Richard Spencer lead about 30 white nationalist gathered at Emancipation Park. pic.twitter.com/yERgDJFDhN
— CBS19 News (@CBS19News) October 8, 2017
As previously reported, Richard Spencer and his merry band of Nazis — 30-50 of them — once again descended upon Charlottesville’s Emancipation Park to spread their rhetoric on Saturday night. The end result? A 5-10 minute rally that saw Spencer shouting about what he perceives as “anti-white policies” of the Left. The group also yelled phrases like “The South will rise again” and “Russia is our friend” before picking up their little tiki-torches and scurrying off into the night.
Thankfully, no violence went down during this rally (which follows the murder of counterprotester Heather Hayer by a white supremacist in August), but Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer was not pleased with the Nazi spectacle. Signer slam-tweeted the “despicable visit.” Further, he stressed, “You’re not welcome here! Go home!”
Another despicable visit by neo-Nazi cowards. You’re not welcome here! Go home! Meantime we’re looking at all our legal options. Stay tuned.
— Mike Signer (@MikeSigner) October 8, 2017
On Sunday morning, Signer — who said the city was looking at all “legal options” — acknowledged that his Twitter mentions have been overcome with “trolls and bots” as expected.
Good morning, trolls and bots. Everyone else: if you want to see the alt-right in action, check out my feed. But brace yourself, it's ugly.
— Mike Signer (@MikeSigner) October 8, 2017
As for Spencer, he was not deterred by Signer’s reactions. The man who freaked out at a gym and asked a trainer to protect him from fellow clientele (which resulted in Spencer’s revoked membership) responded to Signer with a “Lol” tweet. He also wants to make sure folks don’t think that Nazis are “cowards” because “[w]e came back.”
Lol. How are we "cowards"? We came back. Also, you have no authority to ban American citizens from C'ville, doofus. https://t.co/tsTbqyb6Ow
— Richard Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) October 8, 2017
And as Spencer told the Washington Post, he considers those 5-10 minutes to be “a great success,” and he promises to return again:
“We’ve been planning this for a long time. We wanted to prove that we came in peace in May, we came in peace in August, and we come again in peace. Our identity matters. We are not going to stand by and allow people to tear down these symbols of our history and our people — and we’re going to do this again.”
Spencer will likely make good on this threat to return. After all, it’s 2017, and emboldened Nazis have nothing better to do on a Saturday night. Also FYI, President Trump has not tweeted about the incident yet after doubling down with his support of white supremacists back in August, but Sarah Huckabee Sanders will undoubtedly field questions during the next press briefing.
(Via CBS 46, Washington Post & The Hill)