From asphalt roadways to shining waterways and even a movie theater parking lot, for North State patriots, Trump-supporters and warriors, there’s a lot going on this Labor Day weekend.
The first two Saturday events are designed as pure patriotic fun, by patriots, for patriots.
However, the Saturday-evening event has the potential to be peaceful, violent, or nothing at all. For everyone’s sake, let’s hope that the militia-led Saturday-night event is a serious case of an overactive rumor mill gone wild. Let’s hope it’s a big fat nothing. Let’s hope it’s cancelled as a magnificent misunderstanding.
But first, the Labor Day weekend frivolity.
MAGA Drag the Interstate

Image source: Redding Patriots Facebook page.
For patriots and Trump-supporters, Labor Day celebrations get an early start Saturday beginning at 7 a.m. outside Shasta High School where North State Trump supporters will gather to adorn vehicles in all things red, white and blue, from American flags to pro-Trump regalia, to join the nationwide “MAGA (Make America Great Again) Drag the Interstate” cruise from Redding to Sacramento.
The Redding Patriots’ Facebook page provided all the details in the post below.
A few points stood out in their message. First, they request that retired law enforcement and retired military folks drive at the front of the caravan, just in case there’s any trouble.
Second, it’s designed as a “follow-the-leader” caravan because they don’t want to “advertise” their location to “domestic terrorists”. That is the same reason they’re not disclosing the arrival rally point: Domestic terrorists.
You can read all about in in this Facebook post:
This info is for Nor Cal interior patriots above Sacramento.
MAGADRAG THE INTERSTATE SATURDAY, SEPT 5TH
REDDING AND SURROUNDING AREAS MEET UP AT SHASTA HIGH SCHOOL 2500 EUREKA WAY AT 7AM.
DECORATE YOUR VEHICLES WITH AMERICAN FLAGS AND/OR TRUMP FLAGS.
OFF DUTY/RETIRED LEO’S/MILITARY DM ME IF YOU ARE WILLING TO GO AHEAD OF US TO SCOUT FOR POSSIBLE TROUBLE.
THE PLAN IS TO CARAVAN DOWN I 5 TO SACRAMENTO AND MEET AT A RALLY POINT AT 10AM. THERE WILL BE FOOD TRUCKS AND PORT A POTTIES.
PATRIOTS SOUTH OF REDDING MAY JOIN IN AS WE PASS THROUGH YOUR AREA, BUT YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN TO WATCH FOR US.
THIS WILL BASICALLY BE FOLLOW THE LEADER AS WE DO NOT WANT TO ADVERTISE OUR RALLY LOCATION TO DOMESTIC TERRORISTS.
AFTER THE RALLY WE WILL CARAVAN TO A NEARBY LOCATION [DETAILS GIVEN AT RALLY] TO CHEER ON A BOAT PARADE.
THIS IS AN EVENT FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY. A DAY TO BE REMEMBERED!!!
PLEASE RESPOND BELOW OR DM ME IF YOU PLAN ON PARTICIPATING SO I CAN GIVE CHP AN APPROXIMATE CAR COUNT.
SHARE SHARE SHARE!!!
Begging a few questions here:
1. Exactly what kind of trouble are the MAGA Drag folks expecting on California’s most boring drive from Redding to Sacramento?
2. If there was “trouble” – how exactly would retired law enforcement and retired military personnel deal with it? Brandish weapons? Run troublemakers off the road? Ram offending vehicles with MAGA trucks?
3. Who are these domestic terrorists they fear will crash what’s basically a 162-mile-long motor parade?
4. As an aside, how in the world was a Redding public high school OK’d as the location for this politically-affiliated event?
Not that anyone’s asking, but here are my suggestion regarding concerns about potential trouble along I-5 during the MAGA-Drag: If there are problems, call 911, keep driving and allow the trained professionals – like the California Highway Patrol – to take care of things. Let the retired folks enjoy the cruise down 1-5 in peace and safety.
Freedom Float
No, the Labor Day Weekend Freedom Float is not a strawberry-blueberry-and-vanilla ice cream soda. Rather, also on Saturday, it’s yet another event organized especially for patriots and Trump-lovers, many of whom may be returning from the MAGA Drag and are ready to leave the freeways and head for Shasta Lake for a floating, boating patriotic extravaganza from noon to 4 p.m.
Like the morning’s MAGA-Drag, where participants decorated their vehicles in all things red, white and blue, this waterways event suggests people adorn their seaworthy vessels in all things patriotic, including Trump campaign-support decor.

Image source: Facebook
Militia Meetup: Will there, or will there not be a protest?
Finally, Saturday evening will wrap up the day on a more serious note. This is when North State militia groups and militia sympathizers plan to gather at the Cinemark/Movies 14 complex parking lot in Redding in anticipation of a Black Lives Matter/antifa protest.
Rumors on top of rumors
For a few days now North State social media has been abuzz with posts like this one below. While this particular one is from Dan Scoville, who’s appeared in recent stories here related to local militia, Scoville’s is just one of many nearly identical posts that have been shared many times over.
SAT. SEPT. 5, 9:50 A.M. UPDATE
According to a Dan Scoville post on the CWM Cottonwood Platoon Facebook page, the militia’s Saturday-night location has changed. I cannot vouch for the credibility of this post, or whether it means that the militia will no longer meet at Movies 14 tonight.

Change of militia plans? Source: Facebook
The following post was the original message regarding area militia’s Saturday night meetup:
Image source: Redding Patriots Facebook page.
For days, I’ve burrowed down many rabbit holes on my quest for facts about this supposed protest in Redding attended by supposed Black Lives Matter and supposed antifa movement folks. The thing is, real militia plan to show up.
So far, it’s crickets.
I keep bumping into the same shared militia information, but so far, I’ve yet to find one substantiated, solid fact to confirm whether protesters plan to show up in Redding Saturday night.
Is it possible that there is a stealthy protest coming to Redding that’s so top secret that only the militia know?
But if that’s true, where did militia get their information in the first place? What kind of a weird protest would it be if only the anti-BLM, anti-antifa people were in the know, but even the local BLM supporters were clueless?
I contacted a few local people who are well-connected in the BLM world to see if they’d heard anything, and guess what? All they’ve heard is the same militia chatter I’ve heard. All chatter. No matter.
Watchdog groups are concerned, too, but they’re just passing along the same old same old militia posts. No information. Just questions.
Over and over, people are asking the same questions: Anyone know more about this?
Over and over, the answer is “no”.
Everyone I ask says the same thing, that this is weird, that there’s something fishy about the message.
For the record, I messaged Scoville and asked for more information about the protest. No reply.
As I write this early Friday evening, there is a possibility that come Saturday, no militia will show up at the theater parking lot. That’s what I’m hoping for.
After all, talk about bad timing! After months of being shut down because of the pandemic, pity poor Movies 14, which opens today, for having the supremely bad luck to be chosen as a militia-gathering location just one day after reopening.
Maybe by tomorrow Cinemark will have taken official steps to prevent the gathering, perhaps by enlisting the help of RPD.
Perhaps by tomorrow the militia will stand down and cancel their get-together at the request of RPD.
I wouldn’t know. My questions to Cinemark’s corporate office were not answered. Same story with my questions sent to RPD.
However, I can say that I heard through the grapevine, from someone with close contacts to the local Cinemark company, that theater managers are “aware” of the upcoming militia meeting in the Movies 14 parking lot. That’s not a shocking revelation. How could they not be aware? It’s all over Facebook.
Sorry I can’t do better than that at the moment.
In that event, if the Saturday-evening militia event is cancelled, and if the protest never happens, I will update this post as soon as I learn anything new. Oh, God bless the wonders of online publishing.
Suppose they called for a protest, and nobody came?
Because this whole rumored protest is so crazy, I had some equally crazy questions:
What if the rumors were created by some lone-wolf militia sympathizer who’s loaded for bear, ready to fight “protesters”? What if, with no protest in sight, he makes one up?
What if there never was a protest planned by real protesters, but after the rumor mill went ’round and ’round, and after the same message was shared thousands of times, what if eventually it attracted the attention of actual BLM protesters, and even some bad players on the protest side who are up for a fight, too?
We know there are earnest, well-intentioned, God/family/country-first militia members here. I thank them for their passion, and for wanting to do something to protect our country.
We also know there are some racist, hothead, violent troublemakers here who are armed to the eyeballs and are gearing up for a civil war.
The Stone Soup of protests?
Remember that story, Stone Soup, where a poor man on the side of the road claims he’s making soup, when the truth is all he has is water and a stone in the bottom of the pot? He keeps talking up his stone soup to passing strangers, who all add their own ingredients: a potato here, a carrot there, some herbs, a chicken, some onion and garlic. Like magic, a big pot of delicious soup is created. It started from nothing, and ends up being something.
Saturday, my most fervent prayer is that the rumor protest is just that: a rumor that started from nothing. But unlike Stone Soup, I hope it stops before it comes to a boil. I hope nothing comes of it.
I’m hoping that if militia members do show up, it’s a non-event.
I hope no local BLM folks take the bait for a manufactured protest, because if they do, they’ll discover it’s just them, that there are no other protesters, because there never were.
If that happens, maybe the militia will end up posing for photos, talking about ammo, showing off their trucks and weapons, and after that, they’ll call it a night.
Even better, maybe they’ll all catch a movie, have a little popcorn, forget the whole thing and chalk it up to mistaken intel.
That’s what I’m hoping for.
What if?
However, what if the protest is real? What if militias’ information was correct? What if this rumored protest has been something in the works, planned by real protesters who do show up in Redding?
Here’s my greatest hope of all: I hope militia members will take a chill pill, put away their weapons and go home. Leave law enforcement to Redding’s trained professional law enforcement officers. Let them do their jobs. Let the professional peace-keepers keep the peace.
Please.
UPDATE: 12:50 A.M. SUN. SEPT. 6
There was no Saturday night protest for the militia to monitor or confront in Redding.
Starting around 5 p.m. Saturday the first cars and trucks appeared and converged upon parking lots near the San Francisco Deli and Orchard Nutrition. At one point a line of vehicles drove behind the Dollar Tree. Vehicles parked, and some people got out of their vehicles and stood in the parking lot.
By about 6:20 p.m., most of the vehicles started leaving the parking lots, departing in different directions.
Meanwhile, at Movies 14, the militia’s original meeting place, a few vehicles were parked on the far north-east side of the lot. Some vehicles had American flags.
By 7:20 p.m., back at Locust Avenue near Orchard Nutrition and the San Francisco Deli, a few vehicles with flags remained.
Regarding the morning’s MAGA-Drag caravan, according to one source, just three trucks, each driven by one male, comprised the entire motor parade.

Photo courtesy of Gayle Cramer.