Proud Boys strutted out feeling they could take on the world and antifa showed them they couldn’t even take on High Street! Perfect way to start 2024!

Elderberry, your friendly Ohio antifascist

In December of 2022, Columbus, Ohio saw the invasion of over 200 armed terrorists and violent brownshirt gangs gather to threaten a local Unitarian Universalist church from holding a private drag-queen Reading Hour for their congregation, affiliates, and families. The organizers of the Reading Hour event were understandably concerned and canceled the event at the last minute but the fascist thugs gathered anyway, largely appearing in gang insignia as the Proud Boys, Patriot Front, White Lives Matter, 3-percenters, Oath Keepers, and other various far-right extremist gangs. The local activist community was caught unprepared by the sudden cancellation. Thus, a large gathering of fascists, coddled by newly-minted Columbus police “liaisons” with high-fives some of them gave to the assembled hatemongers strutted and gestured and cussed at locals in front of the local shops along High Street. Counter-protesting was largely composed of incidental locals just passing by and reacting with disgust. Proud Boy goons even partied at a local bar afterwards.

NOT THIS TIME

During December of 2023, a few known fascist organizers, including rally organizer Dawn Moody, who along with her husband Michael has ties to several far right organizations,  far right blogger Jeremy Deeter, and a number of Proud Boy and 3-percenter gang members who participated in that event and other more recent ones targeting LGBTQ+ or drag-queen events in Ohio, began circulating the idea online for a January 6 “ceremony” to support Donald Trump and pretend to commemorate Ashli Babbitt, the attacker who was shot and killed attempting to invade Congress in the coup attempt on the US Capitol on January 6 2020.  Fascist organizing was fairly transparent online, and no secret to anti-fascist activists and also probably the FBI. Jeremy Deeter nevertheless was still surprised the opposition found out about the event, saying in one video that due to the interest that they have shown against it, the rally has “evolved” into something larger. “One of two things could happen here,” he said. “We could have an overabundance of antifa and walking pharmaceutical commercial following and friends, or we could have everybody that sees this is an agenda, agenda driven against us.”  

Deeter is someone who who among other things believes that the freedom of religion “has nothing to do with coming here and being anything other than Protestant,” even though the First Amendment specifically forbids Congress from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion, the framers of the United States Constitution itself, while largely Protestant, included two Catholic signers, just one thing making it clear for over two hundred years that all religions are free to be practiced in the United States. Despite that bent towards Christian Nationalism, he still had issues with neo-Nazis that might attend their Jan. 6 event. He suggested  the neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe, whom he referred to as “Gay Blood Tribe” and asserted that the leader was gay, and White Lives Matter gangs were also going to attend, The mere mention of these groups however caused drama with the more tepid small town older bigots like Moody who only wanted to show up with right-wing fake “patriot” groups like the Proud Boys. Jeremy apologized in another video and cow-towed to her profusely online. 

This time, anti-fascist activists began an organized call-out to counter-demonstrate and shut down the Proud Boy goon “ceremony.” Using lessons learned from December 2022 and the other recent fascist attacks on the Ohio LGBTQ+ and drag communities, activists quickly organized a comprehensive counter-demonstration plan to disrupt the Proud Boys’ Statehouse event.

Statehouse demonstrations in Columbus are practically a daily occurrence, and the Ohio State Police and CPD have all of the military infrastructure and personnel necessary to completely lock down and clear the Statehouse Plaza and the whole block if they want to. They have shown this capability to be fully developed at least since the George Floyd demonstrations in 2020 which saw the state deal a brutal hand to local civil rights demonstrators and random citizens alike. It is possible to obtain a permit to demonstrate on the grounds, but none had been obtained by the Proud Boys in this case and the application date had already passed.

Local activists knew all this. They anticipated that the militarized state would coddle the Proud Boys allowing them to demonstrate and try to incite the community anyway. Some local anti-fascists decided to put out a call out for a “critical mass” of people opposed to far-right fascism from across the socio-political spectrum to gather and outnumber the right-wing terrorists. This time, we would have the numbers.

Planning unfolded immediately and was comprehensive across local and regional affinity groups, skill sets, and styles of direct action. Organizing drama and typical leftist infighting was explicitly discouraged and efficiently handled. Support and solidarity to the Columbus organizing group came from many individuals and groups across the region who opposed fascism. The goal was to form a critical mass in black block, to protect identities from fascist and police doxing, and outnumber the Proud Boys. While this writer is proud to have worked with these diverse and amazing organizers, the organizing isn’t the story.

THE STORY is that the fascists were fucking embarrassed.

After eventually learning about a potential “Anteefer” counter demonstration, the fascists changed their gathering time twice in the days leading up to January 6. Some planned to meet at a truck stop outside of the city at 9:30, then drive down at 10am. Others planned to occupy the Statehouse grounds at 11am, then 9am. They confused themselves.

On the freezing cold morning of Saturday January 6, a few goons in plain clothes were on the ground around the Statehouse early, one was identified as a fascist spy in plainclothes, others were the expected cops or feds. A few more Proud Boys parked in the official ticketed pay-parking in the lot directly UNDER the Statehouse and appeared on the outskirts of the grounds around 9am. A group of 3 chatted with the rookies on the CPD “liasion” team who were also walking around.

By this time, around 30-40 antifascists in black block had already gathered at the McKinley statue on the west side along High Street (the usual high-profile spot for local demonstrations). A Food Not Bombs wagon had warming supplies, coffee, water, tea, and food. Over time, more people in black block gathered. Some black blockers stood to protect nearby public bathrooms, where Proud Boys are notorious for harassing non-binary people. By 10 am, there were no Proud Boys and only 5 cars full of open fascists at the truck stop. Eventually the truck-stop fascists drove downtown and were monitored by antifascists all along the way, parking and walking to the Statehouse. A few of fash chatted with the cops, but none of them gathered. Not by 10am, although the black block had grown to about 60. Not by 11am when the black block counted about 80-90 and a crew of bucket drummers began occupying the plaza giving us some sick hype beats to keep us moving in the cold. (It was fucking cold!) Although a few “patriot” looking goons tried to come by to try to taunt some of the black block kids eating sandwiches and trying to stay warm, they were wildly unsettled by the vitriol from angry youths and retreated to the other side of the plaza. By now there were about 90-100 black block people mostly hanging out along High Street.

Eventually, the cops had lined up on the other side of the Statehouse block to escort the group of Proud Boys who FINALLY showed up around 1pm en-masse with their insignia and gang swag. There were only about 80-90 of them all-told. They were escorted into the middle of the plaza by a cordon of bike and foot police in formation, separating them from about 120 black block antifascists. We had the numbers, but it was close. The cops easily outnumbered everyone (not unusual at the State Capitol, as noted), forming a line facing both ways with uniformed foot and bike officers.

There was no Proud Boy “ceremony” because they were essentially shouted down and drown out by the larger mass of counter-protesters. They stood and postured and gestured and cussed but stayed behind their precious police lines the entire time. No physical contact occurred, although one of Dawn Moody’s goons threw a salt ball that landed on the ground. No one was arrested, even though the Proud Boys attempted incitement. Curiously, no one can confirm Jeremy Deeter as attending the rally despite his plea for his people to show up! 

To give credit: one crew of protesters, known in Columbus as the “Downtowners” who are people of color who actually LIVE downtown and are known to SHOW UP for every meaningful event since 2020, were right on the front-line, nose-to-nose with the cops and fascists, unintimidated and militant, refusing to back away or give ground. (Shout out to the Downtowners: Respect.)

The fascist goons lasted about 50 minutes in the cold and then decided to pull back to form a “prayer circle” to say something dumb about their führer Donald Trump and bless the convicted traitors who tried to help him steal a fair election. After blasphemously praying to Jesus, they grabbed their crotches and cussed some more from behind police lines and posed for a photo-op in front of the Statehouse steps. The police surrounded them for protection the entire time, of course. Ohio taxpayer’s money at work! It WOULD have been cheaper and justified all that piggy overtime if they just cleared the plaza, but THAT would have been a victory for us – we all would have just gone home to get warm and take naps.

In the end the Proud Boys sulked away, drown out by the jeers and taunts and singing of “Na-Na-Na-Na, Hey-Hey-Hey…” and followed out of town by activist observers to get documented, doxxed and exposed. It was a victory, everyone went home safe (We checked). There was a great deal of good will and solidarity formed across the various individual and affinity groups involved. Some from different leftist political backgrounds, but all united militantly against fascist gangs.

A final word of critique: follow up discussion among organizers and activists regarding the action was useful and identified a few areas of improvement. Notably, the black block line did not move to prevent the massed Proud Boy/police advance into the plaza in front of the steps. That space could have been occupied and/or we could have moved to surround them if we were faster than the police or taken the initiative to do so. Nevertheless, the Proud Boys in Ohio have learned that they can be outnumbered and are not feared. For all their bravado, they hypocritically need police protection to stage any of their hate shows. They will be thinking twice about how they stage their next one. We will be watching and waiting. As stated succinctly in the title of the recent book by Clay, Lady, Swartz, and Staudenmaier: We Go Where They Go.