Recently, violent leftists in Portland brutally attacked a Bernie Sanders supporter because he was carrying an American flag — a “fascist symbol,” according to these attackers who arrogate to themselves the label “anti-fascist.” The incident made for viral video and national news. Sadly, it did not become famous because it was an aberration, but only because the irony of Left-on-Left violence made it so. Rather, it was just the latest escalation of left-wing extremists’ attack on free speech.
Antifa is well known for violent protest. It is the centerpiece of their “no-platforming” philosophy, whereby speech they label as “fascist” and “hate speech” (i.e., anything they disagree with) is denied a hearing through various methods of intimidation or physical punishment. In an earlier CNN interview, an organizer stated: “We go to cause conflict, to shut them down where they are.”
While this pertains mostly to an extremity of America’s Left, the broader Left are warming to such public confrontations with opponents. Their accosting of Trump administration officials has received widespread coverage, as even more mainstream liberals are voicing support for such tactics.
But there is a contradiction between organized politics and such confrontation. The former is intended to move dispute into institutional channels and away from potentially violent, chaotic conflict. Politics is supposed to deliver orderly, peaceful resolution of conflicts.
This is especially true in America, which enshrined the freedom of speech into its Constitution’s First Amendment. The threat that such confrontation poses to a continuation of America’s accepted political system and civil society is obvious. There is also a very real, but overlooked, threat to the Left itself.
Not surprisingly, Americans strongly oppose extreme confrontation. According to recent Rasmussen polling, 54 percent of respondents had an unfavorable opinion of Antifa; just 18 percent had a favorable one. If three-to-one negativity were not bad enough, the remaining 28 percent had no opinion … yet. Considering that those with a favorable view fell by a third from last year’s results, it is safely assumed that greater exposure will shift the undecided to opposition as well. Presence has not made America’s heart grow fonder.
It is one thing for a fringe extreme, which rejects working through the democratic system, to incur the strong rejection of likely voters. It is another for the larger liberal segment to risk it. While far larger than Antifa, liberals as a whole remain a smaller group than conservatives or moderates in the electorate. Presidential election exit polling in 2016 found liberals were just 26 percent of voters; conservatives were 35 percent and moderates 39 percent.
Unlike Antifa, liberals are seeking to win within America’s political system. Doing so requires a majority. This in turn means converting a sizeable number of the three-quarters of voters not already sharing their perspective. That’s already an uphill fight. If those three-quarters connect you with confrontation, it will make it harder still.
Confrontation does not just threaten the Left externally but internally as well. It challenges the larger Left to hold its ground. Liberals’ 26 percent (a rise of six points since 2000, similar to the five-point growth among those calling themselves conservatives in the same period) was tallied directly following the presidency of America’s most liberal president. The provocation of confrontation is far from “no drama Obama.” By redefining liberals, Obama also likely inflated their numbers. Confrontation threatens to define liberals again but in a bad way, and could subsequently shrink their numbers.
Lightning rods are purposely placed to attract strikes and channel the danger away from an exposed structure. For confrontation and liberals, the analogy works in reverse. Antifa is the lightning rod and confrontation the lightning; but instead of channeling the threat away from America’s exposed Left, they are inviting it to do damage.
J.T. Young served under President George W. Bush as the director of communications in the Office of Management and Budget and as deputy assistant secretary in legislative affairs for tax and budget at the Treasury Department.
