Anonymous
By Marian Shapiro
There were 100-200 masked and quiet people on Anapamu St. in front of the County Administrative Building, at Anacapa Street. The Larry Elder Rally taking place in the Sunken Garden probably had 5 to 10 times as many people.
The NO on Recall protesters were local activists, but I suspected many of the Larry Elder Rally attendees came from out of town, especially the activists who were in several big trucks parked along the curbs in front of the Vote No protestors. The Elder demonstrators were very confrontative, yelling at the masked and silent Vote No sign holders. The Elder activists had bull horns and were screaming that the silent sign holders were communists, that they were against what America stands for, like freedom and children’s health and their children’s right to go to school.
The Elder activists yelled that the Newsom supporters were stupid, believed in a lot of lies, and were thoughtless followers, never checking the truth of what their left-wing leaders told them. Then two Elder supporting women came right up to the masked Vote No protesters and yelled a lot of accusations, clearly frustrated that their yelling questions got no responses.
They yelled, “Why don’t you respond? You have no answers! You are blind, stupid followers who don’t care about your own rights, your freedom, your health. You are so stupid, you can’t answer. How can you possibly support this Governor?” The protestors had been advised not to engage in arguments with the other side and to just stand quietly, however it’s extremely difficult not to respond! Occasionally a Newsom supporter would answer the yelled accusation, for example saying, “We’re not Communists!”
Then a Newsom supporter and leader observed that one of her group was arguing with an aggressive, accusatory Elder supporter. Michal Lynch decided to interrupt the argument and lead the interaction in a less confronting direction.
Michal explained, “I stepped in, and changed the subject, by asking her a question. Then anything she said, I found a way to acknowledge it or stated what part I agreed with, and asked her questions. We had a good time, laughed about how ludicrous all the polarization is, commiserated that both ‘sides’ are not what we truly want, and compared what we like. It’s not hard to find points to agree on, when you’re not yelling.”
Michal was successfully using the skills taught by Dr. Tania Israel in her book, “Beyond your Bubble.”
Most people want to tell the other side how wrong they are, but Ms. Lynch showed amazing self control and wisdom in finding things they could agree on. The hostility evaporated and they looked like they were having fun. But know that for most of us, it’s quite hard to do.
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Thank you for this. I was also a ‘No on recall’ supporter. Being yelled at for over an hour was such fun (not). The people in the trucks and with the large yellow flags were so aggressive. They simply wanted us to respond and start trouble.
I’d like to have a meetup next Wednesday with them and see what they have to say when recall fails !
Most of the Elder lackeys were from out of town.
The cons have been pandering to the lowest common denominators in society for decades. This is the result.
Everyone’s free to protest peacefully whatever they want, but if you go to “protest” a rally don’t be surprised if there’s some trouble.
Yes, cons like the Elder supporters tend to be unruly and have little respect for the law when it comes to freedom of speech.
It’s definitely hard to have a conversation with folks who push Trump’s “Big Lie”, are against women’s rights and don’t support racial equality or the LGBTQ community. The Far Right has been pushing conflict into the streets for several years now and trying to make conflict the norm. Very nice write-up. I will look into the book you mentioned Dr. Tania Israel, “Beyond your Bubble.”
The Larry Elder event was happy and positive. This individual report is purely a side issue and protesters came to be provocative. They got what they were looking for apparently, though few of us even saw or heard them. Due to the looks of their pre-printed signage, yard signs and door drops the No on Recall people seem to have very deep organization and a material stake in this election outcome. Of course, they will try to generate negative publicity, and smear the other side with these few one-off personal encounters. Glad I was at the rally so I could see how the local write-ups treated this overwhelmingly positive event. Yes there were GOP clubs in attendance from around the county – it was a pleasure to have Larry Elder make this last minute stop in our county.
My grandparents favorite restaurant is gone forever. My deciding factor to vote yes.
And voting for an idiot will fix that, how?
It’s just a restaurant, not a human life lost to covid. This Elder guy says he would lift covid restrictions and if that happens then chances are you’ll lose more than your parent’s favorite restaurant. We live in a bubble here because we have such great medical systems and have been super covid cautious. That could change so fast. I’m sad that is a risk that you, and others with your beliefs, are willing to take.
I want to thank all of the “No on Recall” protesters for demonstrating. I saw you as I drove my ballot to the post office and really appreciated your presence at this rally. – I voted “No” on the question to recall.
You sure have a bizarre interpretation of happy and positive!
Thank goodness none of the “No Recall” protesters were dressed up as chimps while throwing eggs at Mr. Elder. It’s good to have a healthy difference of opinion, but the monkey mask and egg tossing is truly uncalled for, although it seems that a couple of y’all are A-OK with it (how lovely), but most people are not. Stop with the hate and racism and stop wearing monkey masks and throwing eggs…..please.
You should clarify that the hate and racism was not from the monkey-masker.
Clarification: The hate and racism was not from the monkey-masker throwing eggs at Mr. Elder. Something like that?
I don’t think the homeless person with the monkey mask in Venice was a protester…..
Exactly.
And don’t storm the Capitol!
The so called “monkey masker” was an Elder plant trying to elicit sympathy and paint Newsom supporters as racist. Can’t believe (well actually I can) how anyone is foolish enough to fall for the game.
I’ve seen the write up about the egg/monkey mask incident. It was reported as one egg and it missed. But that was enough to scare Big Lar away.
MIDAIR – Please let me/us know the evidence you have to support your statement the “monkey masker” was “an Elder plant.”
As soon as you show me the evidence that the election was stolen, voting machines were rigged, and bigfoot exists.
My favorite TV show was canceled. My deciding factor to vote No.
I was there. One ford truck parked legally in front of County Administration building with a vote yes recall Newsom flag. Not blocking the vote no people. I was between both groups there was almost no
confrontation except a little back and forth name calling and I have video! The no people where not silent and there was not several big trucks blocking the vote no people. you can see the only truck with the yellow flag in the second picture.
I was there too. It was far more than name calling. It was not stop screaming in our faces, at very close range, and no masks. Very aggressive. The truck absolutely parked in front of ‘no on recall’ folks.
Everyone I saw there were locals. Per SB Police there were over 2,000 people there to support Elder.
A homeless looking person next to us went over to some anti Elder protesters who were being loud & asked them politely to allow the supporters have their space. Those anti people left
I do not like Newdom snd his rules for thee not me policies over the last year snd a half. Like keeping his winery open despite the death rate per population bring higher than our region.
Or the schools are closed except for his private school. No travel, unless he goes to his Montana ranch while he tells us to not visit family. Or going out to dinner with over a dozen unrelated people while our restaurants are closed.
The list goes on. Definitely not a leader.
It was peaceful. The anti Elder crowd were flipping middle fingers and yelling being unruly.
Californian republicans are going Big Steal 2.0. The party has become a 1 trick pony. Ballots are bar coded and everyone can track their own. wonder how they will confabulate this one.
OGSB – Newsome will never “be fine;” and his re-election is in serious jeopardy.
This incident with the mask happened in the middle of a huge homeless encampment in LA. Elder has always been a provocateur and going into a homeless camp with an entourage of staff, cameramen and media was not about looking for votes from the homeless.
Except, Luvaduck, sometimes and I believe this I one of them, there is value in the people saying no, this is bs. And making a statement. Plus a lot of us want Newsome ‘s career to fizzle out ASAP, because we all know he’s looking at bigger and bigger offices. He’s that kind of guy. We’ll take a temporary replacement, yeah we will.
A big waste of money. No one on the replacement list has the experience to finish out Newsome’s term. Rationally, those who would like him to be replaced should have had competent people to run against him in the scheduled election. Right or left, the slate of candidates to replace him is a sick joke. Since a replacement candidate would need so few votes, as a replacement govenor of one of the biggest economies of the world, we could get a toker, a billboard queen or a kid still in school. That would NOT be a joke.
Down in the sunken garden I didnt witness one single ‘yes’ on Newsom’s recall confrontation between the few that had the guts to waive their ‘no’ signs. Emphasis….NOT one confrontation whatsoever from beginning to end. The rally down there was totally peaceful and most decidedly pro for change from the horrific path Newsome has led our now tarnished golden state down…highest taxes, gasoline, homelessness in the U.S., with nearly the worst education rated at 41st..where have all those millions of state lottery dollars gone for years now, since they were to have fixed our educational system ?
A five year old could do a better job then Newson!
Interesting comments about the rally. I was there. I knew a lot of Santa Barbarians there. I would say that the vast majority of people attending were locals. In the section I was in it was peaceful and there were NO on the recall folks there. I am sorry but from what I have seen in the past it is far more likely that the NO folks would be the disruptors. Its their fight and they make sure that we all know it. Regarding the egg incident in Venice, Elders security detail did exactly what they should have done. They had no idea if there was a threat greater than an egg toss. What was with the gorilla mask btw? Imagine if this would have happened to a DEM. Newsom is pretentious, pompous ass. The governship is for him just a stepping stone to a larger political office. His management of CA from forest management [yes the vast majority is FED land] , but how did Jerry brown get it done. He management of his departments namely the EDD which was sending Covid checks to prisoners in San Quentin and scammers in Nigeria instead of Californians. His management of the housing crisis which is a total failure. HIs management of the Covid crisis which cost many Californians their livelihood with the lockdowns and dracronian measures which produced results not much better than Florida which had no lock down. Get him out now! There are other candidates running than just Elder. Candiditates that have ideas for solving problems what Newsom cannot or will not do.
Duh. Not a good reason….LMOL
What bothers me most about this whole charade, how it has showcased the extreme numbers of people who lack any knowledge or understanding of how our government actually functions. Who has power over what…policy vs legislation vs politics… etc… Civics has long since lost its place in schools and It seems that 20+years of talk show blowhards, bloviating about how government should work, has eaten away the small amount of civic understanding the avg person held. ————————————————————– Today, as evidenced by the obnoxious anti-Newsom crowd, people simply do not know what the actual duty of their elected officials… Granted in today conservative media and party, its become a theater of the absurd. A carnival of clowns all fighting for airtime and attention. Barking and whining is the job, rather than actually governing or gasp, working towards something instead of against it… So its easy to see why the uneducated would think that a blowhard can bully his way through the problems. After all, simple people need simple solutions. Yet absolutely nothing about governing or policy creation is simple. Which is why the Right is filled with preachers, actors, clowns and charlatans. There is no shortage of shameless people willing to say anything for money and power. And say anything they do… its the oldest grift in the books. Distract their attention while reaching behind and stealing their wallets. If you do it right, they’ll even give you their wallets on their own. That’s why so many preachers are millionaires while their flock are peasants.
SBO, please try reading the RedState website, if i you want to open yourself broader range of conservative thought than your current one-dimensional version. None of us who call ourselves conservatives even recognize this cartoon version you present. RedState has been running good articles about the Recall election, as well as more national topics. Good writing, good research and good balance.
9:39 – That’s meant to be satire, right? I can’t believe anyone would characterize Red State as anything but cartoonish opinion, devoid of facts.
Zerohawk what a rant! I probably do know over a 1000 people because of the business I was in . Newsom is a douche bud!
OOPS – ” trying to make a point with their signs….a bit provoking for sure.” Gads, sounds traumatizing for you! Was it as or more “provoking” as running a bus off the road with a gang of big trucks?