I originally posted this with a critique of the message involved, but about an hour after I posted it, got skeptical that the photo was either real or genuinely depicted an event that took place on August 29th, as is being alleged online. So I’ve deleted the original post pending verification that the photo depicts a demonstration that took place at Nassau and Stockton in Princeton on the afternoon of August 29, 2026.

(ht: Zellie Imani and Rev Erich Kussman)

As it happens, I was out of town on the 29th, so I didn’t see this event in real time, and don’t know anyone who did. ChatGPT describes it as “real with high confidence,” Claude calls it “unverified but not implausible,” and Gemini asserts with serene confidence that “Yes, a small group of white nationalist demonstrators was spotted in the area this weekend, though the incident occurred in Lawrence Township rather than inside the town of Princeton itself.” When I asked ChatGPT how it knew that the event took place on August 29th, it suddenly decided that it didn’t.

In fact, contrary to Gemini, the location depicted in the photo is in Princeton, not Lawrence, indicated by the black circle below. Though it hasn’t been reported in local papers, it mirrors past events here–we’ve had white nationalist demos here before–so I’m inclined to treat it as real. But I have a vague sense that it didn’t take place exactly as alleged, i.e., on Saturday afternoon the 29th. No one who was in town yesterday seems to have seen anything like this event, and it’s puzzling why there’s no photo closer up or with better resolution than the one we see. The photo seems to have originated with the Instagram account of one Dave Lu, but Lu doesn’t live in Princeton, so it’s not clear how he got the photo, and it’s not clear who took it. For that reason, I think it better not to comment on it as though it took place as alleged.