Inside a 'Patriot Party' rally where Trump loyalists search for a path forward
Before it was removed from Facebook, one Patriot Party group had more than 12,000 members.
One post that was removed read: "We need to organize our militia ... Wars are won with guns.. an when they silence your commander in chief you are in a war."
On February 6, one Patriot Party group held its first organized public rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which was billed as an "awareness march." Only about 30 people showed up, not much happened and it was over in a couple of hours. But at its conclusion, when CNN returned to the parking lot, some attendees had changed their clothes. At least eight were wearing Proud Boys hoodies. They were shouting that their cars had been vandalized. They would not explain the wardrobe change and were angry at the question.
The "awareness march" was organized by a man named Richard "Dick" Schwetz. Schwetz, who often goes by Dick Sweats online and who indicated his name had posed a challenge for most of his life, has publicly, on video, said he's a Proud Boy. But as he waited in the parking lot for a bus full of women that was supposedly coming from Pittsburgh that never showed, Schwetz denied this event had anything to do with that group.