GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – As Washington D.C. descended into chaos on Wednesday, a Stop the Steal rally outside of Green Bay City Hall was fairly tame.
People who couldn’t quite make it to the rally in Washington gathered in Green Bay, where speakers and organizers continued to fight for a closer look into the results of the presidential election.
“There’s a lot of people that are supporting our president, and we don’t want to back down from this because we may lose our Republic if we do,” said Organizer Melinda Eck.
“It’s not just supporting Trump, it’s supporting our rights…We need to stand up for our rights so I’m here to support, just like we all are,” said attendee, Debra-Lynn. “We are going to win. And if we can’t do anything about that, we’re going down the hole. We don’t want that because we have too many soldiers that fought for our freedom, that lost their lives.”
The group was allowed to demonstrate until about 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, which was totally cool with Green Bay Police.
“The police department’s always been open to facilitating and supporting people’s right to assemble. That’s been our message from day one, and that’ll be our message today,” said Commander Kevin Warych. “People can be out here they can assemble they can walk up and down the sidewalk. We just ask them to follow the rules.”
Trump supporters hold signs during a Stop the Steal rally outside of Green Bay City Hall. (WTAQ/Casey Nelson)
Trump supporters waved flags and held signs, continuing their effort to overturn the election. The man with the tallest and largest flag there was Mike Pakanich.
“If everything was open and transparent we wouldn’t be here today…The rest of the country and the rest of the world knows that we’ve turned into in nanny country. And it’s because nobody is willing to stand up for what’s right and what’s good,” Pakanich told WTAQ News. “Obviously I’m conservative and I’m a constitutionalist, but the people that are supposed to be representing me and my opinion, they’re geldings. They’re not standing up for what we believe in, for what the truth is, and for the oath that they’ve taken…It goes all the way from pretty much the dog catcher all the way up the line.”
Pakanich says the government has been whittling away at constitutional rights, and that the only thing left is the Second Amendment. He believes most First Amendment rights have already been taken away, particularly as churches and other venues were shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There aren’t any cities being burned down or rioting and looting right now, because the other side thinks they won. But we believe that when it gets overturned and goes in our favor, that is when things could look bad,” Eck said.
We asked what plans would be if Biden is officially certified and confirmed to take over as the 46th President of the United States.
“I don’t know if I’m going to be out here protesting anymore, but we still need to get to the truth. Whether its legislative or its judicial, it needs to come to a stop and needs to be transparent,” Pakanich said. “One human, one vote. That’s basically what it is for me.”
“The Proud Boys? You know who they are. The oath keepers, the militia. Listen, they aren’t going to sit back and let our freedom go down the drain. You bet there’s going to be a war,” Debra-Lynn claimed. “And we don’t want to have it. But if we have to fight the Devil, that’s all that’s left.”
“I haven’t really thought about that. What I want to do is I want to go to DC for the inauguration for Donald J. Trump,” Eck said.
But Eck does agree with Debra-Lynn that something more violent or intense could happen.
“They haven’t been so far, but I will tell you that there’s a bunch of patriots out there and they are going to fight for their freedom. So if they have to, I believe they will. Do I support that? Not necessarily,” Eck said.
“As far as the events occurring around the nation, police department employees are monitoring that and looking for anything that’s happening here in Green Bay. If something does happen here in Green Bay, we’re ready to respond,” Warych said. “We don’t anticipate any civil unrest. We live in a great community of people who have been very supportive, regardless of the political spectrum that they’re on.”
The rally could have been held anywhere, but organizers chose Green Bay City Hall for a specific reason. Eck argues that Mayor Eric Genrich and his office didn’t play fair when it came to the central count and absentee balloting. She believes that Genrich’s community liaison, Amaad Rivera, has a questionable track record and should not have been put in charge of the central count process.
“There were a lot of things that went on in our election in Green Bay that our mayor was involved in,” Eck claimed. “He’s very leftist, he’s held anti-Trump rallies, and he was overseeing at least 31,000 absentee ballots being fed through the machines. That doesn’t seem right.”
It remains unclear when the vote certification process will continue in the wake of the incidents on Capitol Hill on Wednesday afternoon.
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