Dom Went To DC And Found Lots Of Nazis And Assh*les

Washington DC is unlike any city you’ve ever visited. I grew up there, for a while anyway. Due to its status as the capitol of the United States, DC is a very transient city, with tourists, politicians, aides, lobbyists, and diplomats always blowing into town. Eventually, most fuck off back to where they came from.

Most of those people treat DC, especially its residents, like shit.

They’ll throw trash and little American flags on the ground — budget fuckery led to fewer trash cans. They’ll piss in the bushes of a national monument — public toilets were removed after 9/11. They’ll complain about government overreach to people with licenses plates that literally read, “Taxation without representation,” in protest of being federally taxed without any representation in Congress.

So when Donald Trump came back with a manifested destiny, nobody seemed to be rolling their eyes more than residents of DC.

On Thursday, January 18, thousands turned up to protest Trump’s inauguration. It wasn’t the same crowd as 2016; this was far, far smaller. People were angry, they were clutching rainbow and trans flags, wearing pink pussy hats, and displaying signs that reminded those still paying attention that Trump was convicted of rape, the planet is on fire and that January 6, 2021, wasn’t “a day of love.”

A number of families in red hats quickly scurried away from the march. They wanted nothing to do with these radical-socialist-fascist-marxist-feminist huns. They jiggled ahead of the crowds on the National Mall, American flag sneakers slipping and sloshing in the mud and ice.

On January 19, Trump was set to hold a rally at the Capitol One Arena in Chinatown. People began lining up at 4 a.m. in below-freezing temperatures. When the sky began dumping freezing rain and sleet, some shelled out for overpriced ponchos being hawked by an endless parade of vendors selling cheap Chinese Trump hats, Trump shirts, and assorted Trump trinkets.

Frigid and wet, I slid my way through the crowd to find a warm, quiet spot to dry off and file photos. It was only noon and my phone was full of messages from other photographers and journalists saying the same thing in different group chats: “This sucks”; “Did anyone get inside”; “Fuck it, filing. Drinks?”

On Inauguration Day, January 20, Trump had decided to move the ceremony inside because it was cold. Now his Inaugural Committee was calling the shots. Most of my colleagues credentialed for the inauguration through the Senate Press Gallery had their passes canceled. We were told to reapply through Trump’s Inaugural Committee, but there was chatter about them being fussy and vindictive. I didn’t bother.

Like others, I’d resigned myself to walk around throughout the day getting whatever not-shitty photos I could and hoping for the best (a fairly common practice among freelancers). In lieu of a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, Trump had decided to have a second rally at Capitol One Arena after the inauguration. So most of us got screwed. Again.

A maze of high security fencing had been growing exponentially downtown for days. Occasionally, some out-of-town cop would high-five the Trump supporters snaking their way through another ludicrously long line to the arena. The bullshit vendors started selling Trump toboggans and t-shirts that read, “Daddy’s Home” to freezing rubes stuck in line.

I noticed the Proud Boy by a small patch on his pack. He was chattering into a Baofeng (a cheap Chinese two-way radio) while pushing through an intersection clogged with vendors and corralled Trump supporters waiting to get into the arena.

There were a few dozen Proud Boys milling around E and 7thNW. Every so often they’d break a silence with a series of spastic grunts and shouts.

Whether you want to see them as a group of “male chauvinists,” a domestic terror cell, or a just bunch of tubby jackasses, they spent about an hour standing in a circle grunting and shouting around a cellphone. When they decided to “march,” they attempted to go single-file, but they had little unit cohesion beyond stopping to flip off the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building.

Two counter-protesters put them on their heels around 14th and F. MPD bike officers had to keep the Proud Boys separated after a flamboyant person repeatedly taunted them with a rainbow fan, and a very loud woman with a bullhorn kept bellowing, “Fuck the Proud Boys.”

There was also an unstable woman in blackface following the whole scene. She would say things like, “All journalists have AIDS,” but people ignored her.

Except for me. I blew out a cloud of frozen cigarette smoke and declared I had, “Super AIDS.”

The following day, Trump started doling out pardons and commutations to J6ers. There was a staging area of media people outside DC’s Central Detention Facility in South East (AKA: “jail”) after the insurrectionist vigil was mobbed by media and Trump supporters hoping to see people get released. A few Proud Boys were there, and some recently released insurrectionists showed up. But it was too goddamn cold to stand around with my thumb up my ass hoping to catch a glimpse of … whomever.

One DC resident just trying to get home went off at one recently released insurrectionist and some Proud Boys, screaming, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”

On January 24, thousands of Bible thumpers descended on DC for the March for Life, an annual anti-abortion festival and march. It usually draws some obnoxious members of Congress off the Hill for a six-minute, TV-news-theater snapshot atop a mediocre concert stage set up on The Mall. The highlight was JD Vance, but there were also a number of right-wing celebrity-politicians looking to up their follower counts.

Before I could make it to the entrance off Constitution Ave., several of my colleagues appeared. They were trotting in the opposite direction.

“I don’t know if you want to come with us,” one said grinning past me.

“Patriot Front’s on the Metro,” another said.

This was the first time I’d ever seen Patriot Front in person. The photos and videos I’d seen suggested they had some training, and money. And whenever they show up someplace, there’s a good chance a fight breaks out.

But they looked like a bunch of dorks cosplaying in airsoft gear. They wore variations of the same colored tacti-cool gear (like khaki 5.11 pants that still have their original pleats, or RothCo boots). Rather than brandishing painted trashcan shields, they stood by the Washington Monument trying to look spooky with Betsy Ross flags. A couple were trying to mingle and pass out flyers to March attendees and Trump sycophants shuffling to the rally.

“Strong families and strong nations,” said a woman reading their banner. “Sounds like something I could get behind!”

But for as many hopelessly ignorant people who took a flyer, and those who offered a thumbs up or cheer, there were more who seemed repulsed. Some seemed to know exactly who they were and ducked their heads. Others appeared freaked out by the silent, jackbooted white guys in white hoods standing in a line and carrying flags.

They marched towards the Jefferson Memorial with the cohesion of a high school ROTC color guard. Suddenly, the same woman with a megaphone who’d been taunting the Proud Boys on Monday reappeared. As she ran, she bellowed into her megaphone, “Fuck you, Nazis, get the fuck out of our city.”

Listen to the woman. Also

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