On Monday, Beto O’Rourke held a voter registration drive in Denton. A group of angry white people showed up to protest people registering to vote. One man even stormed the stage, shouting how Beto was a traitor for registering people to vote.
Democracy is under attack, in case you didn’t already know. It is no coincidence that the most arrests in the country from the January 6 Insurrection have come from North Texas. Months before the Insurrection, dozens of North Texas activists warned others about these people, their propensity towards violence, and the various racial attacks last year. Living Blue in Texas warned about these people last August. Just because Trump lost the election didn’t mean they would go away. They’re still here, and this last Monday, they showed up at Beto’s registration to make sure everyone knows.
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]It initially started with a bunch of them driving their cars in circles around the park’s parking lot, with typical far-right flags flowing out of the back of their pickup trucks.
Their intellect was on display from the beginning as one truck flew a come and take if flag and a don’t tread on me flag, coupled with a thin blue line flag. Yes, the idiocracy of flying a thin blue line flag along with the others is astounding.
You’re looking at this video of these geniuses circling the parking lot and wondering why it seems familiar.
A tale as old as time.
Angry white people have been doing this shit for decades. Of course, their fashion choices have evolved, but their disdain for democracy and civil rights is as archaic as it was in the 1950s.
It’s an intimidation tactic. They think that if they wave their far-right flags or wear the appeal symbolizing their ideology, they will scare you into not voting and not standing up for your Constitutional rights. Perhaps this method worked better when they could still get away with lynchings and burning people’s houses down.
But, no one is scared of them now.
One of the group members of the angry white people rushed up to the pavilion just as Beto was starting his speech and shouted that he was a traitor.
Why would he call Beto a traitor for registering people to vote?
The same reason that they stormed the capitol, the same reason they committed acts of terrorism all over Texas last year. These people don’t want Democrats to vote. Moreso, as Greg Abbott pointed out in his voter disenfranchisement lawsuit in 2013, they don’t want Black and brown people to vote.
They’re scared.
Texas is a blue state, it has been for a long time, but Republican voter suppression and gerrymandering have stripped voting rights from millions for decades.
Since Texas Democrats managed to block the Jim Crow voter suppression bills in the House and the For the People Act still looms in Congress, they’re worried that white people will lose power if others gain the right to vote.
It’s absolutely about race. As Greg Abbott stated in his 2013 lawsuit, Republicans are aware that gerrymandering and other voter suppression tactics disproportionately affect people of color. They openly admit to and embrace the disenfranchisement of Democrats in the state of Texas, but as Abbott put it, “it’s not their fault that most people of color vote for Democrats.”
Texas is less than 42% white, but here are some pictures of the people in charge passing laws to hurt Texans intentionally:
It’s not an accident that even though our state is only 42% white, our ruling government is 99% white. In order for a minority to be the ruling body, they would have to partake in corrupt and unethical measures to suppress the 58% majority.
What were the anti-democracy protesters trying to stop?
The protesters blared their loud truck horns throughout the event and held the siren button down on bullhorns. Their obvious goal was to stop people from hearing Beto’s message.
What was his message?
The flyer promoting the event said, “For the People: The Texas Drive for Democracy” and “Let’s talk about voting rights and democracy.” Make no mistake about it, these people knew ahead of time what this event was about, and they still put on their “1776” hats, pulled their Trump flags out of the closet, and then drove up there to disrupt an event for democracy.
How depraved does a person have to be to protest democracy?
According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, the antonyms for democracy are despotism, dictatorship, monarchy, totalitarianism, and tyranny. These are the same people that shout from the rooftops about freedom of speech and the Constitution but couldn’t tell you what one amendment says, other than the second. These people are literal fascists and clearly enemies of democracy.
Who are these people that hate democracy so much that they would protest a voter registration drive to try and stop American citizens from hearing about democracy?
Like all tyrants, they don’t use privacy settings on their social media accounts because they have no shame in what they do.
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]But, as it turns out, there was an entire smorgasbord of far-right extremists who got together to protest democracy.
This screenshot is from an employee of True Texas Project, and in her shout-out to all of the groups that joined, she mentioned True Texas Project.
If you live in the DFW, you may have heard the allegations of death threats and other threats of violence directed towards organizers of Black Lives Matter and George Floyd solidarity vigils last June. The unconfirmed rumor alleged that the leader of the NE Tarrant Tea Party, Julie McCarty was behind those threats. It’s interesting because McCarty is now the leader of the True Texas Project.
Colleyville Citizens for Accountability has been tracking NE Tarrant Tea Party and True Texas Project. You can go back and look at their archives and see that both groups have a history of promoting white supremacy. For example:
DFW Deplorables is a Facebook group.
The Arlington Trump Train is that small group of people that stand on the corner of Bowen and California in Arlington, waving Trump flags periodically.
DFW Freedom Fighters and Patriots at Larger are white militia groups.
DFW Freedom Fighters only exist on Telegram because it’s the only place they have left to spread mass amounts of lies and misinformation without breaking community guidelines, or as they would say it, “cOnSeRvAtIvEs ArE bEiNg CeNcOrEd.” So it isn’t hard to understand why they’ve been banned on all other platforms. They have posted hundreds of lies and conspiracy theories about Covid-19 vaccinations and masks. They also post lies, conspiracy theories, and white supremacist propaganda. Like this:
DFW Freedom Fighters has over 1,000 followers and are using their platform not only to spread misinformation and propaganda, but also to target events like Beto’s and recruit new Trumpers.
The organizer of the anti-democracy protest was Terry Anderson, from Patriots at Large.
If the name sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because a video of him at a Plano City Council Meeting was recently circulating.
A few months ago, during a march for Marvin Scott III, the people in the march were attacked by an angry white man held up in traffic while the marchers crossed the street. The angry man assaulted two women and attorney Lee Merritt. The video of the incident was all over the place.
Several weeks after the incident happened, famous Twitter-liar Andy Ngo shared the video with a new narrative (that he made up), leading it to spread to the DFW Trumpers. The week following Ngo’s Tweet, many angry white people showed up to the Plano City Council meeting to share their opinions. Terry Anderson was one of them.
Angry white people are a recurring theme.
Anderson asked why the police officer protected the Black marchers from the angry white man because clearly, the Black marchers were breaking the law by holding up traffic while crossing the street.
He said there was a gun, which was a lie. One security team had a stun gun, which he held in his hand when the angry white guy charged Black women half his size, with his fists raised.
Imagine having so much hate in your heart that being stuck in traffic for 5 minutes is worse in your mind than the torture and murder of a young Black man.
Anderson lied at the Plano City Council meeting, just like he lied in his call to action for an anti-democracy protest by saying, “Beto would decriminalize illegal voting.” What the fuck is wrong with these people? Do they really think that if Black and brown people vote, then it’s illegal?
In his call to action, he also warned about Beto “corrupting our youth.” Beto O’Rourke has put every video of every event on his Facebook page. He always is talking about the love of country, democracy, and the Constitution.
If a love of country, democracy, and the Constitution is perceived as corruption to DFW’s far-right, then you can only imagine what they’re teaching their children at home.
January 6th wasn’t the end of a long year of terror inflicted by these people, it was only the beginning. Over the next 18 months they will continue to target and harass voter registration drives, community events held by people of color, and politicians who encourage people to vote.
Democracy is more in trouble in this country than it has been since the Civil War. If you haven’t watched any of Beto’s speeches in his Drive for Democracy, you must. Democracy is the only way we’ll be able to heal our country.
70 years ago, if you were a person of color, you could be killed for voting. While Conservatives have regressed this country substantially, don’t think that they won’t take us back there in order for them to maintain power. NEVER FORGET January 6th, what they did, and what they were prepared to do.
Vote as every aspect of your life depended on it because if it didn’t, these people wouldn’t be trying so hard to stop you from it.
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