I wasn’t sure if I would get with a bike lock in a head or what the vibe would be at the Reoccupy Wall Street rally held by the Young Republicans in the Financial District of Manhattan following the crazy GameStop trading the previous week. I’ve seen a lot of videos of Antifa acting like hyenas and picking off stragglers far from the group, and I’d listened to Proud Boys rap “Far Left” by Political Muscle from the West Coast for my required reading and to hype me up. My plan was to still wear my MAGA hat and scope out the scene as I approached the park from the subway.

I got there early and people were sort of sparsely distributed among the park’s stone benches in the sub-freezing temperature. I wasn’t sure it was the right park until a person of color from the Young Republicans welcomed me and shook my hand. I took to standing around and feeling out the crowd. I spoke to one guy in an Army jacket with an American flag. I kept eyeing the patch on his right arm just out of my view, where I thought I discerned the Antifa flag logo. Eventually he explained that he was once with the Occupy Wall Street crowd in 2011 but ended up being targeted by Antifa himself. Eventually, I saw that the patch was anti-Antifa. NYPD stood huddled up across the street, their backs to the big Wall Street buildings.

I was talking to a Japanese television channel. I got the vibe that it was lefties. Then I saw Curtis Sliwa in his red beret pull up from the far west side of the park with his two Hispanic looking lieutenants. I’ve seen the crew before on TV or something, bulky guys with sporty overcoats with Guardian Angels insignia and the trademark red beret. Pretty sure I saw a bunch of them holding down a Foot Locker against superior numbers during the Summer’s riots. I gave Sliwa a pound, and he gave me a business card which looked newly printed compared to one I think he gave me years ago. Later, someone wnet up to Sliwa to thank him for saving the life of one of his friends back in the day.

Some big dude rolled up aggressively in all in black: beanie, mask, t-shirt, etc., with an open black mink coat with silver streaks yelling shit, flanked by his boy. I stood there next to Sliwa, watching if this guy's WWE type entrance would get violent.

Next, the organizers, the Young Republicans, led by the young Gavin Wax appeared. It seemed that the crowd had achieved critical mass. The speakers assembled at the top of a small staircase on the east side of the park near Broadway, with a bunch of reporters and attendees in a semi-circle below. The mink coat guy had worked himself up next to the organizers, and shouted that he’d give anyone who smacked a Wall Street CEO $100.

I haven’t seen a lot of speeches but Curtis Sliwa’s was probably the coolest of my life. Unlike the others, he did his speech without amplification, relying on the strength of his voice. He seemed to stand shoulder to shoulder with the finance towers in the background, and it was like his face itself was chiseled out of stone. I was impressed by his ability to convey his ideas, peppered with Italian slang that seemed to come out of the 1950s and which was accompanied by a variety of hand gestures. So this is what it is like to hear a Statesman speak, I thought.

Sliwa who is running for mayor was probably the climax. After that the big crowd spread out. Streamers and media types were doing interviews. I was the only guy with a MAGA hat on, so I attracted several interviewers. I figured I had more to say then the next guy, especially when it came to capital markets. When asked why I was there, I said I was a populist who sympathized with the sentiments of the little guy against the elite that galvanized many around the GameStop stock buyers, and came to support the Young Republicans of New York City at this rally. I did, however, try to explain my theory that the Redditors buying GameStop stock are part of a PsyOp, possibly a Chinese one, to hurt a hedge fund that is backed by Trump supporter money – Steven Cohen and Ken Griffin

After a few interviews I was talking to this white guy and a Dominican who said he had become a Republican since 2018, both were well-dressed in their 20s. (Huge amounts of Latinos in the Bronx and Queens deserted the Democrat party in 2020.) The Dominican kid said he didn't like how AOC said Ted Cruz tried to get her killed. I got pulled from that group into another interview by a pretty blond woman from a reputable broadcaster for conservatives. While we talked, she pointed out that Wall Street funds help people save for retirement and do other good things. A couple of minutes into our talk, loud hip hop started blasting from what I figured was a mobile speaker parked behind me. I moved in a bit to the reporter to try to shield the mic from that noise with my back.

After the interview I went to see where the sound was coming from. A black guy in a clown looking costume, with a Sideshow-Bob type colorful balloon hat was talking and rapping. He said he was a candidate for political office that has gotten more votes than Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. I gave him a dap, and he proceeded to do a song in his own made-up language that sounded like Waka Flocka chatter. I met a minor-league streamer, an Asian kid that cuts wax and supports Tulsi Gabbard, and did a shout-out for his channel.

I walked up to Fulton Street to head home. I saw more cops further down the road. A teenage boy with gingerish hair said he liked my hat and I tried to direct him to the rally I’d just left behind me. A 70-year-old Jewish looking woman, slight and gray, told me to go fuck myself, but I was in too good a mood to care.