Everyone remembers Nazi Stormtroopers, the SA, Sturmabteilung (Attack Department), who greeted each other with Heil Hitler! and the Roman Salute. Sound familiar?
One role of the red shirts and brown shirts was to break up the meetings of their political opponents.
The progressives, left-wingers of today would deny to high heaven that they are following the model of the Nazi Party and early the German Communists. Shut up political opponents, prevent them from presenting their message to the people/voters and use violence to intimidate their political opposition.
I say, call the today's political thugs, 'brown shirts', which is what their are. They are the political thugs for a totalitarian political movement.
