In response to anti-fascist organizing prior to Nov. 7, 2021 members of the “Refounding Fathers Coalition” became concerned about past anti-fascist response to Super Happy Fun America (SHFA) (Melissa Terra specifically identified the inability of SHFA/CORR security to meaningfully respond to antifascist organizing) and decided to use what they called “a different tactic,” which in this case meant using the language of “unity” and attempting to convince all people regardless of political orientation to fight against mask mandates (you can find this discussion in their extremely long Facebook live stream here). What this effectively meant was that they wanted to lighten their stance to avoid a “shit show.” Here is what one of the organizers, Melissa Terra, said, explaining her reasons why she made the separate event:
This resulted in one Refounding Fathers Coalition organization, the MA Freedom Coalition/WeThePeopleofMA (it’s unclear if these are separate organizations at all) and a now-former member of CORR (Melissa Terra) organizing a more tame event prior to the SHFA event.
In response, anti-fascist organizers re-scheduled the counterprotest start time to 10:30. On the day of the action, this change in time and quick mobilization in the morning had significant impact on the right-wing rally. The earlier start time meant that CORR security was not present. Because of their small numbers and lack of CORR security, SHFA and CORR members that showed up early to set up, could not meaningfully respond to our much larger contingent. As a result they were overwhelmed, and one CORR member in a fit of fear drove their supply van directly into their own tent that they sought to distribute propaganda from, then drove through a police barricade and was subsequently arrested.
From their live streams, it is clear that SHFA is not very super and definitely not happy. Sue Ianni out of frustration lashed out at one of the speakers, Vincent Delaney. Samson was infuriated as he was initially not allowed to speak, since John Hugo forgot to put him down as a speaker; this led him to argue with a police officer, and eventually he said that even if everyone did speak they would be “submitting to tyranny” and that they should not submit to this “tyranny” since “this is an anti-tyranny event”.
Speakers continued to speak, but even Sue was clearly upset by the amount of noise the counterdemo was making (yay Babam and yay airhorns)! Even when commenting on Telegram she acknowledged that “SHFA’s permitted rally barely took place.”
Throughout the event, SHFA, despite the event being co-sponsored by America Backs the Blue, were highly critical of the lack of police response. During the speeches SHFA displayed their newfound distrust of cops. During his speech, Mark Sahady said that the police “had no balls” and that they won’t “stand up to power.” Samson was also critical of the police response, saying that they would now be their “biggest critics” and that the only thing that they were good at was “destroying our event“. To further SFHA’s identity crisis about not having a boot to lick, the police abruptly shut off their sound system at 1:30pm, despite SFHA paying for a permit for the event from 12:00-4:00. Throughout the videos, SFHA members acknowledge that they were shut down. Even their own security members acknowledged defeat and then had to get wasted afterwards to deal the loss.
Following their pretty epic loss, SHFA anger turned inwards and they began to accuse WeThePeopleOfMA/MA Freedom Coalition of being communists. The back and forth is long, so I’ll give you the Cliff notes. Sue was upset with the early event since it was about “unifying” to fight against mandates regardless of other political differences.
Melissa Terra pushes back, flexing her totally wicked anti-mask resume. She shits on David Steinhof (CORR founder, Fall River dentist, accused of beating his wife and dogs) and says that the event put people in danger and that SHFA never communicated these potential dangers. Sue’s response was mostly just “nuh uh!” and then calling us all “evil radicals” that are “pro murder” of babies and that we love to “teach little kids to be racist Commies and sexual deviants.” In their livestreamed response, WeThePeopleofMA even reference the material from the Green Monster Antifa doxes that circulated about David Steinhof, calling him “unfit” to be in a leadership role as someone with a history of domestic violence. SHFA and WeThePeopleOfMA have now parted ways as a result of antifascist organizing.
So, Cliff notes, SHFA got scared and destroyed their own tent, they accused the cops of having “no balls” at at an event sponsored by America Backs the Blue, they were stopped from speaking only an hour into their four-hour event cause things got too heated, they made their security so sad that he had to drink and listen to Michael Bolton or whoever to cope with the loss, and then they accused members of the Refounding Fathers Coalition of being communists, and at least one group split off out of fear of our organizing.
Confronting White Supremacy New England 