American Nazis are evil and violent. So are many on the American far-left

“By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way to where it ends in history’s unmarked grave of discarded lies.”

Bush was right. And his words have new relevance after the Nazi murder, Saturday, of Heather Heyer. Ms. Heyer now joins the long and bloody global list of Nazism’s victims. And like Hana Brady (aged 13) who was murdered at Auschwitz, and Benjamin Krystal (aged 18) who was murdered at Chelmno, Heyer (aged 32) must be remembered.

But if we value the rights of individuals and moral clarity in our society, we must accept that Nazism isn’t the only contemporary threat to U.S. civil society. Communism and hardline socialism also play increasingly destructive roles in motivating acts of domestic violence. This was on display at the counter-protest in Charlottesville on Saturday. There, amidst the Nazi freaks with plastic shields, were many red communist flags swirling in the air. And video footage indicates that the far-left provoked a number of incidents with the Nazis.

Yet it’s just the tip of the iceberg. A movement of far-left revolutionaries is responsible for numerous acts of violence, proof of which is rendered in many online videos. The violence proves something else. Just as the Nazis are on a warped crusade for human purity, “Antifa” leftists are on a crusade for enforced collectivism.

And to some degree, they have been enabled by the liberal political establishment.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., once described Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela as a place where “the American dream is more apt to be realized.” On Chavez’s death, Congressman Jose Serrano tweeted that “Hugo Chavez was a leader that understood the needs of the poor. He was committed to empowering the powerless. R.I.P. Mr. President.” Many other liberal leaders and celebrities shared the sentiment.

They did so against the abundant evidence of Chavezville corruption, authoritarianism, and injustice. Yes, now that children are starving in Venezuela for no reason other than bad governance, with child mortality rates up 30 percent year on year, most remain quiet. But some continue to praise Nicolas Maduro!

Similarly, when Fidel Castro died, Rep. Barbara Lee praised a “recognized world leader who was dedicated to his people.” Andrea Mitchell of NBC News remarked that Castro “will be revered” for providing “education and social services and medical care to all of his people.” And in 2016, President Barack Obama openly flirted with Fidel’s successor, Raul, at a Havana baseball game. Watch the final scene of this White House video celebrating Obama’s visit. It represents a dilapidated building as some kind of monument to archaic beauty, not as a rotting metaphor for an evil ideology.

Of course, in no way does this excuse the evil that is Nazism. Still, that many on the western left are rendering themselves cheerleaders for oppression is a concern.

Because of their support for Trump, there is a special rationale for conservatives to condemn Nazism. But whether via Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Castro, Chavez, or Maduro, liberals must also condemn those who have killed tens of millions of innocents.