We have a nice County Fair here every year. It's very Mayberry RFD. 4H exhibits, livestock shows and auctions, pies, silly games, music, good food, lots of booths for local causes/politicians/businesses.
Good times for all. Usually very polite and neighborly, and you get to see a lot of the folks from different islands that you don't normally get to bump into.
The County Republicans had their booth there this year, in the same place I've seen it for the past 19 years. They had a life-size cardboard image of Trump at the booth.
Chaos ensued. I witnessed some of it with my own eyes. I even got yelled at by a couple of people, because I was accidentally standing next to the booth, talking with the Sheriff about a marine search & rescue issue we are working on together, and was misgendered as a Republican by the local Antifa-wannabes.
I'll let the booth operators tell the tale though:
REGARDING HARRASSMENT AT SJC FAIR
We call upon everyone everywhere to practice what our society so often preaches: tolerance and open mindedness. Everyone is tolerant of their friends. It is how you treat people with whom you disagree that defines tolerance and open mindedness.
Over the last week our volunteers at the Republican fair booth were:
• Picketed by about 15 people, mostly polite, but one got in a yelling match with an elderly Republican who happened to be walking by.
• Repeatedly called racists, or bigots, and many other labels -- by people who do not know us.
• We were told multiple times that "there's no way they [“resistors”] are any threat to women,” yet one of the women working in our booth was repeatedly harassed by the same man, to the point where she had to file a police report.
• All our people experienced harassment, and because SJC Republican Party has more female leaders than male, much of that harassment was directed at women in our booth.
• One woman related of a different visitor: “I had to beg a man multiple times to leave the cardboard cutout [of Trump] alone. I finally stood right next to him by the cutout, looked up and started saying loudly, ‘Please leave. Please leave us alone,’ over and over until people started looking. He was much taller than I and certainly stronger... He then walked off laughing....”
• Our cutout of Trump was in fact poked at and attempts at vandalizing it occurred multiple times. Multiple people stated that they hoped he would be assassinated. Just a few months ago Republicans were in fact shot at, and some wounded, so even in jest this was very poor taste.
• Some had their employment threatened, we were spit at, and repeatedly given the finger. Some felt we deserved such harassment, so that now we can "know what it's like to be black."
• We were worried about our neighbors in nearby booths, but several of them came by and apologized to us because they could not believe how we were treated -- including women and minorities.
We are hardly the first to be treated this way, but we condemn all such behavior, whether directed at us or at others. We are disappointed that events in far off places were used to justify aggressive and bullying behavior towards their neighbors. We are grateful to those who were polite, even friendly, and there were many of those too. But the men and women manning our booth handled such hostility.
Thank you to the hundreds of conservatives who came by and expressed their support. They were coming through all day, all week, glad that we were there. There are thousands of underrepresented conservatives in this county, human beings who everyday come into work and keep their heads down because they don't want to lose their jobs, or have their cars vandalized, or otherwise be harassed for practicing democracy.
But frankly, we are tired of attempts to bully us while complaining about bullying. You have every right to say what you believe, just as we do. But just notch down the hysteria please, and remember that we are neighbors.
Signed:
...
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Originally Posted by herbgeek
