D.C. McAllister:
The violence in Charlottesville reveals not who we are as Americans, but who we might become if we allow radicalism and totalitarianism to become normalized. In America today, that possibility is most likely to come, not from the radical Right, but from the Left.
To understand this trajectory, we need to know who the players were in this weekend’s violence. Those behind the protest and the counter-protest were not average Americans, but two extremist groups: anti-fascists (Antifas) on the Left (the counter-protestors) and white supremacist nationalists on the Right (the protesters).
These groups did not suddenly appear with the inauguration of Donald Trump. They’ve been around for a very long time. As Peter Beinart explains at The Atlantic:
Antifa traces its roots to the 1920s and ’30s, when militant leftists battled fascists in the streets of Germany, Italy, and Spain. When fascism withered after World War II, antifa did too. But in the ’70s and ’80s, neo-Nazi skinheads began to infiltrate Britain’s punk scene. After the Berlin Wall fell, neo-Nazism also gained prominence in Germany. In response, a cadre of young leftists, including many anarchists and punk fans, revived the tradition of street-level antifascism.
In the late ’80s, left-wing punk fans in the United States began following suit, though they initially called their groups Anti-Racist Action, on the theory that Americans would be more familiar with fighting racism than fascism. According to Mark Bray, the author of the forthcoming Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, these activists toured with popular alternative bands in the ’90s, trying to ensure that neo-Nazis did not recruit their fans. In 2002, they disrupted a speech by the head of the World Church of the Creator, a white-supremacist group in Pennsylvania; 25 people were arrested in the resulting brawl.
By the 2000s, as the internet facilitated more transatlantic dialogue, some American activists had adopted the name antifa. But even on the militant left, the movement didn’t occupy the spotlight. To most left-wing activists during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama years, deregulated global capitalism seemed like a greater threat than fascism.
As Beinart mentioned, in 2002, these two groups violently clashed in York, Pennsylvania, with a street brawl that led to the arrest of 25 people, all of them Antifa except two. “The scene was right out of the former East Germany, perhaps, or any of the hundreds of other European venues where ‘antifas’ (anti-fascists) and neo-Nazis have battled it out with clubs, knives and Molotov cocktails,” one report stated. Afterward, the city of 40,000 residents was “left in shock.”
The Yin and Yang of Political Street Brawls
The conflict between anti-fascists and fascists has been simmering for decades as they’ve been firing shots at each other and gathering recruits or engaging in a war of words on the Internet. The rise of Barack Obama pacified the radical Left to some degree, as much of the conflict during his presidency involved Occupy Wall Street and the anti-capitalist gang. But Antifa remained in waiting, finding cover under the broader progressive ideology of the Democratic Party that indirectly supports its totalitarian agenda and tolerates its violence.
With the contentious campaign and election of Donald Trump, Antifa exploded onto the scene, along with its counterpart, the neo-Nazis. The radical Right—a tiny but despicable group—saw in Trump’s America First agenda an opportunity for legitimization.
Despite Trump and his supporters condemning racism, the Left characterized everyone who supported him as “the radical Right.” Loose and even unwanted associations were seen as blood alliances. Never mind that grandma, who wants better border control and loves Trump because he stands for American interests, has nothing to do with a neo-Nazi thug. She and everyone wearing a MAGA red hat have been deemed white supremacists and racists by the Left.
The result of Trump’s rise has been a flood of anarcho-activists joining the secret ranks of Antifa to silence these legions of so-called neo-Nazis who showed up at Trump rallies. “On Inauguration Day, a masked activist punched the white-supremacist leader Richard Spencer,” Beinart writes. “In February, protesters violently disrupted UC Berkeley’s plans to host a speech by Milo Yiannopoulos, a former Breitbart.com editor. In March, protesters pushed and shoved the controversial conservative political scientist Charles Murray when he spoke at Middlebury College, in Vermont.”
A brawl broke out in New York City on May Day when Antifas clashed with Trump supporters in Times Square. Antifa also participated in the violence at a Trump rally in San Jose, California. The pro-Antifa journal It’s Going Down celebrated the attacks on Trump supporters as “righteous beatings.”
An antifa member is reported saying violence is justified because “resistance is not always safe and pretty, but it is immaculate compared to our monstrous government.” Anyone they determine to be “a fascist, Alt Right, White Nationalist, etc., based on which groups they are a part of and endorse” is targeted.
“Nazis, fascists, white nationalists, anti-Semites and Islamophobes are specific categories, even if they overlap or are subsets or each other. Our main focus is on groups and individuals which endorse, or work directly in alliance with, white supremacists and white separatists. We try to be very clear and precise with how we use these terms.”
Using ‘Racist’ As A Weapon
Antifa’s violence is closely connected to leftist labeling of Republicans—an important point politicians, thought leaders, and the media need to take seriously. Going back to the 1960s when conservatives were called Nazis for supporting law and order, the label of racist has been a club Democrats have used to beat Republicans into submission. If you’re for border control, you’re a racist. If you oppose affirmative action, you’re a racist. If you want greater opposition to radical Islam, you’re a racist. If you don’t believe there’s institutionalized racism in America, you’re a racist. Basically, if you don’t agree with Democrats, you’re a racist.
Curt, I didn’t read your lift and paste but the real issue isn’t if there were other undesirables there, That doesn’t exonerate your racist in chief and the merrymen that religiously follow him and kowtow in violence to his bidding.
@HayJay/Hojay42302: Clearly said by a racist. Define racist. Someone that sees race behind every move. Hojay, you see a racist behind every tree. Is that because you are finely tuned to race? Dimocrats, socialists, Latter Day Nazi’s, profascist, BlM and others all see race. Maybe they need to find a pair of glasses that screens out race. No one can dislike Obozo’s politics because they are racist. Has nothing to do with him being a crappy president.
ANTIFA are a bunch of cowards who hide their faces with bananas and caps wear black and carry their black and red flags and even spray a peaceful pro-trump supporter with pepper spray They need to be totaly destroyed and we start by banning George Soros and the Useless Nations from america and having ANTIFA declared a Domestic Terrorists Groups along with the Black Panthers,BLM,CPUSA Etc have them locked up and throw away the key
… “I will go ahead and substantiate everything you wrote.”
The left is failing and practically failed. There is nothing left for them to do but to incite violence with the goal of intimidating those with a desire for a greater nation that provides opportunity for all. The overt support for fascist-style violence by the left is readily apparent and simply projecting their vile desires upon others is in no way exoneration OR fooling anyone.