Thank you for showing us those photographs.
Your chronicalling of places and events was also very helpful. This was 14 years ago. Almost from a different America. Before most of The Troubles.
Today, the conservatives would need some sort of plan on all the Antifa and BLM who run up to your group and verbally provoke or plain out attack with street fighting weapons. At very least, the conservatives would need a few team members filming everything and dodging those trying to knock their phones away.
If you or anyone else on this forum have not seen this James O'Keefe video above, you must watch it so your eyes are open. This is deliberate. These people are scum of the lowest order. And they are so proud of it, even bringing known mentally ill people into the process to incite their violence for them, that they cannot help themselves when they brag about it. It is why James O'Keefe and his work is so important.
This technique of inciting violence is known in Leftist circles as "Birddogging".
I went to a Sarah Palin rally in Boston back in 2008 with a friend of mine, and it was a beautiful sunny day. We were far back in the crowd on Boston Common, holding our signs and waiting for Sarah Palin to appear.
A guy came up and asked me what my sign meant. I explained it to him, and he began getting confrontational. He stood directly in front of me, and at one point was directly in front of me, blocking my view, his face inches from mine.
I was also carrying concealed that day, and I knew that no matter what, I had to avoid any kind of physical confrontation. That would be a recipe for disaster. So I remained calm, and repeatedly told this person that I wasn't really interested in talking with him and would step to the side so I could see the stage, and he would mirror my movement to plant himself right in front of me.
I will say I was steaming with anger, but...I had to suppress it, so I kept this up. During this time, I looked over and saw the group of people this jackoff had come with, and they all had their cell phones out recording, hoping for an altercation.
Finally, people around me (who I didn't know) began getting really irritated with this guy, and telling him to "Get lost-can't you see he isn't interested in talking to you?" so he eventually left.
The linked video above is from sometime after the 2016 election, but it is pretty obvious to me this is a longstanding tactic of the Left, and I had been subjected to this "birddogging" back in 2008.
We don't do this kind of thing, they do. THEY do. So, we should have our eyes open and not take the bait, and I do believe most conservatives don't need to be told this. On the whole, Conservatives are far more mature and emotionally stable than any Leftist out there, it goes with the territory.
But still-best to be aware and prepared.