Joe Flood

  • Simple, Visual, Inspiring: Anarchy Princess Gets Famous

    Anarchy Princess and Peter Navarro

    September 1, 2023

    What makes a video go viral on social media?

    After seeing my friend Anarchy Princess achieve viral fame for trolling former Trump advisor Peter Navarro and having experienced my own viral moment for heckling the Patriot Front, I think it comes down to three factors: simple, visual, inspiring.

    1. Simple

    The Anarchy Princess video is a simple tableau: a woman standing up to a grabby man. With her shades on, AP cooly holds her “Trump Lost” sign out of the reach of Navarro, adding the rejoinder, “Bro, you’re already facing charges.”

      Two people in a frame. A famous man and an unknown woman expressing her First Amendment rights.

      It’s such a simple video that no explanation is needed. You can see it on screen: a man is trying (and failing) to bully a woman.

      But there’s a lot of backstory behind this seemingly simple moment.

      Navarro had just lost his court case on executive privilege. He was one of the architects behind the January 6th coup attempt, author of the notorious Green Bay Sweep designed to disenfranchise millions of Americans and install Trump as President for Life.

      Anarchy Princess was inspired by a man named Meatwad.

      She has been trolling fascist groups like the 1776 Restoration Movement and Freedom Corner  for a year. I met her after writing about these groups.

      She had seen Meatwad, a Freedom Corner regular, hold up a pro-January 6th sign up during a live broadcast and decided to duplicate the idea when Navarro came out to address (and insult) the media.

      But you don’t need to know any of that, because the video itself tells the story: a woman standing up to a powerful man.

      2. Visual

      You don’t need sound to understand the AP video. A flustered man turns around and tries to grab a sign while a woman holds it out of reach. A simple conflict captured in a few seconds of video.

      The same is true for my viral video as Red Bike Guy. Part of its success was due to the framing. Filmed by Skyflyer Channel 8 News (who isn’t credited), it presents me seemingly alone on a red bike standing up against a phalanx of Proud Boys.

      This is a visual language that we understand from movies and TV shows. The lone hero.

      Of course, this is a simplification, because just out of frame are about forty police officers on bikes. And a couple of other hecklers. But we don’t see that, for the video is taken from my perspective, over my shoulder, as if you’re the one facing off against the fascists.

      3. Inspiring

      This is the most important element to going viral.

      As soon as I saw AP’s video, I knew it was going to go viral. It was simple, visual and inspiring. She won her little battle with Navarro and he looked like a fool.

      “This girl is AWESOME” was one of the early comments. And then the video took off, going from C-SPAN to the Republican Accountability Project to the Young Turks, getting amplified by almost the same set of channels which blew up my video in May.

      There is a hunger for inspiring videos. We want to see good triumph over evil. We want to see the January 6th coup plotters and Trump dead-enders punished.

      The AP video provides encouragement for all who stand up against fascism. It tells people to be brave. It shows that anyone can be a hero.

      You Can’t Make a Viral Video

      When I rolled up to the Patriot Front on a red bike, I expected to see Anarchy Princess yelling at them.

      When she wasn’t there, I decided that I needed to represent. I live in DC and saw what happened on January 6th. No way are we going to let fascist groups march through the city unhindered again.

      I didn’t know I was being filmed. Going viral was a complete surprise.

      The same is true for AP. There are thousands of hours, from multiple perspectives, of her hassling fascist groups like the 1776 Restoration Movement, Freedom Corner and forced-birth zealots.

      But a thirty-second clip made her famous.

      In addition to being simple, visual and inspiring, viral videos capture something ineffable in the zeitgeist. They connect with an unexpressed need in the audience. They are creatures of the moment, like fireflies, magical and briefly luminous.

      You can’t make a viral video. But you can make videos that are simple, visual and inspiring. The audience will make them viral – or not. They decide how to make a viral video.

    1. Don’t Say It’s… No, It’s Over. For Real This Time. The 1776 Restoration Movement

      hobo encampment/1776 Restoration Project
      The 1776 Restoration Movement on the National Mall

      Well, it’s over. For real, this time time. With a typically dramatic video, the kind that long-time viewers of this series love, David “Santa” Riddell announced the end of the 1776 Restoration Movement. He dismissed the board, turned off the auto-renewal membership grift and dismissed the national team.

      The reasons are many. Since being driven off the National Mall a year ago, the Christofascist cult has struggled for relevance, and has resorted to increasingly desperate schemes to gain attention, like live-streaming the birth of a new #1776RM member.

      Yes, you read that correctly. A #1776RM organizer filmed herself in a tub giving birth while a crawl at the bottom of the screen encouraged donations to her Cash app.

      Meanwhile, elderly members of the group drove around the country in an RV, stopping in small towns to sit in lawn chairs and wave flags. This was their outreach strategy. Trolls online called it the “Traveling Old Folks Home.”

      Viewers Got Bored

      But even the trolls, the most devoted #1776RM viewers, got bored, feeling that the series lacked the conflict and drama of the National Mall occupation in the summer of 2022. They moved on to mocking Freedom Corner, a more dangerous little group of insurrectionists.

      On Twitter, I posted a “looking back” series of tweets from a year ago, during the group’s heyday. It’s amazing comedy. The poop bucket, “Your car’s on fire!”, “Penis-shaped picture of my mom,” the nightly battles against trolls and each other – no wonder it was such a highly addictive series to the thousands of people around the country who tuned in to see the latest twists and turns of this soap opera of right-wing dysfunction.

      It was something you couldn’t explain to others, lest you be seen as the crazy one. “Biketifa saw Flopper so he started flopping around on the ground while Anarchy Princess yelled, ‘Flop, flop, flop!’”

      IYKYK.

      Filled with memorably dumb characters, absurd fuck-ups and wild turns of phrase, it didn’t seem real. My conspiracy theory is that it was the work of the greatest improv comedy troupe in history. Why else would people film their own humiliation?

      It would make a great Netflix series. And maybe it will one day.

      The Art of #1776RM

      The amount of art that this little group prompted is just astonishing. Channels like Just a Lazy Gamer sprang up to document the group while Damnation Drive-In mocked it.

      There’s even a channel which reenacts great chud moments with Barbie dolls! Absolute madness.

      And beauty, such as this lovely artwork, which includes convites and trolls:

      When one of the chuds announced that he was writing a book about 1776RM, a parody account began work on their own version, using ChatGPT. I’m betting that the parody comes out before the ChudBook.

      Twitter is full of #1776RM memes and songs – and there is more, much more, hidden away in private forums, a whole community of folks devoted to satirizing the fascists.

      It Was the Friends We Made Along the Way

      So, maybe it was the friends we made along the way? It certainly provided entertainment to me, and meeting some of the trolls online and in-person was a plus. #1776RM brought together people from wildly disparate backgrounds for the purpose of chud mockery.

      The trolls won. And now there is a network of folks experienced in disrupting fascist groups. Good preparation for 2024, and what will be the wildest election year of our lifetimes.

    2. A Vote for the Future: Three Years Since LIKES

      Likes cover image

      It’s been three years since I published LIKES, my little book of short stories about social media obsession.

      LIKES began as a pandemic project in 2020. Suddenly without a social life as covid shut the world down, I searched for something to keep me busy.

      After publishing THE SWAMP, a novel about Obama-era DC, in 2017, I had been working on short stories. I’m one of those people who always needs to be writing something; I find it relaxing.

      At the beginning of 2020, my short story Apartment 101, appeared in the City Paper Fiction Issue. I thought I could put together this story and others into a collection of DC tales and self-publish them like I did THE SWAMP.

      What should be included? Which should go first? How long should the book be?

      My stories went into a folder in my computer and then I copied and pasted them into a Word doc. After moving them around, I noticed that there was one theme I kept coming back to: social media.

      There was a story that I liked – Twitter Famous – that I wasn’t going to include because it was set in FL and not DC. But what if I changed my book into a collection of short stories about the perils of social media?

      I deleted Apartment 101 and put my social media stories together.

      Feeling that attention spans had been shattered by the internet, I wanted the book to be brief. Not a big novel that would scare people. Something that non-readers would read.

      At the time, I had a little more than half of the stories in LIKES. I wrote and tweaked some more to fit, such as Avocado Toast.

      Likes, the story that I conclude the book with, was written last, after I had settled on a title. I played around with a couple of different titles before concluding that the book was about the pursuit of social media fame. Or likes.

      I had read about the perverse incentives built into Facebook and Instagram, these rat puzzles of rewards that we mindlessly contribute to, and I wanted to write something about how those incentives were initially devised. Thus, my story Likes, which goes back in time to show how the trap was set.

      Designing the cover myself, using a photo I had taken during the Georgetown Glow neon display, I published the book in print and Kindle in August 2020.

      Little did I know that reality would imitate art and that I would go viral like one of the characters in my book. And that the experience of going wildly viral (or fungal, as a friend said) would lead to a lot more people reading my little book about social media.

      Which is why art is so important. Creating LIKES not only occupied my mind during the dark days of 2020, it was a vote for the future, and whatever it might bring.

    3. One Year Since the 1776 Restoration Movement

      Taylor Taranto at 1776RM
      Taylor Taranto at the 1776 Restoration Movement

      Joe Flood
      July 12, 2023


      2022 was a different time.

      Covid was still a part of the national conversation. Vaccine requirements for work were still in place and masks were required in many public places – including airplanes.

      “End the mandates” rang out as a convoy of trucks and cars headed across the nation toward Washington, DC. This was the People’s Convoy, a copy of the right-wing movement that had originated in Canada.

      But after a judge ended the TSA mask mandate, and other restrictions quickly fell, the fervor left the People’s Convoy, which wasn’t having much success against Beltway traffic or local bicyclists. They declared victory on May 23 and left the area.

      But not everyone was ready to go home. A couple dozen formed a new group, the 1776 Restoration Movement, vowing to do what The People’s Convoy couldn’t: shut Washington down.

      After a month of fundraising, and being trolled, #1776RM as it became to be known on Twitter, blocked a few lanes on the Beltway and then moved into DC to “occupy the lawn.” They would sit in lawn chairs and sleep in their cars along the National Mall until the constitutional republic was restored.

      One year ago today, I wrote about them for the first time, amused by the contrast between their mighty goals (ending democracy) and plebeian existence (pooping in buckets).

      It was a real-life case study of how cults form and dissipate. Watching them bicker and fall apart, I wrote:

      Yet, the need for meaning in American life remains. Another right-wing cult will take its place because the followers demand it. They are just waiting to coalesce around a new leader and resume the struggle that gives meaning to their lives.

      Which is exactly what happened. Most of the #1776RM cultists left DC. The few that remained joined a new and more extreme cult: Freedom Corner. This group of insurrectionists chant the name of Ashli Babbitt nightly outside the DC Jail as they demand freedom for convicted January 6th terrorists.

      Freedom Corner is more threatening than #1776RM ever was. Their leader was arrested for assault, they prompted a prison brawl and they’ve attracted unstable individuals like Taylor Taranto, who was recently arrested in the woods behind Obama’s house. Before joining Freedom Corner, he was a member of #1776RM.

      Freedom Corner is being torn apart by the same kind of infighting that doomed the 1776 Restoration Movement. As these right-wing cults grow more extreme, they grow smaller and more paranoid, until they’re left with just a few loyal adherents mumbling to themselves, trapped in a conspiracy-soaked world of their own creation.

      One year after #1776RM, that is where we are.

    4. Threads Rekindles Social Media Joy

      Joe Flood on Threads

      The rapid adoption of Threads – with more than 70 million sign-ups in two days – demonstrates how eager users are to escape the flaming trash heap that Twitter has become.

      I was a Twitter early-adopter, after seeing it demonstrated at SXSW in 2008. I was skeptical, at first (what is this for?) but quickly fell in love. Early Twitter was full of techies and the uber-connected. People shared bug fixes and what they were having for lunch.

      It helped me write my first book, Murder in Ocean Hall. Working in coffee shops, I’d post how many words I had written that day. The encouragement I received from others kept me writing.

      Before the politicians got a hold of it, Twitter was a quirky, positive place where you could make connections to real people.

      Twitter was invaluable for bringing the bike community in DC together. Posting under the #BikeDC hashtag, we shared tips on routes and got together for monthly meetups.

      Like many things in America, all that went to shit in 2016. Trump touched Twitter and it died.

      A slow death, the platform becoming ever more poisonous and hateful, an arena for public shaming and organizing online lynch mobs. This is the Twitter I wrote about in LIKES, my book of short stories about social media addiction.

      I remained on Twitter, the joy long since gone, but the compulsion remaining.

      Threads is the first time I’ve felt social media joy again. It’s shiny, new-toy syndrome but at the moment, Threads feels more positive and real than the bot-choked hellspace that is Twitter under Elon Musk.

      Yes, I am replacing one billionaire tyrant for another, the deceptive benevolence of Mark Zuckerberg for the unmasked fascism of Elon Musk.

      And I realize that nothing is free, that I am the product, that Zuck is mining my data and preferences to resell for pennies to corporate America.

      But if you’re going to use social media, shouldn’t it be fun? And shouldn’t it be Nazi-free?

      After going viral for being Red Bike Guy, I received thousands of new Twitter followers. My following on Threads is much, much smaller.

      But does that matter? No. For the moment, the interactions are more positive. More real. More like the early days of Twitter before Trump and Elon ruined the platform.

      I’m on Twitter and Threads. But one is more appealing. Millions of other users are starting to feel the same. Twitter will drift away like past social networks and ultimately be forgotten.

    5. Freedom Corner, Taylor Taranto and a Failure of Imagination

      Taylor Taranto in 2022 during the 1776 Restoration Movement protest on the National Mall.
      Taylor Taranto in 2022 during the 1776 Restoration Movement protest on the National Mall.

      Joe Flood
      June 30, 2023

      In the days before January 6th, everyone in DC knew that something terrible was going to happen. Trump supporters had been in the city the month before, when they had run riot through the streets, vandalized a church and beat up people they believed to be Antifa.

      I had seen it myself, witnessing a group of Proud Boys threaten teenagers on Black Lives Matter Plaza. Only the presence of the police stopped the Proud Boys from assaulting the teens.

      In the days before the sixth, there were threats all over cyberspace, with maps of the Capitol posted and talk of weapon dumps. They weren’t hard to find, either – threats had been posted to Twitter and shared with the FBI and other agencies.

      On the day of the sixth, Mayor Bowser ordered people to stay indoors for their safety, since violent Trump mobs were expected downtown. Everything was boarded-up and nearly everything was closed (except for greedy hotels hosting the rioters).

      What happened next was a failure of imagination. The Capitol Police couldn’t imagine that a mob of people who looked just like them would attack, despite all the evidence submitted to the contrary.

      History has repeated itself with Freedom Corner, the nightly vigil outside the DC Jail where January 6ers chant the name of Ashli Babbitt and demand the release of prisoners from the “gulag.”

      Again, citizens have done the detective work. Reported to the police, FBI and other agencies that January 6th terrorists had organized the protest, were steeped in Qanon and had stalked and attacked counterprotestors.

      Nothing was done.

      So, it was no great surprise to anyone who has been watching Freedom Corner that Taylor Taranto, who has been hanging around DC since last year’s trucker convoy, was arrested for threatening President Obama. Those kinds of threats are a nightly occurrence at Freedom Corner.

      You didn’t need to be a counterintelligence officer to figure it out, either. All you had to do was follow #freedomcorner on Twitter and you could watch Taranto live-streaming himself (video saved by Anarchy Princess) stumbling through the woods behind Obama’s house.

      The leaders of Freedom Corner now claim that Taranto was never part of their movement, despite the hours of footage showing him there; he even marched in the Memorial Day protest for Ashli Babbitt.

      Freedom Corner claims to have kicked him out. Which they did, but not because he was a violent psycho, but because he gave an interview and stated his belief that Ashli Babbitt was still alive. Being violent or crazy won’t get you kicked out of the cult; being a heretic will.

      Again, another security failure due to a lack of imagination. This time, one that endangered a former president.

      I’ve said that Freedom Corner was a joke. I was wrong.

      It’s time to take Freedom Corner seriously. They are a nest of traitors seeking to foment another insurrection. And they are spinning off terrorists like Taylor Taranto, who they motivated to violence through their nightly cult rituals.

      Taranto isn’t the only violent member of Freedom Corner – far from it. If you look at the vigil, you can see a couple of other Tarantos in the making. Let’s hope that the police do something about it this time.

    6. How I Became Red Bike Guy

      thanks for all your kind wishes and support!

      I went viral for roasting the Patriot Front as they demonstrated in Washington, DC. Online commentators called me “Red Bike Guy” since I was hurling insults while astride a red Capital Bikeshare bike.

      This is what it felt like to go viral.

      Saturday

      My friends Neil and Rachel called on the evening of May 13, excitement in their voices.

      “You’re on TikTok,” they said.

      “I don’t do TikTok.”

      “No, you’re ON TikTok.”

      And with that, they sent me a link to the viral video that would change my life. It was from earlier in the day, when I had mocked fascists after they snuck into DC to march and pose for photos.

      I didn’t even know that I had been filmed. I thought the cameras would be on the fascists, not me.

      By Saturday evening, it already had tens of thousands of likes and hundreds of comments and reactions.

      Should I identify myself? In the video, I was labelled as Red Bike Guy, for I was riding a red Capital Bikeshare bike.

      As I read the comments with Neil and Rachel, delighted by each one, we realized it was too late. The threaded comments went from “Who is this hero? He must be protected!” to “That’s Joe Flood!” with a link to my Twitter account.

      My anonymity was gone.

      Sunday

      “You’re a well-adjusted introvert,” a friend once told me, correctly summarizing that while I could do very extroverted things, I needed my alone time.

      Sunday morning, I felt overwhelmed by the attention. Lying in bed, every time I opened Twitter, there were 20+ notifications. I was gaining followers by the thousands. The TikTok video had been posted to Reddit, shared and shared again, with me frequently tagged. Comments were pouring in.

      The day before, I had considered creating a TikTok account to thank people for their encouragement, but the video had some many comments that it now seemed impossible to respond them all.

      I decided to go for a bike ride, a long leisurely ride down the Potomac River to Old Town Alexandria, using my personal (non-red) bike.

      What I like about biking is that it occupies your brain completely. As long as I was moving, I didn’t need to think about my loss of anonymity as I became Red Bike Guy.

      My Twitter account had grown from 2k to 10k, with a similar increase in Instagram. Suddenly, I had thousands of new followers from around the world. Should I still share my hyper-local interest in DC-area bike trails and sandwiches?

      I decided to use my powers for good, and to share places in DC which people may not have seen, like the lovely Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge.

      Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge

      Though not in real time, for suddenly I was more conscious of my security.

      Monday

      While I had written a book about likes, and had an earlier (and much smaller) brush with going viral, it was the intensity and duration of the online storm that surprised me.

      I was featured on Washingtonian Problems, a funny Instagram account that focuses on life in the nation’s capital. The story had gone from being an online curiosity and had escaped out into the real world.

      And into my world, for many of my friends, neighbors and past colleagues subscribed to Washingtonian Problems. Thank you’s poured into my Instagram.

      I had thousands of new Twitter followers, one of whom was a producer with the Rachel Maddow show, who got in touch with me for an interview.

      We talked for about fifteen minutes about my experience on the Mall.

      I didn’t think it would be used on the program but watched anyways. And, suddenly, at the very end of the hour, my words were splashed across the screen as Rachel Maddow said my name again and again.

      It was the most surreal experience of my life.

      But the week was just beginning.

      Tuesday

      I’m fortunate to be surrounded by an excellent network of people.

      Key among these people have been my friends Neil and Rachel who have gone on this journey of viral fame with me. It’s good to know people who are techies and designers. I’ve known them for years and we operate as a mutual support system.

      Excited at my new celebrity, they set up a web site for me, RedBikeGuy, and Rachel created an amazing logo and t-shirts so that fans could share in the fun. (And if you like tarot, check out her cards on Etsy.)

      RedBikeGuy t-shirt

      And I got my first, “I know you from the Internet!” as I shopped at CVS.

      After being interviewed for a great article in The New Republic, I was contacted to appear live on CNN.

      Me? This is CNN? 

      A car picked me up and took me to the studio near Union Station. I was not nervous for I was just so fascinated by every element of the process (this will all be great content for a future novel, I thought). They put me in a room with lights and a camera as I responded to questions over an earpiece from Sara Sidner in New York.

      My dad asked me if I had ever done public speaking training, for I was so clear and concise. I hadn’t but, in a way, my life had prepared me for this moment.

      My career has been in communications, so I know that reporters demand prompt responses. I’ve been a freelance writer so I know how to construct a story. Also very helpful was my volunteer work with the DC Shorts Film Festival, where this introvert had been thrust on stage more than once. Talking to a packed theater as you wait for ballots to be counted is much scarier than appearing on a remote shot.

      Wednesday

      Another good PR lesson is to have a headshot and a bio handy, in case of viral fame. At the start of the week, I took a selfie with Capital Bikeshare, anticipating that reporters might need it. I noticed too that reporters mined the about page on my web site for more information about me.

      A friend asked me if I would make a Capitol Hill bike ride. I was going to be out of town, however. “A retweet will do,” he replied. LOL. I was wanted just for my new-found fame.

      After a day of all this media attention, I went to a Greek place to relax. I was sitting outside eating a gyro when my heart stopped.

      Mark Hamill had tweeted about me. That was the thing that really got me, sending this craziness to a different level. I had been endorsed by Luke Skywalker.

      Later, I went to meet friends at a cocktail bar where I was greeted, not as an alcoholic, but as a minor local celebrity. One of my friends mentioned that her mom had seen me on CNN at 2 AM. My story was being run and rerun around the world.

      Thursday

      “I forgot how the Internet worked,” Neil said.

      Our RedBikeGuy t-shirts had been ripped off almost instantly, with the designs duplicated and sold on other web sites. Neil sent takedown notices.

      I was leaving town, on a pre-planned trip to Florida, turning down a chance to appear on MSNBC to see my family.

      In my email were a bunch of other requests, including the offer of a cape.

      National Airport is the best airport in the country (people in DC don’t call it Reagan National). Located just off the Mount Vernon Trail, you can bike there, with a Capital Bikeshare station next to the parking garage.

      I packed light so I could ride a CaBi to the airport. Getting on one of those familiar red bikes for the trip, I heard, “Are you him?”

      “I am Red Bike Guy.”

      If you want to know more about my story, check out my memoir, HOW I BECOME RED BIKE GUY.

      red bike guy cover

    7. Red Bike Guy Shirts Now Available!

      RedBikeGuy t-shirt

      Fight back on a bike! Get this Red Bike Guy shirt and more at RedBikeGuy.com.

      “I am Red Bike Guy.”

      If you want to know more about my story, check out my memoir, HOW I BECOME RED BIKE GUY.

      red bike guy cover

    8. Red Bike Guy News Roundup

      Rachel Maddow show appearance

      My simple act of heckling fascists on the National Mall became a viral sensation that appeared in articles and TV clips around the world.

      Friends in the UK and Germany saw it. Relatives spotted me on CNN. I received emails from Australia and India. It was a wild experience.

      Here’s a roundup of new stories about Red Bike Guy.

      Rachel Maddow

      CNN

      A cyclist came upon a White supremacist march. Here’s what he did next

      The Washington Post

      Meet the Red Bike Guy, who in a viral video heckled white nationalists

      DCist

      ‘I Had A Duty To Yell At Them’: Meet The Bikeshare-Riding D.C. Resident Who Brutally Mocked White Supremacists

      The New Republic

      The Cyclist Who Heckled White Supremacists in D.C. Wanted to Make Sure They Got the Message

      Yahoo News

      Lone resident goes viral for mocking white supremacist group at Washington D.C. march

      The Independent

      Lone cyclist who shouted down white supremacists marching on DC wins legions of fans

      I’m the lone cyclist who faced down a white supremacist march. Here’s how to do it

      Common Dreams

      Hi Fascists! Nobody Likes You!

      The Guardian

      ‘You wear Walmart khakis’: US cyclist who taunted fascist group wins plaudits

      Bicycling Magazine

      This Hero Cyclist Hilariously Interrupted a White Nationalist March – Bicycling magazine

      Huffington Post

      Cyclist Taunts Marching White Supremacists With Outstandingly Timed Heckles

      “I am Red Bike Guy.”

      If you want to know more about my story, check out my memoir, HOW I BECOME RED BIKE GUY.

      red bike guy cover

    9. Red Bike Guy Story Published in The Independent

      sloppy fash

      The Independent asked me to write about my experience as “Red Bike Guy” heckling fascists in DC.

      I was glad to share my story. I’ve been delighted at the positive response that I’ve received. Humor is a really good way to respond to extremists since it undermines their seriousness and makes them out to be a joke – which is what they are, these young men in khakis and plastic shields longing for a mythical American past that never existed.

      It’s also important to confront them. Early in the Trump years, I read On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder and it shaped my thinking on how to resist the right-wing. It says to stand up and defend democracy. Groups like the Patriot Front march in places like DC to create the illusion that they are powerful and accepted; I wanted them to know that everyone hated them.

      Read more about my Red Bike Guy experience in I’m the lone cyclist who faced down a white supremacist march. Here’s how to do it published in The Independent.

      “I am Red Bike Guy.”

      If you want to know more about my story, check out my memoir, HOW I BECOME RED BIKE GUY.

      red bike guy cover