City spokeshunk Brad Goodguy pleads with Bamberson to take down his tent: “But Trump is bad, and he did bad things. Even if you think the larger Republican cause is just, don’t you think it’s morally repugnant to choose this particular moment in history to rally?” As of press time, Bamberson remained unmoved.

Last week, the City of San Diego threatened to cite and fine Jake Bamberson, the leader of Republicans of Pacific Beach, because of a pro-Trump tent his group had set up on the boardwalk. But Bamberson says he has no intention of moving, and he cites a surprising source of inspiration: the many pro-Palestinian college students who have spent the past month demonstrating by setting up encampments on university grounds. “Honestly, those kids have my sympathies,” says Bamberson. “They have real and convincing reasons to believe that the Palestinian people have been unjustly displaced and ghettoized by an illegal occupying force, and that the so-called attack on Israel on October 7th of last year should really be viewed as a heroic attempt at liberation by force. And now they’re setting up tents and waving flags and demanding that the world take note. I’m not saying I was at the January 6 ‘invasion’ of the United Sates Capitol; I’m just saying that I have real and convincing reasons to believe that Donald Trump was unjustly displaced from the White House, and that his supporters have been ghettoized by an illegal occupying force known as the Biden Administration. And if some of those supporters then tried to liberate their country by force, well, at least they didn’t rape anybody in the attempt. So now I’m setting up my tent and waving my flags and demanding that the world take note. I’m not really a fan of Hamas, but I get where those students are coming from. Yeah, the city is telling me I have to move, even though I’m on public property, just because my message might make some people uncomfortable. They’re citing these bullshit code amendments, talking about me disrupting traffic. But those protesting college kids and I know the truth. The Man doesn’t like it when you step out of line.”