Houston, TX: Protesters #DisruptMAGA on March 25th

Over 80 counter protesters showed up early to Houston City Hall on March 25th to oppose a planned “MAGA March”, organized by three self-reportedly unaffiliated right wingers. The Trump supporters’ turnout was pathetic, with fewer than 10 for the first hour and a half of their supposed ‘march’. Antifa and other protesters easily outnumbered the Trump supporters, and took the main steps of City Hall and held it down with banners and chants, while the frustrated right wingers stood off the side, talked among themselves and shook hands with the police.

The organizers of Houston MAGA March had hoped to have a celebration with food, speeches and merch, and then they’d triumphantly march around downtown Houston spewing their hate. It didn’t happen. Over eighty people, about half masked up, took Houston City Hall to chant ‘fuck trump / smash the state / america was never great’.

The right wingers stayed away from us, ceding the stage in front of City Hall, and huddled near the cops. Eventually, they went around the to back side sandwiched between two construction sites, protected and isolated from the counter protest by the pigs.

Houston has consistently made it a point to counter racist and xenophobic groups trying to get a foothold in our city – from Stop the Magnet, a xenophobic white supremacist group that tried to stir up hate against the Central American children fleeing violence in 2014, to “White Lives Matter” in 2016, a front group for the Aryan Renaissance Society.

So who ended up coming out to support Trump? Though pro-gun, anti-muslim, pro-military rhetoric was out in full force, this was more of the ‘Blue Lives Matter‘ type of crowd than the hipster white supremacist alt-right crowd (though we did spot one pepe the frog). They love america, they believe in authority, and earnestly say that they’re not racist because they have some people of color in their ranks. These folks are characterized by their high regard for the military, cops, and private property. Texas’ own brand of  wingnut libertarian ideology was definitely present: conspiracy theories around Russia, glorifying the Knights Templar, and an obsession with ‘cop killers’ and ‘rapists’: black youth and latino immigrants.

The majority of Trump protesters folks were middle aged to retired/elderly, with just one or two people in their teens or early twenties. Their presence was led by white women, with a couple of light skinned latinos in visible positions and their one, singular, black friend. it would probably be stretching it to call them allllll fascists, but they’d definitely rather see a fascist government than a society built on interdependence and care, prison abolition, no borders and the demise of capitalism. 

The ugly thing about the right wingers was that they had a substantial minority of white/settler latinos, despite the fucked up white supremacist shit that side is selling. It saddened (but didn’t surprise) us that people who wouldn’t consider themselves racists or white supremacists will still  throw down for fascism if they believe strongly enough in the state, in  law and order,  and in their compulsion to obey authority, even if it will directly lead  to violence against themselves, their families, and  their communities. They think they’ll be safe if they side with the violent fascist force from the get-go. Their token status rests on their willingness to endorse anti-blackness and class war.

After their ‘march’ was cancelled, the right wingers went out for drinks, but didn’t think it was a good idea to be too loud about where. Bless their hearts. 

No platform for fascists and fascist sympathizers in our majority nonwhite, immigrant city. We love each other too much for that shit!