Zach Rehl said he was doing it all for “fun”. It’s not fun anymore. 

PHILADELPHIA, PA – After the Nov. 17 “We the People Rally” underperformed in such a way that one of the attendees called the event and its weak turnout compared to those opposing them “pitiful”, the rally organizer says he is done with putting on rallies in the near future, citing the negative heat brought on by neo-Fascist groups such as the Proud Boys participating.

“When I started doing this, I really started doing this kind of for fun, really, just to promote the page a little bit,” Organizer Zach Rehl, who moderates the Facebook page Sports Beer & Politics II and has held several right-wing rallies in the past year, told Idavox. “It didn’t really have a positive impact as we hoped, so it’s not really worth it. It seemed to have caused more harm than anything, and that was not the point of our rallies in the first place.”

The “We the People Rally” was touted on its Facebook event page by Rehl and others as one to counter “the voices on the left”, but the Proud Boys and the militia groups were involved and planned to attend, some touting to engage physically with counterprotesters. That is all but a mission for the Proud Boys, and it sparked outrage among community members in the wake of a brawl outside a Republican Club in New York City that has resulted in the arrests of several members of the Proud Boys and began a downward spiral for the organization that has seen documents revealing the FBI regarding them as an extremist group, and  its founder Gavin McInnes step away from the group in an effort to help those members arrested. One of them, David Kuriakose, was seen at the Nov. 17 rally.

In the days before the rally, those opposing it made note of those extremist associations, even noting how one of the administrators to the Sports Beer & Politics II page goes by the name “Sheckel Steinberg” – a name that is also used on a Twitter and You Tube account – often posted anti-semitic memes to the page. “He’s a military buddy, actually Jewish as well. But he’s just a friend of mine,” Rehl said. “It was a nickname he received growing up and decided to use it as a tagline.” Regardless, the objections mounted, and even other militia groups in Pennsylvania started urging others to stay away from the rally. That day, Counterprotesters overwhelmingly outnumbered the approximately thirty who attended Rehl’s rally, with some counterprotesters being arrested on assault charges.  While there were no arrests among the number of those participating in the We the People rally, more reputed Proud Boys have since been arrested in relation to the New York brawl.

After the rally, Rehl said his home was vandalized.