Presler (here for one of his cleanup stunts): “This is a hate crime because I’m gay!” Antifascists: “We’re all gay too, Scott!”

Feb. 5th, 2020, 9:30AM: This story has been updated to include the account of an antifascist at the cleanup who detailed further abuses of houseless people.

By Abner Hauge, Left Coast Right Watch

Right wing media these days is full of talk about how filthy liberals and their “enclaves” supposedly are. In that world, San Francisco is synonymous with shitting in the street.

Scott Presler, a racist grifter who’s worked for ACT for America, built his current performance on the idea of getting volunteers together to clean liberal cities up and then pose for photos afterwards. He’s done this before in Baltimore, Los Angeles, Houston, and most recently Salem and Portland, Oregon.

A few dozen of Presler’s volunteers arrived around 10am last Saturday morning at San Francisco Civic Center. They’d partnered with San Francisco’s GOP and planned to have them pick up trash for about four hours. They initially also planned to come to Oakland as well, but cancelled that the day before.

The cleanup was to be followed by a “Town Hall” panel by Brandon Straka of the astro-turf #WalkAway campaign–an effort to get Democrats to leave the party and vote red. A previous event by Straka at Chico State had III% militiamen as security. Presler and two other LGBTQ+ MAGA-world e-celebs, Blaire White and Mike Harlow were the other speakers.

But things didn’t go as planned.

LCRW spoke to two people who went undercover, signing up for the cleanup online with fake names and participating while monitoring volunteers.

“The “site” was up and down several streets,” one source who showed up to the 10am-Noon shift of the cleanup recounted to LCRW via a group text chat.

“The group we followed was polite to those they interacted with. No idea what the other groups got up to. (I mean, we were all doing a back and forth, but they were polite to those on the street.) They picked up trash and asked before they took anything, if it might have been personal property. They each collected about 1/2 a bag of trash, left shit where it was if it was too much trouble and were headed back to Civic Center less than an hour after they left,” the source who observed the morning shift said.

Another person who went undercover during the Noon-2pm cleanup said the group they followed wasn’t courteous to people at all.

“I wouldn’t describe them as “polite” to unhoused residents. Their cleanup crew ignored [unhoused] people completely most of the time and treated them like they weren’t human beings,” the undercover activist said.

“The amount of trash they had wasn’t very much. Most of the bags were half-filled but they did collect a bit,” the undercover activist added. “When I’ve done trash clean ups with the consent of curbside communities, we got a lot more with a lot less people.”

Some antifascists went to observe during the morning and witnessed invasive and abusive behavior from Presler’s volunteers. Some told LCRW the volunteers were aware they were being observed and “were careful not to overtly harass people.”

“They would completely crowd around houseless people, even if they were sleeping, and start going through their shit to look for things that could be seen as “trash” without taking things that obviously weren’t,” an antifascist told LCRW.

“They were picking up a  bunch of clothes that were sitting in an alley that very likely could have been someone’s,” the antifascist recounted.

One houseless person of color yelled “Get the fuck out of here! You don’t wanna help anyone!” The volunteers ignored him. Another houseless person happened to be a Trump supporter but didn’t want to be filmed.

“He had to tell them like three times to stop filming him,” an antifascist recounted.

Some antifascist counter-protestors and one of the undercover activists told LCRW they saw an unhoused person’s tent being stolen and thrown away by Presler’s volunteers.

I missed this half an hour ago. Apparently Presler’s people stole someone’s tent. You can accurately interpret that as “They stoke someone’s property” and arguably “They stole someone’s home.” https://t.co/OlvGsYrTbC https://t.co/5VQNuWYnrM

— LEFT COAST RIGHT WATCH (@LCRWnews) February 1, 2020

Meanwhile, Presler posted videos of trash on the street to Twitter, including one where he gawked at a woman sleeping on the sidewalk and another when he finally found some poop in the gutter next to the wheel of a food truck.

“Presler’s new brand plays on right wing mythologies of decaying cities & rampant crime, associating houselessness with drug use & disease. He hypes his far-right supporters for donations, while ignoring every factor that contributes to poverty & dispossession,” Rose City Antifa wrote before Presler tried to come to Portland last month.

Right-wing vilification of houselesness isn’t new, but they have been reinvigorated recently. Tucker Carlson, The Daily Stormer’s favorite broadcaster, aired a weeklong series earlier last month vulgarizing houselessness in San Francisco. As Courtney McCagle and Nikki McCann Ramirez of Media Matters for America write:

“Carlson’s weeklong series was an excuse to cherry-pick incidents and host a slew of biased guests to paint San Francisco as a liberal hellhole. The special served little purpose other than to dramatically present the city as a right-wing caricature, dehumanize homeless people in an attempt to push the criminalization of poverty through “broken windows” policing, and attack liberal Democrats for attempting to implement criminal justice reform.”

This wasn’t the first time Fox News ramped up its anti-houseless rhetoric in recent months. Media Matters reports Fox News aired over 100 segments on houselessness between September and November last year. Anti-houseless rhetoric has been ramped up ever since the Trump Administration announced last September it was pushing for a crackdown on houseless peoples’ camps in California, where over a quarter of the nation’s houseless reside.

While many of Presler’s volunteers were from the San Francisco Republican Party, there were a few notable people present with ties to extremism. Max Guglielmelli, an ex-Proud Boy was a particularly vocal attendee. Far-right live-streamer Stephen Powles, aka Crowman17, attended and recorded the event. Powles often carries a Kekistan flag around and has a history of sharing fascist organizations and sentiments on his Facebook page. Both Guglielmelli and Powles are good friends with Anthony Macias, a Santa Clara County Republican Party delegate who says he was given his “@fashyhaircut” Twitter handle by Identity Evropa founder Nathan Damigo. Macias ran for office with Unite the Right speaker Augustus Invictus, who was recently arrested for allegedly kidnapping his wife at gunpoint. Macias expressed his disappointment he couldn’t make it to Presler’s event. Proud Boy Chad Lanyon also attended.

One noteable attendee was Taiho Decker. Decker is a frequent presence at far-right gatherings in Northern California. He livestreams and shouts incoherently at people, sometimes independently and sometimes for Ben Bergquam of ‘Frontline America,’ a nativist AM radio talkshow based out of Fresno. In 2013 he was arrested for terroristic threats after apparently threatening someone with a hammer, barricading himself in a hotel room and claiming he had a gun. Vallejo’s SWAT team used tear gas to make him exit the room.

Presler has been active in right wing politics at least since 2014 when he was a field rep for Gregg Abbot’s campaign in Texas, but his ties to far-right extremism run deeper. He was a staffer at ACT for America, an SPLC-designated anti-Muslim hate group, and organized their 2017 “March Against Sharia” events. As admin of the Facebook page ACT used to organize the rallies, Presler presided over a torrent of white supremacist and Islamophobic messages. Presler even tried to work with neo-Nazi Billy Roper on the event until the SPLC called him out for it. In the Facebook groups, people discussed having the Oath Keepers, III% militia members and the Proud Boys attend as “security.” The rallies themselves did attract those groups as well as white nationalists from Identity Evropa and Vanguard America, groups that mere months later attended the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

A little after Noon, LCRW began getting video from activists who went to counter-protest Presler’s event. A couple of dozen people chanted and shouted at attendees.

An antifascist told LCRW that Presler’s volunteers “converged and were generally staying to themselves,” and a when local person of color confronted them and “started to yell at the fash to get the fuck out, they all surrounded him and were filming and yelling at him.”

One person in black bloc stole a MAGA hat from a pro-Trump drag performer that goes by “Lady MAGA,” who wasn’t in drag at the time.

“[Lady Maga] attacked and grabbed the masked up person who had allegedly grabbed the hat off [his] head,” an antifascist recounted, continuing, “Other fash were coming, so the person who was being attacked had to struggle to get free. A white comrade helped the person get free.” Video by Steven Powles appears to show this. 
People then formed a circle around the person  until police gave up trying to question them and left. The incident was later the subject of outrage for the local far-right, mostly targeted at San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin for apparently not pressing charges on the person in black bloc.

“Scott [Presler] is accusing us of doing a hate crime against him LOL,” one activist texted LCRW.

“He was saying ‘You’re hate-crimeing me! I’m a gay man!” another activist recounted. “I just said “We’re all gay, Scott.” He stomped away, furious. It looked like he was about to cry.”

Elijah Schaffer, a correspondent for Glenn Beck’s BlazeTV, who had previously followed Presler around and filmed poop with him, shouted “I can’t be a colonizer! I’m a European!” during an argument with someone. “This land wasn’t stolen. It was conquered. We won it in battle!” he added.

After a while, Presler and the volunteers got on top of a circular bench in the middle of Civic Center and posed with a giant ‘Trump 2020’ flag while chanting “USA! USA!” They eventually posed for photos and dispersed, many of them getting lunch at the cafeteria on the first floor of the Twitter building.

Around two in the afternoon, Brandon Straka got confirmation their event in the evening was cancelled. Staff at The Women’s Building, a community space in the Mission Presler had planned hosting his “Town Hall,” found out who Presler was.

“The people used their real names [on the application] but lied about the event and just said that it’s a ‘queer group for unity,’” an inside source told LCRW.

Straka posted the email he got from The Women’s Building staff on Twitter.

“The disparagement of a group, in this case the homeless population, would be against the terms of the proposed contract,” the email read.

“WE WILL NOT BACK DOWN,” Straka wrote on Twitter. He told people to meet in front of the Women’s Building at the time of the original event. Presler and his followers planned to have a “free speech rally” outside. A counter-rally called “No Queer Fascism! No WalkAway!” quickly popped up.

“We always have security and this will be no exception though we have no reason to believe there is anything to fear,” an email from Straka’s WalkAway campaign sent around 4:20pm read. LCRW was unable to find any private security at the event, although SFPD did show up.

I arrived at the Women’s Building around 5:00pm. Other than a truck with a State of Jefferson and NRA sticker on it across the street, there wasn’t a hint they’d shown up. Around 6:05, a group of about 15 counter-protestors and 20 right wingers arrived along with Presler, Straka and the rest of MAGA-world e-celebs. At the height, I counted about 40 counter-protestors, 30 right-wingers and about 20 police.

“Yeah, you guys hate that copyrighted music, dontcha? It really prevents you from getting your grift online, doesn’t it?” local activist Christina DiEdoardo told Straka as what I think was Blondie played over a loudspeaker.

Counter-protestors were relentlessly loud. Even five feet away from Presler and Straka’s PA system, I could barely understand what they were saying.

“After opposing Scott Pressler and his MAGA mob earlier in the day, anti-fascists had little patience for their attempt to claim their free speech was being infringed,” one protester recounted to me later.

Presler would take frequent breaks from trying to talk to his followers to shout at counter-protestors.

“Why do you lock up blacks but give Illegals freedom?” Presler tried to chant at counter-protestors. “No answer,” he added before turning back to his crowd. Apparently he’s never heard of ICE.

Much of what Presler says uses this kind of cynical rhetorical device. Even Presler’s origin story is rooted in pitting marginalized groups against each other in order to further right wing talking points. Presler says he came out after the Pulse Nightclub shooting–the 2016 mass murder in Orlando that claimed 53 peoples’ lives at a queer-friendly dancehall. The shooter was radicalized by online ISIS propaganda. Presler and ACT for America cynically weaponized the massacre to pit LGBTQ+ people against Muslims by conflating ISIS with all of Islam and spreading Islamophobic memes like “Muslims don’t tolerate gay people; they throw gays off rooftops.”

The idea of this tactic is to deflect criticism by hiding behind some moralistic non-sequitur about a different group you say you’re defending. You can be transphobic or homophobic because Muslims are even more discrimnatory against queer people. You can hide the anti-houseless rhetoric behind a thin veneer of talk about how filthy cities are and when you get called out on it you say “You liberals/leftists care more about illegal immigrants than homeless citizens!” You can spout nativist bile about deporting “illegals” and when someone confronts you about ICE ripping children from their mothers’ arms, you say “What about abortion?” Every marginalized group of people becomes a faction in conflict with another faction. Their purpose is to justify whatever bigoted policy you want and as a prop to accuse your opponent of not caring about someone else.

About twenty minutes after I arrived, a middle-aged man started acting aggressively and pushing himself into the counter-protestors. Presler said the cops would show up soon. Within a minute or two, they did. Two squad cars blocked the traffic on our side of the street with several others parked nearby.

After a few more people got in each others’ faces, police got in between Presler’s crowd and the counter-protestors. One officer had to keep pushing back Max Guggliemeli, who got in counter-protestors’ faces more aggressively than almost anyone else that night. He’d taken up Presler’s line of shouting about how he’s gay and being silenced. One antifascist responded “I don’t think you’re being silenced. I can hear you just fine.”

I’ll spare readers most of the vitriol that got shouted, partially because it was so hard to hear anything. In one argument I overheard between a self-identified trans person and the right-wingers, Presler and his LGBTQ+ colleagues repeatedly misgendered the person they were arguing with. Presler’s people started chanting “Build the wall! Build the wall!” A low-rider cruised by blasting “Fuck Donald Trump” by YG and Nipsey Hussle.

“After a brief flirtation with trying to separate the two groups, [the police] fell back and limited themselves to directing traffic,” one protestor recounted. “Notably, as the police presence lightened so did the tension between the two groups. While anti-fascists continued reminding Presler and his group how unwelcome they were in the Mission, no physical confrontations occurred and most arguments were over cameras in people’s faces.”

I saw a woman at the rally with QAnon phrases on her jacket and someone else showed me a photo of another QAnon follower earlier that day. QAnon, in the words of cult expert Robert J. Lifton, is a “largely social media-created apocalyptic conspiracy theory.” Its followers believe a government insider is sending them cryptic messages on the website 8chan that when decoded prophesy a coming mass arrest and execution of media and political elites opposed to Trump. They also believe the world’s elite are pedophiles and satanists. One QAnon believer murdered his brother last year with a sword because he believed he was a lizard-person. Another killed a mob boss. Yet another had a standoff with law enforcement on the Hoover Dam after he blocked the road with an armored vehicle. One prominent QAnon follower, actor Isaac Kappie, died by suicide and mentioned failing the “Q” movement in his suicide note. I’ve seen an increasing number of people who follow QAnon at these rallies over the last year and a half and at one QAnon-specific rally this year, someone handed out flyers urging people to join militias.

At some point “Lady MAGA,” the pro-Trump drag queen, came decked out in a red dress and waved around a black bag with the the NRA logo on it. Presler’s crowd cheered. She posed, waved at counter-protesters, blew me a kiss. Later I asked her if she had a gun in her NRA bag.

“Not right now, but I wish I did,” she said.

Then she gently grabbed my wrist and said “I’m not your enemy.”

“lol alright,” I responded.

At one point Presler and Straka handed out #WalkAway signs. They posed with them at first for a group photo then started shoving them in peoples’ faces.

After a while everybody just got tired of chanting and started chatting amongst themselves. Someone in the distance played fart noises over a loudspeaker. I almost tweeted “Everyone is just standing around jacking off,” but remembered I’m a serious reporter. Instead, I tweeted “was just about to say “everybody is just standing around jacking off” but I realized I’m a serious journalist.“

“Everyone’s standing around talking,” I added.

People started chanting again after the lull and everything continued for a bit at half-volume. At one point I saw a man from the right-wing crowd get in an older woman’s face with a flashlight and his cellphone so he could photograph her. I filmed him as he walked away from the encounter. Then some bloc’d out antifascist with a snare drum came up and started leading chants.

“F-U-C-K-K-K! ALL YOU FASCISTS GO AWAY!” I hadn’t heard that one before.

“Eventually (around 8:30) the MAGA crowd began drifting away in twos and threes until their number had fallen by half,” an antifascist recounted to me later. “At that point anti-fascists pressed their advantage and took up more and more of the sidewalk in front of the building instead of just the entrance, leading the fascist contingent to reluctantly move off the patch they’d been occupying.”

“Once they had been displaced their enthusiasm waned rapidly and they split up and left in small groups about 30 minutes later,” the antifascist told me.

I watched as people chanted “Good-Night Na-zis!” and walked behind the right-wingers until they’d gone a block or so away. I stayed until almost all of them had left.

As I looked around, I saw piles of litter where Presler’s crowd had been standing. One caught my eye–a pile of #WalkAway signs I assume they’d left behind and some counter-protestor had torn up. As I left, antifascists started to pick up the trash.