Guess who showed up at the weird, angry flag parade in Lawrence this weekend?

On Saturday, a parade of Human MAGA Hats descended on downtown Lawrence and exercised their constitutional right to march around and carry signs and yell a bunch of ignorant shit.

It’s America, and they’re allowed to do that. But it is perhaps worth noting a few details about Saturday’s “Defend Our Flag” protest for future reference.

According to its Facebook event page, the gathering was held “to pickett [sic] the flag dragging march scheduled for the same time and location…We will not tolerate desecration of the flag that so many of our brothers and sisters have died to defend.”

In other words, the Trumpers were engaging in a counterprotest of another protest where libtard cucks were going to get together and drag American flags through the street. Are you a libtard cuck who didn’t know about the flag-dragging? That might be because there is scant evidence any such event was ever planned.

Certainly, as the University Daily Kansan points out, no flags were dragged on Saturday. Organizers of the counterprotest say that the flag-draggers’ event page was removed from Facebook on Friday. A purported screenshot of that event page exists only on an alt-right subreddit devoted to triggering libs. Here’s the background image for that page:

Maybe some people indeed tried to organize a Lawrence flag-dragging, and then nixed the idea. Probably not. But maybe. Regardless, what happened on Saturday is that a bunch of people with Confederate-flag license-plate holders and Hillary for Prison t-shirts drove into town, walked up and down Massachusetts Street waving American flags and Confederate flags (even though Kansas was a free state), revved their $50,000 trucks at the libs, and yelled things about “California” and how if’n you don’t like it here in you can just get the hell out.

There were a few arrests, reports of racist and homophobic slurs, but no serious injuries, and certainly nothing on the level of Charlottesville. Still, this was an ugly event, basically a troll job meant to menace Lawrence. No reasonable person could watch this video and credibly argue that these people were participating in a peaceful defense of the American flag. It’s just a nasty, hate-filled mob.

Nevertheless, two Republican candidates for Congress participated in this event. Both are running for Rep. Lynn Jenkins’ soon-to-be-vacated seat in Kansas’ 2nd Congressional District. (Whomever emerges from the Republican primary will likely face Democrat Paul Davis.)

One of these men is Tyler Tannahill. Here he is posting about it on Facebook. And here’s what Tannahill said in the comments: 

“Radical leftists planned an event called “Drag the Flag” where they were intent on desecrating our flag. I fought under that flag, carried a man on my shoulders off the battlefield wearing that flag, and took an oath with my fellow Marines to defend that flag. I couldn’t stand by and watch as extremists dragged our nation’s colors through the streets. Along with hundreds of patriotic Kansans, I brought my flag to fill the streets with patriots, soldiers, families — people who care about freedom, liberty and the America they want for their children. This event was created to celebrate America and #DefendTheFlag.”

Steve Watkins is also running for Jenkins’ Congressional seat. Here he is bragging about Defending His Big Soft Flag. 

Although news coverage of the event clearly shows that Confederate flags were common at the Defend the Flag rally, both candidates’ photos are Confederate-free. Neither Tannahill nor Watkins responded to a request for comment on what they were doing at this rally.