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 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.
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.
Taylor Taranto in 2022 during the 1776 Restoration Movement protest on the National Mall.
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.
Ashli Babbitt’s mother Micki Witthoeft got close to livestreamer Anarchy Princess as they arrived at the jail.
AP gave her the finger, and Witthoeft swiped her hand and pushed her away by the backpack.
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 to DOA 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.
DOA interviewed Taylor Taranto, J6er and #FreedomCorner participant.
Taranto: “[about Micki] She’s some sort of, like ,kooky, environmentalist, leftist.”
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.
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.
We looked through the video. It was hilarious, the way that @mrsminthrope2 had edited my insults together, added captions, and closed on, “You like General Custer’s illegitimate son.”
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.
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.)
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?”
The Independent asked me to write about my experience as “RedBikeGuy” 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.
I yelled at the Patriot Front because I didn’t think they should march through DC unopposed.
I’ve seen a lot of protests in Washington. I’m a street photographer and have documented fascist groups like the 1776 Restoration Movement and the J6-loving chuds of Freedom Corner.
There are always counterprotestors to the fascists. I’m the one who takes the photos; I leave the counterprotesting to the professionals with their megaphones and signs.
But on Saturday, the Patriot Front slipped into the city without telling anyone (except the cops). There were no counterprotestors.
I had to be the counterprotestor, to represent all the people in DC who despise these right-wing cosplayers.
Rolling up on bikeshare, it was an absolutely perfect tableau as the young chuds listened their dapper leader speechify at the Washington Monument.
And I was going to crash it!
I didn’t know I was being filmed, and that it would go viral, and that I would hear my name on Rachel Maddow within a couple days. At that moment, I was just determined to ruin their day.
Update: check out the new RedBikeGuy site for some of your favorite insults on a t-shirt!
Did world civilization peak in 2019? Is it all downhill from here as the world devolves into warring regional blocks? Will mass starvation stalk most of the globe in the coming years?
His thesis is simple. While globalization has lifted billions of people around the world out of poverty, that progress was only possible due to a unique, post-war moment in which the US Navy protected the sea lanes. Now that America is withdrawing from the world, the benefits of trade will disappear as we slide into a new anarchy. The result will be a collapse in living standards, as world powers devolve into regional blocs.
It’s grim reading, with sections outlining the future of manufacturing, agriculture, transportation and other key sectors.
It’s also repetitive – over and over again, Zeihan repeats his thesis that the “Order” established by the United States after 1945 is ending.
I read the first few sections and skimmed the rest, as I imagined most readers do, for the book is far too long and filled with digressions and snarky asides.
Malthus Was Wrong
Zeihan is Malthusian, extrapolating from current trends to predict future history.
None of them anticipated the green revolution which increased crop yields or our ability to wring oil out of tar sands.
And no one saw the rise of the Internet which has revolutionized our politics.
Demography is destiny, according to Zeihan. China is destined to collapse because it will soon have too many old people and not enough young people to support them.
America has a more balanced demographic mix, despite the huge bulge of Baby Boomers, due to the counterbalance of their children, the Millennial Generation.
Millennials, Our Last Hope
And it’s this generation that may save the United States – and possibly the world.
Zeihan is assuming that all trends will remain the same. That Americans will want to get married, live in the suburbs and buy cheap crap from Target.
But what if that wasn’t true? Millennials have already shown a reluctance to purchase autos (possibly due to their high expense) and engage in the other “normal” markers of adulthood, like having sex. They are the most non-traditional generation in American history.
And I believe that they are poised to radically remake American society, which has become too expensive, stratified and dominated by retrograde conservatism. Why should they support a society that makes college expensive and guns cheap? That provides drugs but not homes?
You can see the first stirrings of rebellion in places like Nashville and Montana, where young people have struggled against calcified and repressive state governments.
This is a generation with a progressive spirit that knows how to organize and work collectively. No wonder that Baby Boomers have fought their children so fiercely, for they are the antithesis of the Me Generation, and their rise to power may prevent the grim future outlined in The End of the World is Just the Beginning.
The J6-loving chuds of Freedom Corner hate the mainstream media yet desperately crave mainstream media attention.
They spent hours talking to a couple of Washington Post reporters during their nightly vigil outside the DC Jail, fantasizing that they would get legitimate press coverage instead of write-ups in right-wing sites that nobody reads or mockery by local blogs.
Instead, they got played, as the Washington Post published, Behind Trump’s musical tribute to some of the most violent Jan. 6 rioters, an expose on the J6 prisoner song. It’s a damning piece that highlights the horrific nature of the crimes committed by J6ers and the cushy conditions of the DC Jail.
Freedom Corner often refers to the DC Jail as a “gulag.” But what kind of gulag allows prisoners their own wing and access to iPads? It’s such a gulag that the prisoners were able to record a song and release it to the world, something that certainly doesn’t occur in the non-J6 wing of the jail.
The article includes quotes from J6 vigil organizers but doesn’t even include the name of their protest: Freedom Corner.
One of the very basic rules of PR is that if you talk to the reporters, you want to get the name of your organization in the piece. But since Freedom Corner is incompetent, they didn’t even manage to get their name in an article! That has to be galling for people who have devoted months to this treasonous cause.
And, as a final insult, in the video clip included with the article, you can hear anti-chud trolls yelling in the background. To be forever paired with their trolls has to be deflating to all but the most deluded J6 enthusiast.
Read The Washington Post article. It demonstrates that the J6 “martyrs” are violent terrorists and that those trying to create this myth are traitors.
