zlacker

>>aspenm+(OP)
Blaming the boogy man of White Nationalists, Russia, or outside outside agitators is a way to shift blame by politicians and an easy scapegoat. Amusingly the governor of Minnesota, and a big city MN mayor blamed vandalism & lootingrioters as being the work of people who were all from out of state, thereby parroting Trump's same line (or he theirs).

They (not Trump of course) had to walk it back when it turned out not to be true.

Is there some outside groups posing as others, possibly, but to blame a majority of problems on them is just BS.

>>bruceb+K5
The problem is antifa has become the new boogy man for the GOP, and they've been pushing this narrative extremely hard. It's apparent they've identified their enemy, but this approach has me worried that "First they came for the antifa..." might not be far off.

I see a lot of mischaracterization of what is a category, not a group. From what I can tell antifa is anti-fascism, and somewhat characterized by people willing to take direct action.

>>epakai+ho
If you’ve watched the ubiquitous video footage of protests where the left and right confront each other over the past 4 years, antifa is a clear group and aggressor. I have a friend in the “chapter” here, what loose categories have chapters? They treat it as a group/organization. They seem to be more organized than the Proud Boys, which plenty of people on the left deem a white supremacy organization.

It’s funny to me that now they are a target, people are trying to play down their involvement in the political landscape the past few years.

I’ve watched them shut down speech, aggressively block events from happening, attack people in MAGA hats, there is so much hate pouring out of them that they are more fascist than anti-fascist.

>>z9e+oZ
And yet, viewing that same myriad of videos, I see the exact opposite: That more hatred, threats of violence, and actual violence comes from the alt-right / white nationalists / MAGA provocateurs (depending on the video), and antifa simply returns that antagonism. Of course there are examples both ways, but speaking in terms of averages here, it doesn't even seem like a close call. Antifa's reaction's aren't always right, but neither is belting a guy who spits on you in a bar, yet I can't blame the puncher, and the bias is obvious if somebody gets up on a pulpit and claims moral superiority over the despicable violent puncher who viciously attacked the poor innocent spitter. I wish everybody could be Ghandi in the face of the ever-growing tidal wave of hatred, mockery, and gleeful threats of violence, but it's unrealistic to lay the blame primarily at the target's feet when they fail to rise to that level.