I talked to someone who actually attended the rally and he gave quite revealing details. Basically, this was retardation from both sides. The protest was originally just about the statue and not about "white replacement". Jason Kessler helped get approval from the city to host the protest, and the attending members tried to keep a low profile as to not attract Antifa and BLM. However, somehow the information about the protest got leaked, but not just to these far-left groups. Richard Spencer was also somehow informed, and ended up co-opting the rally into that stupid tiki torch ceremony. This person I talked to said it was either Jason Kessler or Andrew Anglin (owner of The Daily Stormer) that leaked the information. Anglin wrote on his website about the protest a while before the set date. The day of the rally, a small group of antifa gathered at the statue in the park. The rally members, made up of proud boys, atomwaffen, and a couple other groups I can't name off the top of my head were lead by Spencer to attack this small group as they were outnumbered. As soon as they entered the park, antifa/blm members began pouring in from other locations and surrounded the rally members. It was a pincer attack! If you look at the footage, there are masses that gathered on the street and flooded into the park that support this person's claim. I have a few bookmarks that eluded to the police standing down and allowing violence to take place at the protest, but I could never find anything absolutely conclusive until this footage came to light. https://www.bitchute.com/video/ZnbH0J2CHZs0/ https://www.bitchute.com/video/rCkOtPzf47y1/ https://www.bitchute.com/video/m8Kj2f20e58R/ https://www.breitbart.com/2nd-amendment/2017/08/16/police-contradict-terry-mcauliffes-claim-charlottesville-protesters-weapons-stashed-around-city/ https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/01/armed-antifa-professor-admits-chasing-charlottesville-driver-rifle-deadly-crash/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210228220807/http://conspiracy-cafe.blogspot.com/2017/08/second-driver-arrested-in.html#!http://web.archive.org/web/20210228221723/http://conspiracy-cafe.blogspot.com/2017/08/second-driver-arrested-in.html https://web.archive.org/web/20201221210233/https://voat .co/v/whatever/3900112