On Friday, The Daily Beast reported that a group of Trump supporters gathered for a rally in Washington, D.C. — and when the expected crowd never showed up, blamed a number of strange culprits for the rally's failure.
"Fervent supporters of Jan. 6 defendants, a MAGA-loving fashion designer, and a rough-and-tumble gentleman dressed in early colonial garb were just a few of the characters back outside the Capitol, equally upset at President Joe Biden and over Capitol rioters remaining behind bars," said the report. "Despite their attempts to draw in the MAGA faithful by playing Donald Trump speeches ahead of their first speaker, the 'Stop the Tyrants & Unite for Freedom' gathering flopped. Even with frequent Steve Bannon podcast guest Matt Braynard in attendance, a mere 27 individuals — including two hired private security guards — showed up."
According to the report, the event leaders were badly spooked by the presence of five liberal activists. "These weren't any activists. Instead, these activists, who event organizer John Paul Moran referred to as 'paid agitators' and members of Antifa, brought particularly upsetting and bothersome trinkets to derail the pro-Trump rally: whistles," said the report. "'I want you to recognize something,' Braynard said. 'They are trying to interrupt. That's why they're blowing the whistle. To make it hard to hear us!'"
Other things the attendees and organizers blamed included the sunny Friday afternoon weather, and liberals who were supposedly censoring the email invites — possibly built on the burgeoning conspiracy theory that Gmail spam filters are trashing Republican campaign emails as "election interference."
"Right-wing speaker and lawyer Deborah Weiss blamed the organizers for scheduling the event on a sunny Friday afternoon," said the report. "'First of all, it's a weekday during the day, [and] a lot of people work,' she told The Daily Beast. 'Second of all, it's very, very hard for conservative groups to get their message out right before the election,' she said before claiming email invitations for the event were censored by suspicious left-wing forces," the report continued. "She then fine-tuned that theory to claim email invites wound up in spam folders — directed there somehow by unspecified sinister figures. 'They didn't go into my inbox. They disappeared entirely,' she said. 'Hard to get the message out!'"
This comes amid other high-profile cases of failed right-wing activist events. In August, reports indicated that the 1776 Restoration Movement — formerly known as the "People's Convoy," formed to broadly oppose COVID mandates — have been living in cars and vans around the D.C. area as their movement grew aimless.
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