Boston does it right. Sheer number of counter-protesters overwhelms rally

Boston's response to the planned "Free Speech" rally benefited from Charlottesville's experience.   As Shakespeare has Hamlet say:  "The readiness is all."

Boston had a week to prepare, following the debacle in Virginia -- and they did.   Police had fenced off two separate areas of the Boston Common and had deployed as many as 500 police officers to keep the rally-goers and the counter-protesters separated.    Good will, as well as Bostonians' city pride, made for determined get-out-the-crowd efforts.

The group planning the rally insisted that they were not affiliated with the white supremacist, racist, or neoNazi groups that sponsored the Charlottesville rally.  However, the advance list of planned rally speakers left no doubt which side their "Free Speech" movement sympathized with -- the ones who claimed that marching with Nazi regalia and racist signs and carrying bats and shields was simply their free speech expression;  and that, if only the counter-protesters hadn't showed up, there would have been no violence.   Nice try.

In the end, the sheer numbers of good Boston people overwhelmed the paltry crowd on the other side -- 15,000 peaceful protesters were marching through the streets toward the park by noon, with thousands more arriving in the next hour.  The whole event just fizzled.

USA Today reported that "only a handful" of rally-goers, wearing red "Make America Great Again" hats were trying to make their way to their area of the park, which was made difficult just by the huge numbers of people on the streets leading to the park.    Other sources estimated that maybe two dozen rally-goers actually showed up in their designated area.

By 1:30, roughly 90 minutes after the "Free Speech" rally was supposed to begin, the Boston Police Department tweeted out a formal notice that the rally was "officially over," and the demonstrators had left the Commons.

It's not clear how much the paltry number who made it to the rally area was due to people staying away or due to simply being unable to get through the massive crowds surrounding the Commons.   There were a few reports of counter-protesters surrounding a lone rally-goer to prevent him from getting through.

There were a few skirmishes and some bad behavior.    But none of the violent fist-fighting and beatings seen at Charlottesville.

What a difference a week makes!    As discouraged and pained as last weekend left us feeling, there is sheer joy this weekend in feeling that goodness has triumphed over evil.    Oh, how we've been needing that in this fraught Trump world.

Ralph