Antifa descended on Portland, Oregon recently to protest a right wing rally. One of the protesters who joined them happened to be carrying an American flag. Before the day was over, he was clubbed in the head by another member of the protest.
Shane Dixon Kavanaugh reports at Oregon Live:
He brought an American flag to protest fascism in Portland. Then antifa attacked himWarning: This story contains graphic contentPaul Welch came to the downtown protest Aug. 4 to let his political leanings be known.With pride he clutched his U.S. flag as he moved among the crowd of like-thinking demonstrators.Soon a group of black-clad anti-fascist protesters, also known as antifa, demanded he lose the flag, calling it a fascist symbol. Welch refused, and a tug-of-war ensued.It ended with Welch taking a club to the back of the head, lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood.Only Welch was not a Proud Boy, a Patriot Prayer supporter or among the other conservative activists who descended into the area that day, many from out of town.He was one of hundreds of progressive Portlanders who had turned out to oppose the right-wing rally held at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park…Many have assumed the tussle over a U.S. flag placed Welch squarely in the right-wing camp.Not so.”I had felt like showing that a liberal, free Portland or any major city, really is much more American and much more numerous and strong than any of these interloping groups,” he said.A “slightly progressive leftist” by his telling, Welch is a registered Democrat in Oregon, voting records show. He cast his ballot for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary and Hillary Clinton in the general election, he said.
In the short video below, you can see people trying to take his flag. At the 13 second mark, a man uses a black club to hit him in the head, at which point he collapses into the street while bystanders do nothing.
Welch was eventually rushed to a nearby medical center where four staples were used to close a three inch gash in his head. The report closes with this quote:
“It strikes me as the worst sort of political theater,” he said of what happened to him. “It’s kind of like you’re playing into your opponents’ hands when you do that sort of thing. That’s not what I was there for.”
How sad.
On a related note, has everyone seen this 2017 tweet from CNN’s Chris Cuomo?
Featured image via YouTube.
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