San Francisco Free Speech Rally Turns Violent When Antifa Arrives

With the election only 16 days away, the optics of people in Trump T-shirts having the you-know-what kicked out of them is not a good one. However, that’s the visual this morning, October 18 in this most bizarre of presidential election years. A rally scheduled by a conservative entity known as Team Save America was aimed at protesting the Twitter ban of the Biden family emails published in The New York Post this week. A ban that the CEO of Twitter has admitted was “unacceptable.” Team Save America planned to start a march at United Nations Plaza and end at Twitter Headquarters in San Francisco, but that was disrupted when hundreds of counterprotesters showed up, and things got ugly in a hurry. The organizer of the event, Philip Anderson, showed a picture of himself with a tooth knocked out. Another man wearing a Trump T-shirt is seen injured and distraught on the ground, yet another Trump t-shirt clad man was photographed by the Associated Press being carried away on a stretcher. In total 6 people including three police officers were injured according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Rally organizers applied for and were granted a permit for the event and likely were not expecting such violence. A report by Fox News quoted Mr. Anderson as saying: “This is what happens when you lose free speech. This is what happens, America. This is what our country is turning into." The Antifa counterprotesters outnumbered the dozen or so pro-Trump people – those on the scene reported “several hundred” Antifa showing up to thwart the rally - and thwart it they did. One wonders whether this type of violence will backfire on the left, causing the pro-Trump contingent to show up in droves at the polls on November 3. One also wonders if such confrontations have become de rigueur for the American electorate. ~ Read more from Leesa K. Donner.