Are ‘Antifa’ and the Alt-Right Equally Violen

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Are ‘Antifa’ and the Alt-Right Equally Violent?

Nope.

Bethania Palma

Updated 19 August 2017| Published 17 August 2017

In the hours and days following the deadly “Unite the Right” rally on 12 August 2017, President Donald Trump laid the blame for the violence that took the lives of three people in Charlottesville, Virginia on “many sides.”

The claim that white supremacists and counter-demonstrators carry equal responsibility for the weekend melee in Charlottesville has been widely rejected — both Democrat and Republican lawmakers have repudiated the views espoused by rally attendees who were seen using racist and anti-Semitic epithets and carrying Nazi symbols.

But the president’s comments have drawn attention to far left demonstrators known as “antifa” (short for anti-fascist), who have been showing up to counter white supremacist rallies, sometimes violently).

However, videos of a car ramming into a group of pedestrians protesting the rally doesn’t show any antifa in the crowd that was hit.

Instead, Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old woman who was killed, was a Charlottesville local and many of the people in the area appeared to be regular demonstrators. Nevertheless on the day she was killed, President Trump said:


We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides. On many sides.

Two days later, under pressure to condemn white supremacist violence, President Trump revisited the issue, but blamed the “alt-left,” a made-up term probably meant to refer to “antifa.” He said:


Okay, what about the alt-left that came charging at [indiscernible] — excuse me — what about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt?

Even though the people who died amid the unrest have not been linked to antifa (the other two victims were police officers), questions have since been raised about the violence at the weekend rally and further potential for violence at upcoming events by both the alt-right (a term that encompasses different strands of white supremacist factions) and the antifa activists who come out to meet them.

Experts tell us that statistically, historically, and in terms of philosophy the alt-right poses a bigger threat and greater evil, but the violence at political demonstrations has been ratcheting up in recent months.

Brian Levin, criminal justice professor at California State University at San Bernardino who is an expert on hate groups, said ideology aside, street violence is generally increasing at political demonstrations, as extremist groups are egged on by each other’s words and actions:

To be sure, there is a violent subsection of antifa which is getting much publicity and much more prominent — to say they’re not is just false. By the same token there isn’t a moral equivalency in philosophy, but there is an escalating arms race with regard to extremists on different sides, of which I think alt-right are now at the forefront.

But, he pointed out, “antifa” isn’t as organized as the alt-right, and doesn’t have the access to the channels of publicity and governmental influence that the alt-right does:

The alt-right is far more organized and has greater access to the political mainstream than their less-organized cohorts on the hard left who do not enjoy or do not have the same structure or access into the political mainstream.

Both are anti-establishments and socio-political entities that can radicalize constituents to violence but the alt-right just as an organism is far larger, more sophisticated and more able to participate in the political mainstream, particularly through messaging.


Marilyn Mayo, senior research fellow for the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, said that statistics show that radical leftists have been dramatically less likely to kill people than their counterparts on the opposite side of the political spectrum.

Over the past decade, extremists of every stripe have killed 372 Americans. 74 percent of those killings were committed by right wing extremists. Only 2 percent of those deaths were at the hands of left wing extremists. Mayo told us:


I don’t want to give moral equivalence to the two sides because one side is fighting against white supremacy. On the Antifa side, they’ve never murdered anyone but there have been many murders done by white supremacists, so we have to be concerned about that movement.

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