Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano welcomed heavily armed far-right “militiamen” who occupied Gettysburg National Military Park on July 4, 2020. He posted video of his individual greetings he gave to the occupiers on his Facebook page. Last week, Mastriano drew criticism for posing in Confederate uniform for a faculty photo eight years ago. In this video, disseminated by Media Matters, Mastriano thanks a group of men next to a truck displaying a Confederate flag. The men are not “Civil War reenactors.”
In the next video, Mastriano speaks with a man wearing a cape that is half American flag and half Confederate Battle Flag. Mastriano tells the man “You’re looking good there, man. I can’t think of a better cape.”
The armed groups at the National Park included the Ku Klux Klan and extremist group that participated in the attack on the Capitol six months later. Some of the armed men confronted a local pastor in a BLM t-shirt in the National Cemetery where his ancestors are buried and demanded that he leave. Here is more on the 2020Gettysburg occupation.
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