Have the Democrats annoyed Antifa?
Antifa is feeling underappreciated, and if I were House or Senate Democrats, I’d think about upping my security. That’s not to suggest that we on the Right don’t have legitimate concerns about them. We do. But we haven’t pricked their egos, and that’s a different kind of dangerous.
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According to a Monday piece published in The Nation, Antifa really does not like how Democrats keep denying their existence, even mocking their existence. Antifa believes they are owed some gratitude, and given that the article itself states they “all” subscribe to a “militant tradition” of “by any means necessary” to get what they want, it might be advisable for congressional Dems to stop worrying so much about MAGA or “white Christian nationalists” and worry a bit more about the “radical leftists,” “anarchists,” and “communists” who comprise Antifa and appear to have their feelings hurt.
“Liberals think Antifa isn’t real. But it is -- and it knows how to win” is a remarkable piece, forcefully defending Antifa and haughtily deriding the Democrats who deny they exist. What’s remarkable about it, aside from nearly every assumption the writer makes about us on the Right being built on lies so obvious or old they’re now cliches, is the casualness with which he glosses over their violence. The entire time I was reading it I kept thinking “What if these were Tea Party or MAGA people? Would he be so forgiving?” The obvious answer is “no.”
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With “Antifa groups in Oregon, Georgia, California, and elsewhere” -- heavy emphasis on “elsewhere” -- evidently, the first murder is free:
“…Trump’s September executive order claiming to declare Antifa a ‘domestic terror organization,’ …is as dangerous as it is absurd… The violence Antifa does commit is rare and has been, with one exception, nonfatal.”
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Oh, well then. I guess we have nothing to worry about! It was just that one time somebody died. It’s not like they’re radical revolutionaries, right?
“…The truth about antifa -- what it actually is, where it comes from, what it’s accomplished -- is still spectacular. ‘Antifa,’ a shortening of the word ‘antifascist,’ refers to a decentralized, underground network of radical leftists dedicated to destroying the far right. Its activists are mostly anarchists, communists, and socialists, and, though they might differ in ideology, they all subscribe to a specific militant tradition of antifascism holding that fascists need to be fought ‘by any means necessary.’”
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A “few” had “battled the “fascists” in the streets” and had “punched a Nazi” but “most” simply hadn’t done it -- yet.
“Though antifa is most often associated in the public imagination with violence, few of the activists I talked with had ever punched a Nazi -- though most would have no moral quandaries in doing so.”
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Short fuse. And it’s a very short drive from “ally” to enemy who is ungrateful, Democrats. I wouldn’t want to be on a Capitol elevator with any of these people. Not in this mood.
“MAGA is counting on liberals’ throwing antifa under the bus, so that it can move on to other targets. To protect us all, liberals owe antifa solidarity, not derision. Admitting that antifa exists, that it is real, and that it is worth defending would be a good place to start.”
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Let’s be real: Democrats know exactly who Antifa is. They know exactly who they are and what they do and they know that their activities are in service of goals the larger Left is aligned with -- they just don’t want their hands dirty. Who knows? Maybe they had an arrangement to have it be exactly that way but now that they’ve been at it a while and have achieved some notoriety, Antifa’s egos are getting big.
If there’s anything we’ve learned in great detail this past year, it’s that Democrats have a vast web of networks, NGOs, non-profits, and other assorted goon squads agitating in their service. Maybe the money dried up. Maybe Antifa hasn’t been given enough to do to earn their cash. Who knows? But Antifa is restless and cranky and that’s both a Democrat and Republican problem, for sure. It could be a long, hot summer…

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