Watch: Knoxville Nazi Addresses Audience of Nine and Gets Brutally Mocked

Knoxville white nationalist Rick Tyler held a rally and only nine people showed up. Tennessee Holler caught it on video for the lulz.

You may have heard of bonafide Tennessee idiot and white supremacist (but I repeat myself) Rick Tyler. He spawned outrage back in 2016 with his horrible “Make America White Again” billboard, which he hoped would play a major role in his 2016 campaign for Congress. It did, in a way: he lost badly.

This week, the plucky little racist was at it again, holding a white supremacist rally at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. As you may imagine, security was tight. It must have cost a fortune.

Ahead of Tyler’s talk, police helicopters flew overhead as protesters gathered in the heat outside the student union to craft signs and protest his appearance. Dozens of Knox County Sheriff’s Office deputies, Knoxville Police Department officers, UT police officers and Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers lined the fenced-off area around the Alumni Memorial Building, waiting to screen anyone who wanted to go inside.

Frankly, if I was in charge of deploying all these state and municipal authorities, I would be sending the bill to Tyler himself. Because for all of his carrying on and making a ridiculous, hateful spectacle of himself, only nine people showed up to hear him speak.

That’s right: nine. But while more than one hundred people protested outside the event -the Knoxville News Sentinel reports that “protesters outnumbered attendees more than 10 to one,” which is typical of these kinds of events- the helpful folks at Tennessee Holler captured the sad and hilarious scene inside the auditorium. The video offers some of the best color commentary I’ve ever heard.

It’s heartening to see that even in Tennessee -a state that has a bust of Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest prominently displayed in the legislature and where the Republicans are working hard to disenfranchise black voters- no one likes a Nazi.

Author: Brendan Skwire

Brendan Skwire is a cultural and media critic. He offers nearly two decades of experience as a journalist, video editor, blogger, and community organizer. Skwire has worked for the Philadelphia Weekly, Scrapple TV, and Raw Story, and is a former member of the News Guild.