See the pretty torches burn

Last night in Charlottesville, Virginia:

Self-proclaimed white nationalist Richard Spencer led a large group carrying torches and chanting “You will not replace us” Saturday in Charlottesville, protesting plans to remove a Confederate monument that has played an outsize role in this year’s race for Virginia governor.

“What brings us together is that we are white, we are a people, we will not be replaced,” Spencer said at the first of two rallies he led in the college town where he once attended the University of Virginia.

At the second rally, dozens of torch-bearing protesters gathered in a city park in the evening and chanted “You will not replace us” and “Russia is our friend,” local television footage shows.

Shaun King posted a photo on Facebook:

Image may contain: one or more people and night

After about ten minutes the fighting started, and the police broke up the rally.

Spencer was in Charlottesville to protest a City Council vote to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. A court injunction has halted the removal for six months.

The statue has become a rallying cry for a Republican running for Virginia governor this year, Corey Stewart, who was chairman of Trump’s presidential campaign in Virginia and chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors.

Of course Lee committed treason, but I guess Republicans don’t object to that if it’s from the right as opposed to the left.

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