Pro-Trump rioters got away with beating anti-fascists in Berkeley (sweet tears from Salon)

Salon ^ | 04/18/2017 | Amanda Marcotte

[Drew68]

The Berkeley street violence was a great marketing event for alt-right types eager to attack anti-Trump protesters

Most of the demonstrations held on April 15, which was set aside by progressives for marches to demand that Donald Trump reveal his tax returns, were peaceful. The notable exception was the city of Berkeley, California — often described as the most liberal community in the nation — where things rapidly descended into a street fight between radical right-wingers and more left-leaning counterprotesters.

A group of hard-right extremists came to Berkeley to hold a rally in support of Trump. While they are, of course, claiming that they only resorted to violence in self-defense, it’s clear from the social-media organizing done ahead of time that their intention was to start a riot.

David Neiwert of the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote in a blog post:

On social media, the organizers and supporters called it “the Next Battle of Berkeley,” a chance to gain revenge for an earlier event on the University of California campus that they believed had infringed on conservatives’ free speech rights: In February, a scheduled appearance by alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was shut down by rock-throwing “antifascist” protesters.

One Twitter user also documented the way that alt-right folks were instructing one another in how to smuggle weapons past the police.

They wanted a fight and a fight they got. Eleven people were injured, and six were hospitalized. One white supremacist identified as Nathan Damigo was filmed sucker punching a young woman.

It’s tempting to write off this event as something unique to the Berkeley area. The area has a robust “antifa” presence, which is the name given to a small group of youthful anarchist-leftist sorts who tend to reject nonviolent approaches in favor of aggressive confrontation. The white nationalists and fascists knew full well that going to Berkeley meant they would be met with an aggressive response. If they had tried the same stunt in, say, New York, it probably wouldn’t have devolved into a violent melee like it did in Berkeley.

But while this particular situation might not have happened anywhere else, now that it has, there’s good reason to worry that the violence could spread. By staging this street fight in Berkeley, the alt-right sent a message to its sympathizers across the country, encouraging them to start organizing brownshirt efforts of their very own.

For one thing, while there were 21 arrests at this particular street fight, most of the right-wing fighters — including, apparently, Damigo — walked away scot-free and full of pride about this supposed victory, as Mother Jones reporter Shane Bauer recorded on Twitter.

Bauer also obtained video footage of his confronting Berkeley police about not doing more and finding that these cops were largely uninterested in a conversation about their responsibility to shut down political violence.

The message that alt-right sympathizers across the country are likely hearing is that this means they can kick the crap out of anti-Trump protesters — even ones who are demonstrating peacefully — and not worry too much about being held accountable by police for their behavior. The fact that Jeff Sessions, Trump’s attorney general, has made a showy display out of his utter lack of interest in police accountability only makes this situation more worrisome.

Beyond that, the whole debacle is a marketing coup for wannabe brownshirts. White nationalists and other far-right types have been crowing about their “victory” on social media, with many portraying themselves as tough and manly for their behavior. That message will have resonance for the alt-right crowd, which primarily consists of youngish men who have a lot of anxiety about manliness and an intense desire to prove their manhood. To drive home the gendered nature of this message, one female militant right-winger was theatrically “protected” by a group of men, helping drive home the message to anxious young men that the best way to prove their manhood is to use violence against Trump’s political opponents.

As historian Rick Perlstein has pointed out in The Washington Spectator, the amount of online chatter demanding violence against progressives seems to have increased dramatically in the past few months. As has been the case with fascist violence in the past, the hard right excuses its calls for violence by citing “self-defense.”

As Perlstein noted, the story that these hard-right forces are telling themselves is that “the left has escalated its resistance to Trump into literal war, so Trump supporters must be prepared to resort to violence to oppose it.”

The images from Saturday’s melee demonstrate the paper-thin nature of this excuse, especially the video of Damigo punching an unarmed woman. (One of his supporters, conservative commentator Gavin McInnes, defended him by saying the victim’s clothing disqualified her as a woman.) But this is the “alternative facts” era, so the laughable transparence of the self-defense excuse hardly matters to those who spout it. All that matters is that they have some pretext, no matter how thin, for their violent urges.

All of which is why there’s reason to worry about this violence spreading. This event in Berkeley showed that violence is possible, that most right-wingers who enact it won’t face any consequences, and that beating up progressives is a quick and easy way for young alt-right types to gain praise from their fellows. These fledgling brownshirts may have gotten started by beating up antifas, who are an unsympathetic target. Now that they’ve tasted blood, there’s reason to fear they will feel empowered to spread the violence around.

[karnage]

This piece is unintentionally hilarious. The antifa provocateurs, so used to throwing bricks and breaking windows without resistance or consequence, got their asses handed to them. So they turn the narrative 180 degrees - and blame the freedom marchers.

It’s beautiful. It’s beyond Schadenfreude. It’s koestlich!

[Mears]

“A group of hard-right extremists came to Berkeley to hold a rally in support of Trump.”

---

Do they EVER say “hard-left extremists”?

EVER?

>

[DoughtyOne]

I’m a Conservative.

I totally reject the alt-Right moniker.

[Mariner]

The antifas will continue to get their asses kicked as long as they insist on denying the rights of others.

I want to see more of it, a lot more of it.

[Interesting Times]

“Conan, what is good in life?”

[VRWCarea51]

Hey Salon, who was it that tore up Ferguson, Baltimore and and even Washington D.C. during the Innaguration? Was it wacko Right Wingers that rioted the Night Trump was to Campaign in Chicago last fall?

You freaking Idjits, you’ve been priming the pump for Years. America has had enough! Enjoy the fallout. I hope you all meet face to face with stickman.

[Colonelbuzzsaw]

Exactly right. The little snowflake who was going to collect 100 "nazi" scalps put her hands on Damigo first. He responded to the threat with appropriate counter-measures to effectively neutralize it. Good for him.

Perhaps the funniest pic I've seen of this is the screen cap that says Gender Equality Achieved as he punches back at her.

[HarleyLady27]

Did they? They haven’t answered to the one person that really counts yet...

[WKUHilltopper]

Salon...from the same people who tried to justify pedophilia.

[ctdonath2]

“concluding with heartwarming lamentations of how the police wouldn’t step in to protect those poor masked “Black Bloc” anarchists”

The two groups were divided by police into two holding areas. Those who entered were screened for weapons. ...funny thing is, the Right-wing side was completely disarmed, while the Left-wing side had a remarkable quantity of sticks, large glass bottles, fireworks, and even smoke grenades. Methinks the Left got plenty of police assistance, considering AntiFa was the side that started the assault and clearly used weapons against the unarmed, yet police utterly failed to come down on them. I don’t think the police could have been any more “helpful” to the designated side; for police to come after the disarmed Right-wingers after they were clubbed, cut, gassed, & bombed would have been too gratuitously biased to get away with.

AntiFa had every chance to do what they wanted. They were inept.

[.cnI redruM]

They won’t stop. They will show up everywhere ANTIFA throws glass bottles at people and exact condign retribution.

[saywhatagain]

"The message that alt-right sympathizers across the country are likely hearing is that this means they can kick the crap out of anti-Trump protesters"

Amanda, darling, when your so-called antifa behave like fascist . . . . well yaaaa, they need to have the crap kick out of them. Your little antifa snowflakes came for a fight and they got what they asked for. Whats your point?

[guido911]

I know these have been seen. But still...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKpTThH4cbw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DjZWrSVt1w

[Karl Spooner]

The pedophile supporting publication has made their judgment.

[HombreSecreto]

+100!

[roadcat]

“Conan, what is good in life?”

I wonder what the lamentations of Amanda were?

"I got no right-wing scalps, darn."
"Shouldn't have gone. Maybe I'll sit out the next protest."
"They told me it was easy to knock down right-wingers!"
"Ooh, my head hurts. Didn't that guy see I have tits but he ignored them!"
"Ice on my forehead every day, and that red lump won't go away."

[virgil]

Yep. You go some place looking for trouble, you’re likely to be served. She got what she was asking for. Could have been worse.

[AppyPappy]

I bet she doesn’t do that anymore.

[Drew68]

Notice she's wearing a "sap glove."

"The “heavy black gloves” are quite popular among police in some regions and flatly banned by department edict in others because of their connotation of brutality. Essentially, sap gloves are good-quality gloves that have powdered lead sewn into the area of the knuckles and first digits of the fingers, or into the palm to create a sort of reinforced-fist effect. One brand, the Poly/ Steelwall™, is completely reinforced on the back, from fingertip to edge of wrist, with a layer of steel mesh in addition to the powdered lead."

From Fundamentals of Modern Police Impact Weapons

[Lionheartusa1]

ANTI-First Amendment is what they are .