Well, Unite The Right had their rally in D.C. over the weekend. It truly was a gathering of total losers. Around 30 showed up; proof positive that these fools represent a slice of a slice of the most extreme fringe of American politics. They’re not conservative. They’re not a big part of the GOP or Trump coalitions. The group to confront them, however, dwarfed their numbers easily. With no rumble with these alt-right folks possible, the thugs on the Left, Antifa (anti-fascist), decided to attack police and the press (via WaPo):
So — you might expect that when antifa can’t find any fascists, it has nothing to fight. That seemed to be the situation this weekend, when a long-planned rally for far-right extremists fizzled into a paltry gathering of a few dozen white supremacists, unapproachable and nearly invisible behind a police blockade as they met without incident in a Washington, D.C., park.
And yet antifa still managed to fight — not fascists this time, but reporters.
Sunday’s event had been advertised as a sequel to the massive, deadly Unite the Right rallies in Charlottesville last year. Organizers had hoped to draw hundreds of racists from across the country but instead managed to bring fewer than 40 people to Lafayette Square.
By contrast, thousands of protesters surrounded the park to shout the racists down and drown out their speeches.
A few blocks away, several dozen masked antifa members marched up 13th Street NW in the early afternoon. They carried the movement’s red-and-black flag, and some wore makeshift body armor, even though no fascists were anywhere in sight.
When a Washington Post reporter tried to interview the antifascists, they refused to speak. When he followed them up the street with his cellphone camera, one of them shoved a black umbrella into his lens and several shouted: “No photos!”
“This can harm us,” one of the protesters said, just before someone swatted the reporter’s iPhone out of his hand and threw it into the middle of the street.
The reporter and camera were fine, but the incident was not isolated. Again and again, small groups of antifa members harassed, threatened and occasionally jostled reporters. The activists demanded not to be photographed as they marched down public streets — even as many of them hoisted their own cellphone cameras and staged their own photo ops.
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…many other videos show antifa members accosting reporters specifically because they’re reporters, in scenes reminiscent of Donald Trump campaign rallies where the media were often treated as enemy. And not just in Washington D.C.; antifa’s hostility extended to Charlottesville, which spent the weekend marking the first anniversary since a woman was killed while protesting a massive gathering of white nationalists.
Few if any white nationalists were on display in the city this weekend, but antifascists came nonetheless.
On Saturday evening, after university students who organized the day’s rally against white supremacy had left, NBC reporter Cal Perry posted video of a man with a kerchief around his neck, screaming, “Snitch ass news b—–!” and slapping his TV crew’s phone away.
Now, did they kill anyone? No. But it shows that both Antifa and the alt-right are pieces of trash. They’re garbage human beings. They’re unhinged. Both can be true. And for all the whining the media does about Trump supporters and the president taking shots at them, and how the latter is somehow a threat for making fun of them, this was a bit of an ironic twist, right? Both of these fringe groups are capable of violence. And yes, I think there are enough nutjobs in Antifa that would kill, yes. So, how does CNN’s Chris Cuomo treat this? As any liberal would, the actions of Antifa are bad concerning the letter of the law, but attacks on journalists and the police are not morally equal to that of fighting bigots, or something. So, in other words, it’s a defense of Antifa. What’s more; there’s only one way to look at this: it’s fine to punch someone if you think they hold views that are wrong. This example is quite explicit. The ideas of the Alt-Right are not conservative or mainstream. Yes, they are bigoted. They’re trash—but many liberals think those who hold traditional views on marriage are bigots. Do they deserve to be punched in the face? Here’s what Cuomo had to say, courtesy of Real Clear Politics. Partial transcript is below [emphasis mine]:
Here's the closing argument. Two wrongs and what is right. It's been one year since Heather Heyer was killed for standing up to hate, and our thoughts still go to her family.
We know what happened with racial tensions nationwide after that. And this weekend was built as round two, "unite the right", the sequel. Organizers planned to rally in Washington, D.C. this time.
But the turn out of white supremacists was thankfully pathetic, which is why I didn't have to go there and cover it. Only a couple dozen showed up. Proof they lost membership after being exposed again last year as a bunch of hateful losers? No. They're still in force online, but they didn't have the guts to show up, and that's good.
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The riots in Charlottesville a year ago resulted in senseless death and division. We must come together as a nation. I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence. Peace to all Americans.
He needed to call out the bigots and the white supremacists and he didn't. Why? And why does he therefore have unprecedented support from these fringe elements of white power? Two wrongs and what is right? The bigots are wrong to hit. Antifa, or whomever, anarchists or malcontent or misguided, they are also wrong to hit.
But fighting hate is right. And in a clash between hate and those who oppose it, those who oppose it are on the side of right. Think about: civil rights activist, were they the same morally as the bigots, as the racist with whom they exchanged blows. Are people who go to war against an evil regime on the same moral ground as those they seek to stop from oppressing the weak?
When you punch me in the nose for being Italian and you say I'm somehow less than, am I in the same moral place when I punch you back for saying that? It's not about being right in the eyes of the law, but you also have to know what's right and wrong and immoral, in a good and evil sense.
That's why people who show up to fight against bigots are not to be judged the same as the bigots, even if they do resort to the same petty violence.The law will take care of that. How you disagree matters. We should be our best. But I am arguing that Trump was wrong to create a moral equivalency between bigots and those who oppose them, making them equal wrongs.
Those hateful few who take solace and encouragement from the president's efforts, my message to you is simple. Be aware, there are many of us who see you as unequal, as less than. And you will be opposed at every turn because what you are about is wrong, and fighting you is right.
Wait—is Cuomo saying that both sides are responsible…but then the side that isn’t bigoted isn’t in the wrong if they use violence because they’re confronting bad, bad people? No, you can confront racist thugs and be deplorable yourself. And if those people who confront the alt-right are Antifa, and they cause a rumble, yes—they’re also trash because as we’ve seen they’ll attack reporters and law enforcement as well. They’re nuts. Also, does Cuomo know that the Department of Homeland Security designated the activities of Antifa as acts of domestic terrorism? So, there you go—even those who attack bigots can be pieces of trash. Oh, CNN, all you had to do was say that all politically motivated violence is wrong, but you opted to step on a rake…again.
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