Roots of Antifa: This ‘Idea’ Has Violent Consequences, by Mark Hemingway

Nobody gets beat up or has his or her store burned down by an “idea.” From Mark Hemingway from realclearinvestigations.com:

As riots and looting consumed Philadelphia this week after a fatal police shooting, a radical left-wing group, the “Philly Socialists,” began monitoring police scanners and relaying information to help protesters evade arrest. At one point, the Philly Socialists tweeted out a clue as to their street allegiances:  “Do humanity a favor and learn what antifa stands for.”

The scene in Philadelphia was similar to scores of violent protests around the country since May, which have often featured a common and shadowy element – black-masked men and women who seemed as intent on breaking windows and confronting the police as chanting social justice slogans.

Former activist: “For most people antifa is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wearing a black mask.” But its mixture of left-wing politics and anarchist nihilism can be traced back more than 100 years.

The one thing most people can agree on is these people have a name – “antifa,” short for anti-fascists. But larger questions – who are they? where did they come from? what do they want? – have been lost in the battle of partisan politics.

President Trump has denounced antifa as an organized terror group, like the Ku Klux Klan. At the first presidential debate, Joe Biden disagreed, paraphrasing Trump’s own FBI director, Christopher Wray, as saying that “unlike white supremacists, antifa is an idea, not an organization, not a militia.”

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