Robert Tracinski:
Virginia’s governor, Terry McAuliffe, just declared a state of emergency for Charlottesville after violent battles between white nationalists and far-left “antifa” counter-protesters. I made it into town Saturday evening, and it certainly did look like a place in a state of emergency, though without any sign of the emergency itself.
The streets were eerily empty for a Saturday night, both downtown and on campus, and there was a much higher than usual police presence everywhere. Even the grocery store where I stopped on the way out of town had extra security guards on staff, chatting idly with each other in a corner because they had nothing to do.
Around Lee Park, the center of the riot, most of the roads through the downtown area were blocked off, and when I turned down one side street trying to see the extent of it, I came across a group of about 40 police. They were the only people there. Downtown Charlottesville has basically been shut down. I then drove by the county office building, which is a little off to the side of downtown, and it has a very large parking lot that has been turned into a giant tent city for the police, filled with emergency vehicles. I suppose that’s what McAuliffe’s “state of emergency” is about: they’re drawing cops from surrounding communities to get enough manpower to put the town on lockdown.
The signs of the emergency itself were hard to see because it was a man-made emergency.
I knew there was going to be trouble Friday night, when Richard Spencer and his white nationalist followers returned for another tiki-torch Nuremberg . It was exactly what they had done before, a few months ago, but this time with a dangerous difference. The previous rally was at Lee Park, because that’s where the Civil War statues are that the city has decided to remove, and which Spencer seized on as his cause. But that is an area near the county courthouse, surrounded by government buildings and lawyers’ offices. There’s no retail, no restaurants, and few residences, and it’s far away from the University of Virginia campus. The area is generally empty on evenings and weekends—which is to say that it’s not a good place to provoke a riot.
This time, the white nationalists started out Friday night by marching to a statue of Thomas Jefferson that stands right outside the Rotunda, just on the other side of the Lawn—that is, in the heart of the UVA campus. This is an excellent place to provoke a riot. Friday night had a few scuffles, but after a few minutes, the police kept the Nazi types moving along. It turns out they were just lighting the fuse, baiting the hook. When they returned to Lee Park (now somewhat clumsily renamed “Emancipation Park”) on Saturday, they had a proper counter-mob of “antifa” protesters to meet them.
When I mention the white nationalists, I should note that they are not some spontaneous outpouring of local sentiment. Someone on the Left posted photos of the neo-Nazis on Twitter and asked if people could identify them, speculating that they might be members of University of Virginia College Republicans. (This person has apparently never met a college Republican. In my experience, they are paragons of bland respectability.)
When he actually got his answers, it turns out that the people in the photos were all known, active white supremacists—the usual suspects—and they came from all across the country: Arkansas, Nevada, North Dakota, Texas, Massachusetts, California. Everywhere but Charlottesville. I’m not saying that It Can’t Happen Here, but Spencer and his brownshirt wannabes are a very, very small fraction of the population. They have to draw from across the country to get enough people all in one place to be noticeable.
If Spencer’s march was deliberately designed to provoke a riot, the “antifa” college kids gave him what he wanted. So far, I’ve seen this downplayed in press coverage, but antifa came ready for fighting, too. Check out the photos here. Both sides came with their helmets and their goofy homemade shields, as if this is some kind of lame, hellish parody of a Renaissance Faire.
The two sides are mirror images of each other, and both have an interest in making our politics devolve into street fighting. Both sides have also been priming their people to be ready to kill for the cause, and it appears that Spencer’s gang got there first, with one of his followers ramming his car into a crowd and killing a young woman.
The ominous implication of this weekend’s riots is that we are letting our politics descend into a brutal, unprincipled, physicalbrawl between two illiberal caricatures—which drowns out real debates over opposing ideas and marginalizes any unifying principles that we might draw on as reasons not to just kill each other.
The Left has been doing this by styling themselves as revolutionaries and “the Resistance,” and by indulging its young “antifa” anarchists—Communist “anti-fascists” who behave a lot like fascists, employing rioting and street battles as their main form of political activism. On the Right, the problems are summed up in President Trump’s lame statement on Charlottesville. Claims that Trump was somehow excusing white nationalism are overblown, given that he also condemned “bigotry.” But his only answer was a series of vague bromides about national unity and loving each other—a solution he has never managed to practice and for which he cannot be a credible advocate.
The left wanted violence, now they are getting it.
@Bill… Deplorable Me:
So, uh, the left should have maybe just stayed home and remained silent and therefore wouldn’t face the violence of the KKK and noe-Nazi Trump supporters?
When I left CA there were portions of freeways and roads with signs pointing out they were litter-free thanks to some Nazi Party affiliate.
That’s how mainstream Nazis were a few years ago.
Small in numbers, but accepted as peaceful.
Now the only minority with no right to have free speech in public is the European-American one.
They had a permit.
They paid for insurance.
But Antifa over-ruled that.
Then, the next day, Antifa, with No Permit and No Insurance, held another protest rally.
Weird.
The police and mayor and gov all agree that that’s OK.
I think the whole last second allowing of the Unite The Right rally was a set-up so that they could be beaten up.
Just heard in Seattle, again no permits, no insurance, Antifa took over the streets for hours today.
George Soros/Antifa has won and he’s tearing down whatever parts of America’s history he doesn’t like (Confederancy as a start.)
@Nanny G: And the left whines like little babies when their same tactics gets thrown right back in their stupid faces. THEY created this monster and I only pray to God it can be eradicated.
The Lie a Day News will again fake the news over this crime
@Ajay42302:
Well, no, not necessarily. But is it not possible and not expected that the left can show up at an event without initiating violence? Why are ALL the Obama/Hillary/Bernie/Warren/etc. supporters that show up violent fascists?
@Ajay42302:
Perhaps if no one paid any attention to the white nationalist group, meaning no press coverage, no cameras, just ignore them, they will go away. Without any attention they are meaningless. It only serves their purpose to provoke them. The antifa group wanted to be there knowing violence was probably going to happen.
These groups may have a right to assemble and protest but nothing else. If I knew they were coming to my town I would not be anywhere near them.
@Mully:
Much of that argument is flawed on several fronts.
I recall the KKK having a permitted speech at the Daviess County Court House in Owensboro KY during the GWB years. The concept of ignoring the bigots was there. Some who showed up to simply turn their backs on them when they spoke-a silent show of protest. But then, we had a president who actually condemned them rather than enabled them, both parties loudly denouncing them rather than a now GOP who sits on their hands while their leader endorses “beat the hell out of them” and that it’s ok for cops beat black suspects heads into their cruiser fenders.
As Nazis and KKK become more powerful and influential (as they have under Trump in his subliminal Make America White again message (and indeed, this was well heard from Dukes et al over the weekend as they reminded Trump who elected him, why they elected him, and cheered when he omitted them as the culprit of mayhem), your argument that those opposing should just mind their own business rings hollow.
And it’s worth noting that it was (albeit the driver deserves due process) a Trump loyalist Nazi who ran his car into a crowd of peaceful marchers.
This type of violence has been forecasted by people on both sides of the aisle as a result of Trump’s racist rhetoric and appeasement to white supremacy and neo-nazis and it’s a product of that.
1. Because Antifa is an astroturf happening.
$25/hr plus free transportation and rooms.
2. Click this pic to see the entire handout that was put on cars and into people’s hands in C’ville.
https://gab.ai/MeltnSnowflakes/posts/10707286
I’d like to point out that 66% of Google’s workers oppose firing that memo-writer….are THEY to be “purged,” too? And there are plenty of LGBTXYZ’s who are not liberals, plenty of women, too, plenty of POC, too. Where will the “purge” end?
3. An internet personality from the right, Baked Alaska, was sprayed with hydrochloric acid by an Antifa activist.
He has lost almost all his vision.
4. The C’Ville rally may have been led by a false front lefty from Occupy and Soros. Jason Kessler seemed like an alt-right’er since the election, but here’s what he did before:
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/jason-kessler
5. the Vice mayor of C’Ville had to delete a bunch of his tweets that were anti-white & violence-inciting.
https://gab.ai/PatriotDaughter/posts/10694230 (Click the pic to see the whole thing.)
@Andy42302:
This kind of violence is what these kind of groups want. I say don’t feed it.
Violence lives on both sides of the street just ask Steve Scalise.
@Mully:
I still don’t quite know what you’re trying to argue. When you have a POTUS that has intentionally flamed racism, surrounded himself with alt-right and neo-nazis people, failed repeatedly to denounce such low life scum such as David Dukes et al, people with faults on both sides of the aisle isn’t really the issue.
Again, this is a direct result of our racist president and many many many have expected it.
@Hojay and Hayjay42302: I still don’t quite know what you’re trying to argue. And you also don’t know if your butt was bored or punched.
Why did you bring Obozo into the discussion. He promoted the racism in Ferguson, in fact, he’s heavily promoted racism where ever he went. And who did he surround himself with?
give us a list of racists that Obozo denounced? What did he do to stop the murder of blacks in his home town? Highest in the country.
Go back to sleep, Hojay
@Andy42302: I not sure I can reach the unreachable. Your mind appears closed.
Facts as I understand them.
The Nazis had a permit; antifa did not. (Say what you will about Nazis, but they’re bears for paperwork.)
Antifa raided the permitted Nazi rally space.
Police let them — and let beatings go on. They gave them Space to Destroy, as they say.
Antifa was, of course, violent. As usual. As the police always permit them to be.
These are pretty much two sides of the same coin.
Trying to make this somehow Trump’s fault is a huge stretch.
But you think Trump is SURROUNDED by bigots and hate mongers.
I don’t.
@Andy42302:
Why don’t you tell us how Trump “enabled” them.
@Mully:
Oh, no. No, no, no. AJ’s mind is wide open… to any stupid, racist, hateful, fascist idea that will excuse the bitter failure of his ideology. He will readily and openly receive any accusation as long as it deflects from the violent, racist ideology he has embraced. Anything that is opposite the truth, he is open to accepting… and spreading around as his own ideas. See above.
@Deplorable Me:
Well, probably because you are a profoundly dishonest racist spinster with no interest in an honest discussion, hellbent on manipulating a conversation to compliment your bigoted and partisan hack agenda, a kowtowing sock puppet who’s only objective seems to be to bootlick your masters rather than to have an actual opinion of your own, a historically trump turd polisher, and a serial liar who even denies what you’ve previously argued or claimed even though it’s right in front of you in black and write.
If I’ve failed to articulate a reason of not answering your question, please advise and I’ll gladly refer you back to this answer which the expectation of you finding would obviously be a tall order.
@Deplorable Me:
Even to names and what he/she/it is called. He goes by Andy42302, Ajay 42302, Hayjay42302, HoJay42302 and likely some others. He frequently uses such recognizable terms as:
Which are all just ‘cut and paste’ from Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky. Trained by and at the service of Soro’s organizations. Some of the sludge that runs down the sanitary sewers of the cities.
@Ajay42302: So, again, precisely HOW does Trump “enable” these people? From your previous and latest example of your head vomit you mistake for a “thought”, I gather you don’t really have an answer… as has been the case with the numerous other simple yet revealing questions you pranced around without answering… because you are a gutless, lying coward.
Why don’t you just answer the question or admit you don’t HAVE an answer… because you are lying?
@Redteam:
No wonder they are failing so miserably and have no other recourse but fascist, thuggish violence. With IDIOTS like him spreading their message, the dumbasses are easily identifiable.
@Andy42302: Read this story. Note the last things said at the bottom. It is what I was trying to covey to you.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/08/local-cbs-photojournalist-left-bloodied-after-unprovoked-attack-by-antifa-protesters/