support “Stop the Steal.”
“Didn’t know about this, but I’ll be seeing them! #MAGA,” Trump wrote on Saturday, amid a flurry of tweets that unleashed fury on those who have been unwilling to play along with his effort to overturn the will of the American people by tossing him an election win.
The demonstration was part of a number of efforts that dotted D.C. on Saturday stemming from rage over President Trump’s failure to swindle a victory after losing the presidential election last month.
Trump and a vast array of GOP allies, were dealt an additional blow on Friday night after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Texas lawsuit that ultimately sought to toss out millions of ballots in battleground states.
The farfetched, Trump-friendly lawsuit, aimed to stop Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — all states that Democrat Joe Biden won — from casting their electoral votes for Biden and instead to shift the selection of electors to the states’ GOP-controlled legislatures.
A group of roughly 100 Proud Boys and their supporters who Trump famously told to “stand back and stand by” during the first presidential debate in September, made attempts to march through an area outside the White House that’s been called “Black Lives Matter Plaza,” but were blocked by police, according to an account by the Daily Beast.
As the day wore on, a group of Proud Boys and pro-Trump demonstrators clashed with counter-protesters near the Plaza the Washington Post said.
At least six people were arrested amid the demonstrations, according to the Post, in addition to five arrests over a brawl on Friday night.
Former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn — a Trump ally who the President just weeks ago announced would be pardoned— also appeared at rallies across the city asserting from a kind of warped reality that the election wasn’t over.
“The truth will prevail!” Flynn told a crowd on the National Mall.
Another longtime Trump supporter and televangelist, Mark Burns, railed against “Marxists” at the Jericho March — an event on Saturday that valorized Trump and appeared to demonize anyone who stands in his way.
Stuart Rhodes, founder an anti-government militia group known as the Oath Keepers, took a darker and more violent tone in on-stage remarks at the same event, asserting that Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act as if to suggest he claim a second-term by force.
Aboard Marine One, Trump’s helicopter flew over the demonstrations that made the wild claims, en route to an Army-Navy football game on Saturday afternoon at West Point.
President Trump on Marine One just did two flyovers of the crowd at the Freedom Plaza on his way out of DC for the Army v. Navy game pic.twitter.com/yKQjyXtcBY
— Amanda Golden (@amandawgolden) December 12, 2020
