Antifa is coming to steal your potatoes!

I live in the small town of Scotland, CT. The neighboring town to the west is Windham, which like Scotland is mostly rural and nearly 100% white but incorporates the borough of Willimantic, an urbanized area with an ethnically diverse population. The Willimantic NAACP decided to hold its Juneteenth observance on the Scotland town green, I presume in part for the symbolic reason that Scotland was the site of a notorious Ku Klux Klan rally in 1980. But in fact they've been holding rallies in various small towns in the area, trying to reach out beyond the urban base of the current movement and speak to, and recruit, a broader constituency.

My next door neighbor Gary is the First Selectman (that's basically like the mayor) and he started getting messages from people who either wanted protection from the rampaging hordes who were going to burn their houses down, or were threatening to show up carrying semi-automatic rifles. I got a ride from another neighbor and went to offer ourselves up as human shields.

As it happened, a good many of our townspeople turned out to join the substantial contingent from Willimantic, sunburned white folks carrying Black Lives Matter signs. I had a friendly discussion with some folks about Scotland. We have a post office and basically four businesses, an auto repair shop, a seamstress, a liquor store, and a chain saw shop. They were surprised to hear that a small town needed a chain saw shop so I explained that there are a lot of trees out here and sometimes they die. Also a lot of us heat with wood.

Anyway there were maybe 200 of us altogether and we did some chanting and sign waving along the state roads (the green is at the corner of Rte. 14 and 97), and got some honks of support. Then we went over to the gazebo and listened to some speeches. It was a beautiful summery evening and it all had a warm, communal feeling. Oh yeah, everybody wore masks and kept a distance. A few clowns rode by on their Harleys, apparently on a much needed trip to the muffler shop, but the Proud Boys with their body armor and AR-15s failed to show. As my friend and I were leaving, a 17 year old kid with no shirt on yelled at us "This is America, if you don't like it you can leave." I probably would have stopped and talked with him but my friend just drove off.

So the good news is that there haven't been any evident outbreaks of Covid-19 related to the recent protests. People have generally worn masks and kept a distance, and we now understand that outdoor activities are much less risky than indoor gatherings. The virus is transmitted in places like nursing homes, prisons and meatpacking plants. The experience in Seoul shows how dangerous crowded bars and restaurants can be. Churches have also been sources of outbreaks, including choir practice. Singing, shouting, even just talking loud indoors is really dangerous. So what's the single most insane thing you could do? How about packing 19,000 people into an arena at capacity, who are not wearing masks, and who are chanting and yelling at a campaign rally? That's about the worst thing I can think of.