A “Protect Texas Kids” protest this week was attacked by counter-protesters outside of the location of a planned drag show that would reportedly involve children. The incident was caught on videotape and shows how Antifa routinely, even cavalierly, resorts to violence to silence those with opposing views. Any doubt as to their association from their signature black outfits and tactics was dispensed by this picture clearly showing the Antifa flag.
Despite the denial of its existence by figures like Rep. Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.), I have long written and spoken about the threat of Antifa to free speech on our campuses and in our communities. This includes testimony before Congress on Antifa’s central role in the anti-free speech movement nationally.
The video shows a small number of members of “Protect Texas Kids” assembling across the street when Antifa arrives in their typical black clothing, helmets and tactical vests. Some of the Antifa members were also carrying handguns and long guns.
About 12:50 p.m., a person later identified as Samuel Fowlkes, 20, approached the protesters with two other counterprotesters. After engaging them briefly, the protesters were sprayed with mace. In another signature move, Fowlkes then tries to flee after refusing to stop as other Antifa members obstruct police officers including Christopher Guillott, 33, who is seen swinging an umbrella at officers.
Meghan Grant, 37, is also shown charging past officers to join Fowlkes and Guillot before screaming at the law enforcement officials.
It is an all-too-familiar scene for those of us who have followed Antifa for years on our campuses or in political riots.
As I have written, it has long been the “Keyser Söze” of the anti-free speech movement, a loosely aligned group that employs measures to avoid easy detection or association. Yet, FBI Director Chris Wray has repeatedly pushed back on the denials of Antifa’s work or violence. In one hearing, Wray stated “And we have quite a number — and “Antifa is a real thing. It’s not a fiction.”
Some Democrats have played a dangerous game in supporting or excusing the work of Antifa. Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison, now the Minnesota attorney general, once said Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. This was after Antifa had been involved in numerous acts of violence and its website was banned in Germany. His own son, Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, declared his allegiance to Antifa in the heat of the protests this summer. During a prior hearing, Democratic senators refused to clearly denounce Antifa and falsely suggested that the far right was the primary cause of recent violence. Likewise, Joe Biden has dismissed objections to Antifa as just “an idea.”
It is at its base a movement at war with free speech, defining the right itself as a tool of oppression. That purpose is evident in what is called the “bible” of the Antifa movement: Rutgers Professor Mark Bray’s Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook.
Bray emphasizes the struggle of the movement against free speech: “At the heart of the anti-fascist outlook is a rejection of the classical liberal phrase that says, ‘I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’”
Bray admits that “most Americans in Antifa have been anarchists or antiauthoritarian communists… From that standpoint, ‘free speech’ as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.” It is an illusion designed to promote what Antifa is resisting “white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, ultra-nationalism, authoritarianism, and genocide.” Thus, all of these opposing figures are deemed fascistic and thus unworthy of being heard.
Bray quotes one Antifa member as summing up their approach to free speech as a “nonargument . . . you have the right to speak but you also have the right to be shut up.”
Watch this video. This is Antifa.
the “right” is completely out to lunch. you JUST do…. NOT…. get it. you REFUSE to get it. you… DO.NOT.GET. IT.
these are not “soy boys”… or “snow flakes” … they are cadre. they are motivated, paid, armed, organized CADRE.
they infiltrated january 6 and goaded 1000s of conservative protesters into unlawful behavior…… you idiots STILL don’t get it…. january 6 was a well-prepared trap that conservatives, including Trump, walked into eyes-wide-shut…..
the lack of strategic thinking, the lack of comprehension, the complete inability to analyse this movement by tactical and strategic metrics on the right is STAGGERING……… their tantrums aren’t “weaknesses” … those are TACTICS….. you can’t even comprehend what’s been destroying your culture for the better part of 20 years… with tremendous success. keep calling them snowflakes and soyboys……. smfh
I’m completely done with you people. you won’t listen, you won’t act, you won’t lift a finger. go ahead and hand them your country.
idiots
The present day movement began in the 60s with the flower children who metastasized into the violent groups of today. The lack of training by the police to deal with these thugs is very noticeable. There are tactics that can disable individuals but the police aren’t being trained in to use them. It is folly to send a small number of cops to deal with the violent thugs. When proper non lethal control methods are used, the fight can be taken out of them in a few seconds. One cop with proper training and the thug loses. Always double the response. If there are 20 thugs,40 cops respond and the fight is over quickly..
Every generation or so the Democrat party re-invents their militant armies. This generation it is Antifa and BLM; before it was the Weather Underground and Black panthers; before that it was the KKK.
Totalitarian tactics never change.
Arrestee #1, 20 years old. Clearly wearing a firearm. Minimum age for firearm possession in Texas = 21. Yet he was not charged. WHY?
Not true! 18 for a long gun, 22 for a handgun in TX.
It’s time to remove this disease from civil society being nice doesn’t work maybe rubber bullets or for that matter real bullets they are the the SS troops and military police for tge LIBERAL LEFTIST SOCIALIST MARXIST COMMUNIST DEMOCRAT FACIST AUTHORITARIAN SWAMP RATS
I live in Portland and deal with these cockroaches all the time. If they aren’t dressed up in their weird costumes they are the Soy-Boy in line at Starbucks. They have whole blocks of houses they occupy not far from a Natures grocery store. They are funded by Soros and the DNC. Many of us in Portland despise these scumwaffles and wish they would just go away. Not all of Portland is blue and the tide is turning to red, they have a lot to do with that. As people really wake up (I’m not talking about the “woke” population) they are realizing that Antifa wants to burn this country to the ground. Any of us with an ounce of patriotism wants them out!
Antifa in Portland is best summed up by their demands for Portland police protection from the bikers that they picked a fight with. They’re all about the defunding movement, attacking police and targeting unarmed citizens but once they encounter a force willing to answer their violence with violence, they tuck tail and demand protection. They’re nothing but cowardly tyrants who wear disguises and uses weapons and numbers to target the weak. Despicable!!
Stop bringing a knife to a gun fight and you will win. Be ruthless take no prisoners.