Saturday. In my town. In my neighborhood.

Saturday morning, around 11 o'clock, I was grocery shopping at Roche Brothers in Boston's Downtown Crossing. It's on Summer Street (in the old Filene's Basement), just off of Washington. 

A couple of hours later, doomscrolling through Twitter, a tweet from The Rum Tum Taurus @atoheco - someone I was not following, but am now - posted this:

Patriot Front taking a casual stroll along the Freedom Trail.

Not sure if you need to have a Twitter account to see, but here's their video of the "casual stroll." 

Several of them were carrying shields. Many were carrying flags: American flags, and Patriot Front flags, which is a perversion of the American flag. There were a couple of banners, one reading "Reclaim America," their motto. Another read "Strong Families Make Strong Nations."

I'm actually all in favor with reclaiming America - from the likes of them. 

As for strong families, my money's on most of these dudes being incels who are nowhere near to building a family, strong or otherwise.

In case you're not familiar with the Patriot Front, they're white nationalists, a neo-fascist hate group. 

You can call me Antifa, please. 

This is the same crew whose members were recently arrested in Idaho for preparing to disrupt a Pride event.

In Boston, there were about 100 of these aholes, in khakis, navy polo shirts, and ballcaps, marching up Washington Street about a two-minute march from Roche Bros. Here they are on School Street, turning on to Tremont. If they hadn't turned, they would have been on MY street.

And here's a still picture that @atoheco also posted. This is a bit further down, in front of the Old State House, where each Fourth of July the Declaration of Independence is read. (The Patriot Front is obviously in the background, behind the tourists.)

As a student of history, and as someone who's been on the alert for 50+ years for the emergence of fascism in America, this terrifies me. 

Just as the SA (Sturmabteilung) Brownshirts were at the vanguard of the Nazi takeover of Germany - roughing up opponents, etc.  - so groups like the Patriot Front have every intention of being the latter-day Brownshirts. 

I am not going to go out of my way to encounter these terrible men.

But, not that I want to end up with smashed glasses and/or a broken nose, I hope that if I do, I at least have the courage to say something to them. Nazis not welcome here. Or if that seems too scary - which it might well be (I really don't want a broken nose) - I hope I'm at least willing and able to engage with bystanders, to make sure they know who these people are.

One of the Patriot Front marchers was playing a snare drum, similar to the ones carried by these SA toy soldiers. (And, yes, when they weren't protecting Nazi big wigs, beating up trade unionists and Jews, the SA did a lot of show-of-force parading around. Just like the goons of the Patriot Front. Except that the SA, unlike the Patriot Front, weren't afraid to show their faces.)

Considering the magnitude of World War II, of the Holocaust, I'm not entirely enamored of analogies to the current situation. But if this shoe doesn't fit...

The Patriot Front. Saturday. In my town. In my neighborhood.

We are in a very, very, very dark place.

(Promise I'll be more fun tomorrow. But for right now, I'm terrified.)