Beyond Charlottesville - Terry McAuliffe Page 0,32

men were saying things like, ‘You’re a little fat, but we’d still do you.’ I was so perplexed by it all, I went back and studied it. When hate wants to find something to hate, they just kind of change their target.”

Around 10 a.m., I was keeping an eye on my phone, ready for the latest from Brian, and he sent me a picture of a heavily armed militia marching into the park in formation, like they owned the place. They were so loaded up, they looked like extras in a Rambo movie. It was a very disturbing picture. Brian gave me a full report on these militia men in camouflage gear with large semi-automatic weapons and extra ammo slung over their shoulders.

“Governor, these guys have better weapons than our State Police,” Brian told me sarcastically.

“Who the hell are they?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Well, go find out,” I told him.

So Brian walked over and tried to talk to these guys. I could hear most of what was said, since he was holding his phone and still had me on the line. The first militia member he approached was unresponsive, so Brian introduced himself as the secretary of public safety and tried another one. This time, the militia member was more talkative. He explained that his group was there to protect the First Amendment (and, obviously, the Second). It went so well, Brian decided to look for the leader of the group and try to negotiate a truce or at least understand what this militia saw as its role that day. The next member he approached refused to talk to him.

“I can’t talk to you, sir,” he said. “You have to talk to my CO, sir!”

So that was how it was going to be. For us it was one more element of insanity to have all these guys walking around in camouflage uniforms with revolvers strapped to their sides and huge semi-automatic weapons. It was surreal. We didn’t know why they were there—and I’m not sure they did either.

It turned out this was one of many right-wing militia groups that showed up that day, including the Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia, the New York Light Foot Militia, and the Virginia Minutemen Militia. They were well organized, well armed—and intimidating—and said they were against both sides, neo-Nazis and counterprotesters. One of the militia leaders dismissed both sides as “jackasses.”

“The show of strength was about ‘allegiance … to the Constitution,’ particularly the First Amendment, said Christian Yingling, leader of the Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia,” The Washington Post reported. “He said he and his troops ‘convoyed in’ to Charlottesville early Saturday to defend free speech by maintaining civic order so everyone present could voice an opinion, regardless of their views.… ‘We put our own beliefs off to the side,’ Yingling said. ‘Not one of my people said a word. They were given specific orders to remain quiet the entire time we were there.… Our mission was to help people exercise their First Amendment rights without being physically assaulted.’”

This was the largest white-nationalist gathering in the United States in decades, and the neo-Nazis and other fanatics were giddy. They were having the time of their lives. “The white nationalists were so young,” Pastor Viktória Parvin of St. Mark Lutheran Church in Charlottesville said later. “They were laughing, like they were going to a party.”

Naturally, David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, was there. He grinned and beamed to well-wishers. “This represents a turning point for the people of this country,” Duke said that morning. “We are determined to take our country back. We are going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump, and that’s what we believed in. That’s why we voted for Donald Trump, because he said he’s going to take our country back.”

The crowd loved it. They were whipped up into a frenzied state. They yelled at an African American woman that they’d put her on the “first f— boat home” and told any white person standing side by side with an African American they were going “straight to hell,” finishing with a Nazi salute.

The words these marchers were spewing were unbelievable. Profane, disgusting, infuriating. It’s worth remembering that nobody is born with the hatred that these people spewed. Nor were they representative of American values. We’re a nation of 328 million people, so let’s not lose sight of the fact that these were a thousand people marching, a small, fringe element pulled together from thirty-five different states.