Backlash: Alleged "Antifascist" Rioters Are Finally Met By Counter-Rioters

As was easily predictable, and inevitable.

Even Noam Chomsky warned the "Antifas" to stop with the violence before even greater violence was visited upon themselves.

Minor clashes have happened all over the country between black-masked antifa and red-hatted Trump supporters since then. However, none were on the scale of what went down Saturday.

The only conclusion to draw from this chain of events is that it was probably a bad idea to think violence was a good way to show your opposition to Trump. Now that elements of the Right have shown that they have the capability to defend themselves and drive the opposition, the only result of this embrace of violence is the radicalization of the Left’s enemies.

Famed left-wing philosopher Noam Chomsky warned of the consequences if his fellow lefties engage in this "self-destructive" tactic during the debate over punching Nazis. "When we move to the arena of violence, the most brutal guys win -- and that's not us," Chomsky said.

Unfortunately, it seems the anarchists are learning that lesson far too late.

Their actions at the Inauguration and Berkeley have not driven fear into their political enemies. Those acts have only motivated folks on the Right to spend their weekend brawling with the hated antifa.

Update: Zombie offered some thoughts:

Well, not much left to say about The Battle of Berkeley that I (and everyone else) hasn't said already.

Basically, the story is this:

Antifa (and BAMN and the Black Bloc and various assorted lefties and anarchists) have been attacking/bating/cold-cocking and assaulting people willy-nilly with essentially no pushback for years now, at every event they "attend." But the Milo event in February received massively more publicity than the previous violent riots (even though it wasn't any more violent than all the previous riots), and as a result of the publicity a lot of the Infowars/4chan/Proud Boys/"alt-right" types all over California basically said "Enough of this shit: we are TIRED of Antifa on one hand attacking people with impunity and then on the other hand acting like Oppressed Victims when anybody puts up their arms to defend themselves. No matter how bad Antifa and their ilk act, the Right always gets blamed for the violence. So -- if we're gonna get blamed anyway, let's at least play on an equal playing field with these Antifa assholes." So a hasty "Free Speech rally" was scheduled for Berkeley for March 4, for the very purpose of luring Antifa into the trap: For the first time, the Free Speech protesters would be ready to defend themselved. As right on cue on March 4, some Antifa showed up, started attacking, and to their shock got punched back.

Everybody got excited by the taste of blood and this impromptu brawl, so a second face-off was scheduled, this time with enough lead-time for everyone to get their full troops assembled. That second brawl was the one on April 15. EVERYONE knew about it ahead of time.

Every "alt-right"/Trump-supporting/free-speech hardcore group showed up in Berkeley ready to rumble -- and yes, unfortunately, a small handful of extreme skinhead/gang/neo-Nazi types -- and against them assembled an equal number of Antifa/Black Bloc/BAMN and assorted commies and anarchists.

Game on. For the first time, it was "No more Mr. Nice Guy" and no more "victim-posturing for the camera."

Result: Antifa got their asses kicked, and were literally driven from the park and fled.

Ooooooh, dearest me, right-wingers threw punches! Let us clutch our pearls!

But that's the point. People's patience was used up. Saturday's punches were in response to YEARS of being punched and not being allowed to fight back.

Video, which I'm sure you've seen by now but whatever, below. Content warning for language and violence.

posted by Ace at 04:05 PM

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