Yesterday's protest in Washington was a dud. Chris McGreal writes in The Guardian:

As a protest, it was a flop.

Turnout was at best half of the 700 predicted by organisers, which in itself fell well short of the many thousands who stormed Congress in January. The event organiser, Matt Braynard, a former Trump campaign operative, blamed the poor attendance on government intimidation and press scaremongering.

Speakers told of family members arrested by the FBI who were now “political detainees” and “prisoners of conscience”

A woman who identified herself as the girlfriend of Jonathan Mellis, a man charged with crimes including assault, said he was being held in solitary confinement. She read a letter in which he claimed: “This reminds me of how the Jews were treated by the Nazis.”

If there was a common denominator among the protesters, it was ignorance:

A man who identified himself as Adam from Florida [was] holding an American flag with the Roman numeral III in the corner. That, said [organizer Matt] Braynard, was a symbol for a far-right militia, the Three Percenters.

“It’s an outside group and it makes the optics look bad,” he said, telling Adam to put the flag away. “Anyone who doesn’t agree to take it down we have to assume is an infiltrator.”

Adam professed ignorance of the association – but rolled the flag up.

Anders Bruce, a 30 year-old organiser with Look Ahead America, said he was there to seek justice for “prisoners of conscience” subject to political persecution.

But who is responsible for that persecution when the prosecutions began under the Trump administration?

“It shows that it’s a problem with the government under both political parties,” he said.

And where was their hero? He was in New Jersey playing golf.

The March Of The Misinformed continues.

Image: The Guardian