When the charter bus pulled up to Lincoln Park at noon on Saturday, counter-protesters and a phalanx of police officers were waiting. A small group of Aryan Nations protesters—14, all told—filed off the bus and into the park, where they tried to speak out against what they called a genocide being perpetrated against white farmers in South Africa.

The message didn’t matter, though—this small group of avowed racists could have been singing the praises of apple pie, for example, and they still would have been shouted down by a crowd of 150 counter-protesters that was simply indignant that the Aryan Nations would dare come to D.C.

Much like past visits—one in 2008, another in 1999—Saturday’s white power protest saw the small contingent of protesters met with massive police presence, with the Metropolitan Police Department, U.S. Park Police and U.S. Capitol Police putting hundreds of officers on the ground to escort the Aryan Nations’ march down East Capitol Street and to the Capitol Reflecting Pool. Bicycle cops from around the city were detailed for a Civil Disturbance Platoon that formed a moving escort around the marchers, and U.S. Capitol Police officers decked out in full riot gear met the group as it approached the Capitol.

What had seemed like a usual police overreaction at first became wise planning as soon as the march started; it wasn’t two blocks before counter-protesters blocked East Capitol Street, a number of them constantly threatening to jump police lines and beat up the Aryan Nations marchers. (In 2008, three counter-protesters were arrested for trying to do just that.) I asked one counter-protester what he would do if the cops weren’t around. “Beat the shit of the Nazis,” he said matter-of-factly.

And so went the Aryan Nations’ march. The tiny group of racists marching down the streets of D.C. served as evidence enough of how severely isolated and insignificant the group truly is, while some counter-protesters seemed ready to resort to violence to send some sort of message to the group and its supporters. The counter-protest seemed to derail briefly when the police became the target, accused by some of siding with the racists. (“Who do you serve?” was a popular refrain by counter-protesters.)

Much like any protest or demonstration by a group as reprehensible as the Aryan Nations is, the question invariably becomes whether a counter-protest only serves to give credibility and visibility to a group that could only muster 14 people for a protest. Some of the counter-protesters were legitimately on hand to express their displeasure with the white power group—”You are really stupid,” read one sign held by a Capitol Hill resident—while others took the Aryan Nations’ presence as an opportunity to try and smash the group, and very literally so.

The tension over hate speech and free speech was certainly at the heart of the debate. Most everyone agrees that reprehensible ideas are still constitutionally protected, but what of a group that still celebrates Adolf Hitler? Should it enjoy the same rights? The U.S. Supreme Court has said yes, and in a 1990 D.C. court similarly found that then Mayor Marion Barry could not deny a white power group a permit to march.

As the march ended at the Capitol Reflecting Pool, the sheer insignificance of what the Aryan Nations’ protesters had to say become even more evident. Led into a large fenced-off pen, the 14 protesters briefly rallied for their cause. Dwarfed by the size of the area that police had blocked off for them, the large contingent of counter-protesters couldn’t help but recognize how little the group really was—both in size and influence. Even with a bullhorn, nothing of what the Aryan Nations had to say was heard.

By 2 p.m., the group marched under police escort to a waiting charter bus, where it was quickly led out of the city—by a black bus driver.