TEMPERS FLARE AS SIDES CLASH IN DUELING PREZ RALLIES
Mayor calling for peaceful protests after ugly scene
Mayor Martin J. Walsh is calling on demonstrators to keep the peace after dueling rallies for and against President Trump turned ugly yesterday, when a group of self-proclaimed communists confronted proTrump marchers and set off a series of expletive-laced exchanges through a line of police officers. The demonstration in Boston, one of dozens of “MAGA Marches” held from coast to coast yesterday in an effort to showcase the “silent majority,” was crashed by anti-Trump protesters, including dozens of self-described communists, who heckled the crowd of proTrump marchers as they worked their way from the North End to Boston Common. What was supposed to be a positive display of support for the president quickly descended to an ugly back-andforth where both groups hurled insults and barbs at each other as they were kept about 50 feet apart by more than a dozen police officers who were called in to keep the peace — a display Walsh said should serve as a reminder to “keep it peaceful.”
“I think there’s been a lot of rallies and protests since the president was elected,” Walsh said. “We just want to keep it peaceful and keep it so it’s lawabiding. That’s important.”
When the march reached the Common, both groups, about 100 people in all, did their best to drown out the other by yelling and chanting.
When the anti-Trump group began an “(expletive) Trump” chant, pro-Trump ralliers countered with chants of “USA.”
When one pro-Trump demonstrator shouted: “Hillary supporters do not love the American flag, Trump supporters love the American flag,” a member of the anti-Trump group countered by saying, “The only flag
you stand for has a swastika on it.”
And though tensions never boiled over to physical violence, several of the confrontations came close.
“Come over here, tough guy. Little (expletive),” one Trump supporter yelled while trying to push his way through the line of cops after being labeled a “racist.”
Tara Patenaude, a member of the pro-Trump rally, said she attended the rally because she’s “sick of people bashing my president.”
“Trump is our president,” she said, adding, “if you don’t like it you can go take the border and go. Bye!”
Matthew Andrews, an antiTrump protester, said he attended the counter-demonstration to show there’s a strong opposition to the Trump administration’s agenda.
“We just want to make sure people who are coming out of Park Street know that this Trump rally doesn’t represent America, doesn’t represent Boston,” he said.
Police officials said the local protests didn’t result in any arrests.