Calls for “Antifa” (for “anti-fascist”) demonstrations in some 20 cities around the country on Saturday are being looked at seriously by some people, and not so much by others, with conservatives preparing for trouble and liberals trying to downplay rhetoric about this being the opening effort to bring down the Donald Trump administration.
YouTube is filled with videos about the planned events, like the one from Unite America First.
Trump won’t even be on the mainland, so any trouble that the protesters – who simply have yet to get over the fact that he won the election a year ago – might drum up might be pointless.
According to Fox News, among the cities where these protests are planned are Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle. They are all liberal enclaves, so if the protesters begin smashing things, they’re only hurting people who might actually sympathize with their anti-Trump sentiments.
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Anarchists have a nasty habit of turning violent, which is why they show up wearing face masks and often carrying things that could become makeshift weapons.
Time is trying to downplay things by making light of the revolution/civil war rhetoric. In a Friday story, the magazine’s online take was this:
“For weeks, rumors have circulated among conspiratorial conservatives on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and some right-wing news sites that the loose coalition of anti-Trump demonstrators known as “Antifa” are plotting a revolution to begin on Nov. 4. A website called Silence is Consent, citing “sources,” reports that “Antifa … is planning to purge every single Trump voter, Republican, and conservative American in this country… raiding houses, seizing weapons, and causing absolute chaos.”
“To be blunt, that’s not true. At all.”
Time added something of a caveat in parenthesis that states “It’s also worth noting that “Antifa,” contrary to what many on the right believe, is not a single group. Rather it’s a broad term for a very loose confederation of left-wing activist types, acting both individually and under the aegis of smaller political groups. They’re all tenuously strung together by nothing more than an opposition to Trump and a willingness to make it known publicly.”
That will all be very reassuring to shop owners who have to replace storefront glass and/or signs and declare losses to their insurance companies.
Newsweek, on the other hand, reported about an advertisement in the New York Times that declared in large type, “The TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! NOV 4. It Begins. BE THERE. JOIN WITH THE THOUSANDS. RefuseFascism.org.”
Perhaps the truth will be found somewhere between Time’s “ho-hum” forecast and the provocative rhetoric of the newspaper advertisement.
