Summary: Slowly the Left begins to grapple with the cycle of political violence they have begun and realize that this might end badly for them and America. That is not enough and is too late. Stopping the escalation requires the Left to see their role in it as other than pretty protesters with a tiny violent (but well-meaning) fringe.
“This is the moment our generation decides whether we are a society of laws & freedoms, or violence & militance.”
— Jeff Giesea (on Twitter).
“Guns, Extremism, and Threats of Escalation.“
By Rick Perlstein at the Washington Spectator.
“Behind the far-right’s ‘counter-resistance’”.
“A friend writes, “For basically the past six months or so I’ve been trying to tell my lefty friends in so many words, ‘Hey, there are a bunch of people on the Internet who are waiting for someone to tell them it’s okay to start shooting at you.’” He became concerned when a thread at the non-political firearms-enthusiasts website he regularly follows became filled with comments in all caps referring to liberals as enemies who must be shot. Developments both online and off following Donald Trump’s election have caused me to share his concern. …
“Then came February 1 in Berkeley and things really started getting scary.
“The saga of what happened when Milo Yiannopoulos came to speak at the flagship campus of the University of California has since become foundational, not just with the alt-right but with quite nearly the entire right. Alt-right provocateur Yiannopoulos was turned back by violent protests, which culminated in the burning of a portable generator. Stuffed down the wingnut memory hole are the events that preceded the mêlée. The violence was, in fact, preceded by peaceful protests by approximately 1,500 Berkeley students, until they were waylaid by a tiny handful of off-campus “Black Bloc” and “antifa,” or anti-fascist, cadres who believe racist speech licenses violent resistance. …
“How afraid of this should you be? The most interesting answers to that question do not come from the left. They come from concerned voices on the right, who’ve been monitoring the chatter with mounting alarm, going public with pleas to liberals to still the antifa renegades before bodies begin piling up. The most convincing evidence that they have a point comes in the ensuing comment threads, where the need to prepare for armed force is taken as gospel.”
Then follows 2,500 words of accurate reporting about violence and talk of violence by the far-right. Scary stuff. (For more about this see What are the odds of violence from the Right in America?) He ends with the left’s ritualistic invocation of Hitler: “Maybe it’s all just idle Internet chatter. But didn’t they used to say that about Munich beer halls once, too?” (Never mentions of Stalin or Mao.)
Perlstein follows the standard frame of both Left and Right when reporting political violence. Their side is virtuous; the others are evil incarnate. Accordingly his account is ludicrously one-sided. This is the biased view used by both sides to justify escalation of conflicts.
All Perlstein says about violence by the Left is…
“Alt-right provocateur Yiannopoulos was turned back by violent protests, which culminated in the burning of a portable generator. Stuffed down the wingnut memory hole are the events that preceded the mêlée. The violence was, in fact, preceded by peaceful protests by approximately 1,500 Berkeley students, until they were waylaid by a tiny handful of off-campus ‘Black Bloc’ and ‘antifa,’ or anti-fascist, cadres who believe racist speech licenses violent resistance.”
The LA Times tells a different story.
“In February, UC Berkeley officials criticized what they described as a paramilitary force armed with bats, steel rods, fireworks and Molotov cocktails. They set a fire on campus and prevented Yiannopoulos from speaking. ‘They didn’t come to lock arms and sing “Kumbaya,”‘ said Dan Mogulof, assistant vice chancellor and spokesman for UC Berkeley, said at the time. ‘They came to [mess stuff] up,’ he said, using stronger language. …
“‘It wasn’t just people dressed in black who were acting militantly and everyone else is peace-loving Berkeley hippies,’ said Yvette Felarca, a political organizer of By Any Means Necessary, an immigration and affirmative action coalition that seeks to build a mass militant movement. ‘Everyone cheered when those barricades were dismantled. …Everyone was there with us in political agreement of the necessity of shutting it down, whatever it was going to take. It shows we have the power.’”
No mention by the LAT of a “tiny number” of violent leftists (also, Perlstein is guessing about how many of them were students). The peaceful leftist protestors were “waylaid” but Perlstein neglects to mention that the conservative protesters were attacked. Perlstein also neglects to mention the leftists that applauded the violence.
The Left has been escalating political violence
.
In January Richard Spencer, a white supremacist, was sucker-punched by a good leftist — which they applauded. See “Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer Got Punched — You Can Thank the Black Bloc“, an ode to leftist political violence by Natasha Lennard at The Nation. Daniel Nexen (assoc. prof of government at Georgetown) wrote “How is this Even a Thing?“, a tepid condemnation of “some dude {who} sucker-punched an asshole racist neo-Nazi (or post-Nazi or whatever) who was giving an interview.” Most of the comments were full Stalinist, cheering street violence against enemies of the people.
Many leftist websites were giddy about this violence and eager for more (e.g., this at The Fader). Beth Spencer (an artist) wrote at Lawyers, Guns and Money: “When Is It OK to Punch Nazis? Always.” They did not have to wait long for more to cheer.
On March 2 leftists rioted at Middlebury College to suppress a speech by Charles Murray. The Addison County Independent reported about it (see this for more details).
“As Stanger, Murray and a college administrator left McCullough Student Center last evening following the event, they were ‘physically and violently confronted by a group of protestors,’ according to Bill Burger, the college’s vice president for communications and marketing. Burger said college public safety officers managed to get Stanger and Murray into the administrator’s car.
“’The protestors then violently set upon the car, rocking it, pounding on it, jumping on and try to prevent it from leaving campus,” he said. ‘At one point a large traffic sign was thrown in front of the car. Public Safety officers were able, finally, to clear the way to allow the vehicle to leave campus. During this confrontation outside McCullough, one of the demonstrators pulled Prof. Stanger’s hair and twisted her neck,’ Burger continued. ‘She was attended to at Porter Hospital later and (on Friday) is wearing a neck brace.’”
On April 7 leftist violence prevented a speech by Manhattan Institute fellow Heather Mac Donald at Claremont McKenna College (Los Angeles).
“Mac Donald then moved her speech to a livestream, but when the chants turned into threats, and protesters began banging on the windows, campus police had to escort Mac Donald out of the building, escaping through a kitchen and into an unmarked police van outside.
“Student journalists covering the event told Campus Reform that they, too, were under attack, particularly one writer who tried to interview protesters … ‘Protesters tried to prevent me from conducting interviews by pushing me, grabbing me, and blocking my camera. Several protesters followed me around for almost an hour and formed a wall around me,’ the student said.” {See the details, with links, here.}
Sometimes leftists’ threat of political violence is enough to win. In April a liberal city responded to threats of violence if Republicans were allowed to participate in the Roses Parade. Organizers canceled it.
Elapsed time from “ok to punch Nazis” to “threats of mob violence against mainstream political party” was 93 days https://t.co/oc6o4QKaeq
— Rogue WPA Staff (@GabrielRossman) April 26, 2017
The April Berkeley Riot
By April the cycle of political violence was in full roar, as thugs on both sides came prepared to fight. Perlstein forgets to mention the accounts of violence by his side’s thugs (e.g., in this story by Dow Jones Heat Street. Plus the many reports of the left’s protestors throwing M-80 firecrackers (powerful ones, capable of inflicting serious injuries). See more photos of Leftist violence at the end of the post (as Perlstein says, the Right committed their share of violent acts there, as well).
Conclusions
Perlstein is obviously correct about the danger of the far-right escalating the violence. But his description of the situation is false because he grossly understates the Left’s role in this. This is very 21st century America, where responsibility has become one of the few words inappropriate for polite company (unless used in the second or third person).
I wonder if a Republic can survive when its people are unable to clearly see the world and have so little interest in truth (two of the great themes of this website). Both Left and Right have gone bonkers (details here). We need a reality-based community. Rising political violence suggests the clock is running. It will begin with decisions to act by individuals. Like you.
For More Information
Another example of a liberal accurately describes rising right-wing violence but amnesiac about left-wing violence: “Alt-right hopes to organize street-fighting goon squad: Is it more than macho posturing?” by Amanda Marcotte at Salon — “Far-right fanboys are trying to organize street gangs, and the most effective way to fight back may be mockery.”
If you found this post of use, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Also see these posts about the Berkeley riot, about political violence, about reforming America – steps to a new politics, and especially these…
- What are the odds of violence from the Right in America?
- A new era of protests by the Left: recruiting voters for Trump.
- The Left steps across a line and embraces political violence.
- Analysis of Left’s mob violence at Middlebury, their fast track to irrelevance.
- Fear the rise of political violence in America. We can still stop it.
- Stories of the Left & Right about the Berkeley riot reveal much about us.
- Terrorism won yesterday in Berkeley and Portland. See these important stories.
A reminder from the past.
Political Violence in the Weimar Republic, 1918-1933: Fight for the Streets and Fear of Civil War
“This book provides a comprehensive analysis of political violence in Weimar Germany with particular emphasis on the political culture from which it emerged. It refutes both the claim that the Bolshevik revolution was the prime cause of violence, and the argument that the First World War’s all-encompassing ‘brutalization’ doomed post-1918 German political life from the very beginning. The study thus contributes to a view of the Weimar Republic as a state in severe crisis but with alternatives to the Nazi takeover.”
More photos of the violence by the Left at Berkeley on April 15
Perlstein clearly sees the violence from the Right. He does not appear to see the violence from his side.
