There was a right wing demonstration in Berkeley this weekend that had about 7000 who showed up to peacefully protest against them. Unfortunately, about 100 "antifa" - anti fascists - showed up as well in order to attack the right wingers, and calling them fascists. So, the anti-fascists become fascist terrorists in the name of anti-fascism.
This is wrong.
And this is stupid on two levels at least.
First, violence doesn't stop violence, it inflames it.
Second, it allows real fascists to claim there is violence on both sides. It allows real fascists to say they are only defending themselves. It allows white supremacist Nazis and KKK to justify their fascist violence.
The proof of the pudding is the statements from the person who is unfortunately the president of the United States who claims that in Charlottesville there was violence "on both sides". To claim that even though there was violence from the alt-right there was also violence from the "alt-left" - a new term to try to claim moral equivalence between Nazis and KKK on the one side and antifa on the other.
Just to be clear, antifa is stupid, violent, and powerless.
The white supremacists of neo-Nazis, the KKK, and other hate groups are stupid, violent, and in the White House and the Congress. They are not powerless.
When will my conservative friends turn on Trump and impeach him? What will it take to realize that when they make a deal with the devil to get their tax cuts, or environmental deregulation, or their financial deregulation, or their fundamentalist court judges, they don't really get the deal, but they do get the devil.
By the way, Hitler used the Reichstag fire to blame dangerous communist violence as an excuse to firmly establish his fascist dictatorship. It would be easy enough for our current demagogue to use antifa violence to try to become the brutal dictator that he so wishes he could be.
