Over at National Review, Oliver Traldi wrote a great exploration of the Left’s instinct to couch its denouncements of Antifa, a reflex that appears to betray some level of basic sympathy for the rioters. The article includes a concise summary of reactions from progressive writers to recent violence instigated by so-called anti-fascists:

Vox is worried that “deploy[ing] violence . . . could seriously backfire”; The New Yorker is concerned Antifa is “helping Donald Trump”; and the Guardian thinks the group is “undermin[ing] the Trump resistance.” A New Republic writer whose camera and phone were “jacked” “felt sorry” for his attackers, who had “real pain in [their] eyes” and seek “to stop [white supremacist] hate.” All across the funny papers, the message is clear: If there is a Trumpist rally in your town and you see a group of people with bats just whaling on somebody, their hearts are probably in the right place — they just haven’t thought hard enough about the “bad faith” right-wing arguments, based in “false equivalencies,” that their actions will legitimate.