The left has developed an entire public relations campaign in the last week to convince everyone that the lackwit anarcho-marxists of the ‘antifa’ (correctly pronounce an-TEE-fa, I’m told) movement is actually not violent. Put aside the documented fact that every single time this bunch appears violence takes place.
Not only are they violent, they are now operating with the full sanction of the mainstream media. A typical apologia was dissected by my colleague Jim Jamitis yesterday. You get guys like Chuck Todd giving the ‘antifa’ and their cheerleaders unfettered access to the airwaves and not challenging them in any way.
As Ben Domenech wrote in The Federalist:
The list of protests which turned violent – which, when I shared it, triggered numerous accusations that I was defending Nazis, a white supremacist, and caused a reporter for one magazine where I used to be a columnist to describe me as “alt-right” – includes: Oakland 2009, Akron 2009, Pittsburgh 2009, Santa Cruz 2010, Oakland 2010, Los Angeles 2010, Oakland 2011, Chicago 2012, Anaheim 2012, Brooklyn 2013, Ferguson 2014, New York City 2014, Baltimore 2015, Anaheim 2016, Chicago 2016, St Paul 2016, Milwaukee 2016, Charlotte 2016, Standing Rock 2016, Oakland 2016, Portland 2016, Washington DC 2017, Berkeley 2017, Anaheim 2017, Berkeley (again) 2017, Berkeley (again again) 2017, Olympia 2017, and Portland 2017. This is a list of overwhelmingly leftist protests. But those have a different standard in the press.
Protest and assembly are the rights of all. Violent extremism is the enemy of all. There is no “winning” in such a clash, only loss. Their enemy is civilized society and the public square. But apparently listing such protests is all it takes to be considered an anti-Semite Nazi shill. Facts are not what people want at a time like this. They would prefer fiction.
To get a flavor for just how much the media is pulling out the stops to mainstream and normalize political violence from the left is this from CNN:
This was a puff piece romanticizing the weenie-armed thuglets of the ‘antifa,’ to be sure. It is also DoubleSpeak of the worst kind. I”m old enough to remember leftists of a different era saying “fighting for peace is like f***ing for virginity.” But even at its worst, no one on the right has ever claimed to achieve peace through violence, particularly when the natural state was peace before the ‘antifa’ nitwits arrived.
Now the headline reads like this:
Notice what’s missing? That’s right. The reference to violence being part of the ‘antifa’ ethos. Pay special attention to the “editor’s note.” This is what it reads:
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify that counterprotesters say they are not to blame for violence at the Charlottesville protest. The story’s headline has also been updated.
That’s right. The ‘antifa’ objected and against all evidence to the contrary, CNN took their word and changed their coverage to please this violent domestic terrorist group.
Take a moment and imagine Richard Spencer calling CNN and telling them that a headline claiming his white supremacist bully boys were violent was incorrect, and CNN meekly grabbing its ankles and changing the headline. Imagine Mitt Romney trying to convince them he didn’t condemn someone to death by cancer and them changing their headline. It simply won’t happen.
You can judge for yourself who started the violence in Charlottesville:
This is not going to end well.