Washington, D.C.
I just witnessed an anti-Donald Trump protest, and it was nasty. About an hour ago, I looked out the window on the corner of 13th and Massachusetts Avenue and saw a crowd of roughly 300 people — most of them dressed in black and wearing bandanas and hoods — moving quickly through the street. There were loud chants of ‘Fuck Donald Trump’. I walked out onto 13th Massachusetts Avenue and followed the noise down 13th towards Franklin Square. Suddenly it was chaos. There were some loud bangs. People and policemen were running in all directions. I could see lots of smoke which turned out to be tear gas. The bangs, I discovered, were caused by hoodies throwing bricks and rocks at windows. On the corner of Franklin Square, they smashed up a Starbucks and a Bank of America building. I spoke to a woman who said they surrounded the shop and started throwing things. ‘We thought we were being shot at, that they were going to shoot us,’ she said. ‘This was a hate group.’
Hundreds more police officers materialised, in all sorts of riot gear. I found a group of fairly unthreatening youths with pink and green hair. I asked them what they were hoping to achieve. ‘Oh we’re anti-fascist.’ And you think Donald Trump is a fascist, I asked. ‘Yes,’ they replied. I also heard somebody claiming to be a civil rights lawyer who said that tear gas was being used ‘indiscriminately’ and that he was ‘worried about his clients’. I then asked a police officer whether tear gas was being used indiscriminately, and he told me that he couldn’t comment and to get lost. Another slightly more friendly police officer told me: ‘they just swarmed around our vehicles. I thought I was going to get a brick in the face.’
Everybody seemed simultaneously thrilled by the action and angry about the violence. I spoke to a cheerful stall seller who said ‘It was exciting. There were black hoodie whatevers and they were running and the SWAT team was chasing them.’ He then got into a shouting match with a protestor who took offence at some caps he was selling which said ‘Life’s a bitch, don’t vote for one.’
Presidential inaugurations are supposed to be joyous occasions when Americans put their differences aside and come together to celebrate democracy and so on. And most of the people on the street I spoke to were irritated that the anarchists and thugs had tried to spoil the day. On the corner of L Street, the police have kettled off a crowd of protestors. Other protestors shouted ‘Let them go!’ Let them go!’ ‘They are going to keep them there all night,’ said an army officer who was manning a blockade. We shall see.
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