On Monday night, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo delivered a charged monologue on political violence in the wake of the “Unite the Right 2” alt-right rally that took place on Sunday. Cuomo drew some distinctions between left- and right-wing perpetrators of that violence, which were well intentioned — but dead wrong.
After paying brief lip service to antifa’s physical antagonism toward the press and police, he made the case for the far-left group and why they should not be held in the same contempt as violent neo-Nazis and racists. Cuomo said:
When you throw a punch at someone, does it matter why you did it? Of course it does. Most people believe in the right to self-defense when your rights, property, or life are at stake. What Cuomo asserts in his stand against the alt-right is that when emotions run hot, if your proclaimed purpose is to end racism, you are by extension on the side of angels. He said:
Antifa’s stated goal is to “stamp out” fascism and racism around the world. Sounds good, right? But the problem is that the bounds of their decision-making are so nebulous that just about anyone can qualify as the next target of their violence. By the loose standards of antifa you could fall into their cross hairs for anything from actual Nazism to supporting Israel, from believing in border security to favoring free-market capitalism.
Antifa’s actions are underpinned by a commitment to Marxism and intersectionality, aimed at a large market of vulnerable antisocial characters (mostly young men). Only with this far-left logic can a Republican, orthodox Jew like Ben Shapiro be labeled a fascist. It does not matter if the neo-Nazi racists whom antifa are fighting against would also like to do away with Shapiro; for extreme leftists, his political opinions on just about everything else negate that. If Ben Shapiro is in fact a hatemonger, racist, and white supremacist as antifa absurdly claims, then Cuomo’s network, CNN, would by extension be complicit in platforming those opinions. After all, they have had Shapiro on their programs dozens of times. Cuomo said:
When you’re pushing back against something abhorrent like racism, do you get a free pass to do whatever you see fit in the course of that mission? Surely Cuomo doesn’t actually think that questioning the means of a certain end reflects negatively on the critic.
The War on Terror, for example, is a perfectly noble calling, in theory. You’d be hard-pressed to find Americans or citizens of any country who are in favor of unfettered terrorism and the ability of groups like al Qaeda to propagandize, recruit, and coordinate attacks. So does the United States get a blank check to stamp it out? Well, for a few years, it seems like we did. After two invasions, thousands of civilian lives lost, a few torture scandals, and U.S. counterterrorism efforts in nearly 60 countries, it seems that bank of trust and virtue has all but gone bankrupt. This does not mean the world now embraces the cause of terrorism. The way you fight matters and forcing onlookers to embrace a cause or be smeared as sympathizers of an obviously objectionable foe is pure demagoguery.
It’s regrettable that Chris Cuomo and CNN are making this same shallow and misguided calculation on confronting hate. Like with the War on Terror, where we’ve only seen terrorism grow and political instability overtake the Middle East, the tactics of militant anti-fascist groups inflame the movements they seek to quell. Research has shown that not only do far-right groups thrive from turning street violence into propaganda, but the antics of antifa also suppress the voices of the marginalized groups they claim to be protecting. Violence as the only reasonable means to engage in politics raises the price of entry. In this climate, only those with the most time, resources, and, frankly, privilege will show up to engage in the conflict: angry, adolescent, white males.
Still, Cuomo isn’t knowingly and eagerly attempting to erode democratic discourse in favor of mob rule and violence. In today’s media environment, transmitting emotion to convey virtue is just the name of the game. However, our methods of dealing with fringe, hate-fueled movements have to be smarter than what antifa offers, and people with both power and influence like Cuomo should be called out for doing the far left’s PR work.
In the United States, we have a social contract dependent on the balance of individual rights, restraint, and outsourcing of certain forms of force to the state. In Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, the 17th-century philosopher outlined why man exited the “state of nature” where violence, pillory, and death are commonplace. Government forces, including police on duty at these tense political standoffs, are the buffer we’ve agreed upon against the state of nature that today’s white supremacists would enact.
When groups like antifa circumvent these boundaries of self-defense, people get hurt, and worse, killed. In D.C. last weekend, some in their ranks chanted, “No border, no wall, no USA at all,” to bluntly remind the media and observers that antifa rejects the principles of liberal democracy.
Antifa is not invested in the defense of America from its most radical elements, they are invested in dismantling our nation and building something else in its place. What antifa would build remains something of a mystery — but their penchant for violence and antagonism toward a free press should offer a clue to Cuomo that their vision and moral compass are not worthy of his defense.
[Also read: CNN journalists criticize antifa protester for attacking NBC reporter at Charlottesville rally]
Stephen Kent (@Stephen_Kent89) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the spokesperson for Young Voices and host of Beltway Banthas, a Star Wars & politics podcast in D.C.
