Thread by @FordFischer

Something that surprised me was how comfortable the #LittleRock police were around these guys. The cops made them all confirm that they were carrying unloaded, but didn’t make them place it on ground to check etc.

Like this is is a selective screenshot from the video before. I understand it was momentary, but this guy inadvertently pointed a gun at a cop and nobody said anything about it.

This in contrast to police shootings over phones or “reaching” for nothing, etc.

Here are some of the #Antifa counter-demonstrators that showed up. There were probably 3-4x as many counter-demonstrators as the white nationalists, and as many cops as both sides combined.

A big theme for antifa was #ICE, who they see as the enforcement arm of a nazi agenda.

I’ve heard that these guys are planning on burning a new fascist symbol of some kind (like the cross or swastika burnings, but something else) and am heading to that location now. ETA 30 minutes.

So the Nazis were mostly ok with me filming the bonfire (and one even gave me the address). The property owner though saw that they allowed press and said “no way.” Apparently NBC did a story on him and now he doesn’t trust media now. My Uber driver who got me here saved me.

Here’s the sign they had posted outside the place. This was some deep backwoods stuff they had planned. I know Vice also planned to go, not sure if they were late and are about to be kicked out, or early and kicked out before me.

One guy actually took his knife out and asked whether I thought it could go through my bulletproof vest. I said something like “no, but I appreciate you not stabbing me” and he holstered it and said “you ain’t done nothing to me.”

All things considered, I’m ok with skipping it.

One fascinating element of the bit I saw before being booted was the division of pagans and Christians. Property owner said “I’m a Christian, I can’t watch that, it’s bad luck” because their burning ritual is with a pagan symbol.

I just got to my Airbnb, so I'm safe and sound. Starting to import my HD footage from the day and I'll have some highlights and observations to share.

Big thanks to @aletweetsnews for sharing my live feed on @N2Sreports today.

So I'm importing my footage now and will post some highlights as I look through.

From before the event: Here's what nazi / cop small talk sounds like: Cop gives nazi advice about making his rifle lighter by using sight with newer tech and smaller battery.

Woah. I was just sent these photos. Apparently this is what they set up after I got kicked out.

The group is trying to push leftward a bit, unveiling a new logo. While still fascist, they're trying to emphasize the "socialist" element of their platform.

Part 1/2 on this point: These Nazis don't like the media, which should be no surprise. But they really hate @ariannahuff and @AndyBCampbell at @HuffPost, so much so that he brought a printout of one of Andy's stories and read it outloud with his own annotations.

Part 2/2 on this: One white nationalist speaker read @AndyBCampbell's @HuffPost reporting out loud from a printout, apparently quite displeased with its content.

Matt Heimbach said "All cops are bastards" so I confront him on policing. He says he wants local control of police, to which I press him on "Hitler's goons" who were quintessential centralized policing.

He asserted that events like Kristallnacht weren't party-planned.

I asked the nazi group's "commander" Jeff Schoep about Trump. "He's a different type of nationalist... It would be wrong to characterize us as Trump supporters."

He does say that he "absolutely" thinks Nazi movement has affected Dem and Repub policies, particularly Arthur Jones.

From during the rally: Matthew Heimbach attempted to get antifa to join in a moment of silence for people who lost their lives in WWI (on all sides).

When they obviously didn't participate, he quipped, "So much for solidarity with your fellow workers, comrades."

By the way, while the group tried to shift their appearance with new icons and such, swastikas were not hard to find around their event.

This 4-second clip I just found probably characterizes today best.

Nazi to Antifa: "I think your signs SUCK!"

Antifa to Nazi: "Fuck you!"

That's pretty much the first amendment in a nutshell right there.

In addition to Huffington Post, the nazis called out the local Fox station. I've attached a link below to the article that clearly frustrated them enough to call out its author, @AustinKellerman, by name.

fox16.com/news/local-new…

One of the white nationalists' guards was wielding a bump stock on his weapon.

To explain need for rapid fire, he then claims "these clowns have taken shots at us." When I asked when (never heard of this) he said "a couple different rallies, I really can't disclose where."

Anti-semitism was not a frequent subject for the speakers until the very end, when one guy decides to acknowledge that Jews have been oppressed throughout history.

His take was this is evidence they must have been bad people to deserve it, and concludes "hail victory."

Final tweet for the night: I put together a compilation of what happened today. If you don't want to slog through a thread of tweets or a livestream, this is the one to watch. A link to the livestream is in description, so you can see all in full context.

So I’m flying out of Little Rock now. A moment ago as I stood in line for a bagel, the lady in front of me orders a white mocha. I look over and think I recognize her.

I check my footage. Yup, same jacket. This woman had swastikas pins on it yesterday.

This may be a good prognosis of the USA. Of 2,700 people who reacted to my livestream of Nazis yesterday:

1,500 (about 55%) were “angry.”
433 (about 16%) thought it was funny
210 (7.7%) “loved” it

I’ve seen it reported that 6% of USA is far-right. Seems within margin of error.