The antifa threat
The disgusting resurgence of white supremacists in 2017 America, aided and abetted by a White House engaging in toxic moral equivalence, has gotten an assist from a tiny left-wing cadre. This loosely organized band calls itself antifa (“anti-fascist”), and — unlike the broad coalition of activists arrayed in opposition to much of the Trump agenda — its members unapologetically embrace violence as the only sufficiently strong answer to those they see as enemies, even when those enemies are engaging in nonviolent protest. Down this road, madness lies. In a civil society — fingers crossed, that’s what this still is — unprovoked violence is illegal and wrong no matter who is on the receiving end. The answer to speech is speech, not sticks and stones.
Just as important, antifa activists make a fateful strategic mistake by stealing initiative and attention from far more admirably behaved fellow travelers, which in turn gives the likes of President Trump license to blame “both sides” for violence that one side far more clearly provoked.
Rewind to the start of the chaos in Charlottesville to understand the pernicious dynamic. A group of “alt-right” protesters were gathering, ostensibly motivated by the proposed removal of a Confederate statue, but in fact to celebrate antiblack racism and anti-Semitism.
Their promotional materials used Nazi and Confederate imagery. Their chants insisted “Jews will not replace us.” Their leaders openly embraced the vile notion that the United States is for white Christians and no one else. Though some carried no arms, many flaunted assault rifles, clearly to intimidate anyone who dare confront them. These were — and remain — the bad guys. Hundreds if not thousands of counterprotesters gathered to oppose them, nonviolently. They chanted, shouted, sang songs, in the best tradition of American activism. Contrary to Trump’s assertion, they had full legal permission to protest.
That was the asymmetric reality: immoral and sometimes violent intimidators and their enablers, met primarily by righteous, peaceful protesters.
Then antifa activists, sometimes masked, sometimes wielding pepper spray, bricks and other weapons, entered the equation. Intent on viewing virulent expressions of racism as violence, they were bent on initiating conflict.
Among their victims were journalists. Taylor Lorenz of The Hill was punched in the face by an antifa for recording a fight between the two groups; she tweeted that her assaulter told her not to “snitch, media bitch.” A videographer from Richmond’s WTVR covering a counter-protest got a concussion from head blows with a stick.
Of course, the single most violent act in Charlottesville was committed a the radical right-wing terrorist who drove his vehicle into a crowd. But antifa activists helped accelerate the anarchy.
This is what they do. In Berkeley, Calif., earlier this year, antifa vandalism and assaults on conservative attendees forced cancellation of speeches by Milo Yiannopolous and Ann Coulter.
In April, antifa groups warned off Trump supporters from marching in the 110-year-old Portland, Ore., Rose Festival: “We will have 200 or more people rush into the parade . . . and drag and push those people out.” Fearing that the police couldn’t contain violence, festival organizers cancelled the event.
A violent movement that seeks to strike fear into the hearts of not just hate groups, but legitimate right-of-center individuals and organizations, has no place in a democratic society.
Calmer, smarter voices on the left must vocally disavow antifa’s tactics. Or else they will give rhetorical ammunition to President Trump, himself no stranger to inciting violence, as he dishonestly conflates his ideological enemies and deviously blurs bright moral lines.