Antifa on the far left

Richard Fulton

President Trump was not entirely inaccurate when he pointed to the disturbances in Charlottesville and said both sides had good and bad people. Where he was very wrong was equating the Pro-Nazi/KKK rally with the overwhelming number of protestors to the beliefs of those groups.

The point is that there is a small group of hardened anti-fascist, anti-KKK called Antifa who have seen violence and confrontation as a means of challenging hard right-wing hate groups. They act, from their perspective, to support “oppressed populations.”

Their numbers were few, not close to the number in the Pro-Nazi/KKK marchers.

Their numbers were maybe one percent or less of the protesters to the radical right wingers.

Antifa is a series of autonomous small-group organizations which has its origins with anti-fascist Germans who then reemerged in the 1980s, particularly in Europe. Recently, cells of Antifa (meaning Anti-Fascist Organization) have become active in challenging fascist-KKK rallies and looking to protect challenges to Progressive rallies.

Their target is any fascist ideology that champions hate, fear and anti-semitism. They are anti-government and media elites who they believe control the American dialog and don’t challenge fascist and other hate groups sufficiently.

In this dislike of the establishment they echo the beliefs of the radical rightist groups in America.

They believe in direct action to challenge the radical right. Scott Crow a 30 year member of Antifa says: “We go where the (radical right) go … hate speech is not free speech.” “And so we go to cause conflict, to shut down where they are, because we don’t believe that Nazis or fascists of any stripe should have a mouthpiece.”

When you see the Antifa at rallies they are often in all black dress with black masks. They break windows (this is not violence they claim), throw “Molotov cocktails” and confront fascists with violence as pro-active “self-defense.”

Obviously, they are trying to remain anonymous enough to avoid identification by the police.

You haven’t heard about them because they are a very small group. But we have seen them recently, clad in black with black masks, causing property damage and being confrontational with far rightists.

They have not been supported by the Progressive crowds challenging peacefully the radical right fascist/KKK people who appear at their rallies or form marches of their own as in Charlottesville.

So sure, there was this handful of radical leftists in Charlottesville, but the overwhelming numbers of protesters of the Nazi/KKK rally were peaceful, if vocal, in their confrontations. No high-powered rifles, no bullet-proof vests or clubs.

No moral equivalence.

NOTE: How many of you caught the gaff in my last article? Raise your hands. What was it? I fell into the trap of miss-remembering that just because the name Dr. Jekyll sounds and looks evil, that this was not the evil side of the main character’s psyche from the story.

In fact, it is Mr. Hyde who is the transformed evil side of Dr. Jekyll’s personality: and thus the perpetrator of the evil deeds.

Not that I was not trying to say that President Trump was evil, only that he has demonstrated two contrasting parts of his personality as he has gone about the job of being president.

Richard Fulton is an emeritus professor of political science.