As Night Fell, the Million MAGA March Turned Violent

In this daily series, Newsweek explores the steps that led to the January 6 Capitol Riot.

On Saturday, November 14, on a brilliantly sunny day, 11,000 Trump supporters descended on Washington for an amalgam of the Million MAGA March, March to Trump, and Stop the Steal. It was nowhere close to a million people, and that fact, together with what unfolded—a battle between protestors and counter-protestors—set the stage for almost everyone to focus on the wrong signs as January 6 neared.

At Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue, just east of the White House, a crowd of thousands showed their support for Donald Trump‘s election fraud claims, voicing their grievances about the direction of the country: an accumulation of disgruntlement with Washington, the feds, the CDC, politicians, the mainstream media, even with law enforcement. They marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Supreme Court, located just across the street from the Capitol building. “Fuck Antifa,” the crowd chanted.

Speakers included the bombastic Alex Jones, host of Infowars and a vocal right-wing conspiracy guru, made even more seductive when he was banned by mainstream social media. Jones was accompanied by members of the Proud Boys, erstwhile bodyguards and extra security, a task that they had taken upon themselves, escorting the leadership of their world. One bodyguard wore a “Pinochet Did Nothing Wrong!” t-shirt, a reference to the leader of a military junta in Chile who toppled the democratically elected president and arrested over 100,000 enemies of the state, torturing a third of them.

At the rally, Jones spoke of a “second American Revolution” and led chants of “1776.” It was his patented Deep State patter, conspiracies all around, a little bit of QAnon and a lot of Alex Jones. “We declare independence from that communist Chinese agent Joe Biden and his demonic pedophile family,” he shouted.

Former Trump administration official and right-wing social media influencer Sebastian Gorka whipped up the crowd and turned the focus back to Donald Trump, saying, “We can win because he did win.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon conspiracy adherent just elected to Congress from Georgia, was also on hand to speak. Earlier in the day, she tweeted a diatribe about the repressive conditions in the nation’s capital. “NOTHING is open,” she said, not even her hotel gym, because of “Democrat tyrannical control.” Later, she attacked those wearing COVID masks, calling them “oppressive.” The Oath Keepers acted as security for several of the speakers.

To signal his acknowledgement and support, President Trump’s presidential motorcade made a slight detour on the way to deliver him to a golf course in Virginia. They drove by the crowds on Pennsylvania Avenue. The previous day,…