Antifa and the Alt-Right

Tom Sheppard

8/16/2017

In the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville President Trump noted that both sides were to blame for the violence.  His remarks set off a firestorm of righteous indignation in both major political parties.  Most of those excoriating him failed to perform even the most rudimentary examination of the facts to determine if, perhaps he was speaking from a well-informed position, instead of assuming he was shooting from the lip.

The reality of the violence in Charlottesville is that it was the entirely foreseeable result of bringing two avowedly violent groups together: violent white-supremacists and the violent anti-racists known as Antifa (more on both these groups later).  Because both groups are very ready and willing to engage in violent, physical conflict, and are on opposite sides of the topic of racism, for them to come together into the same physical space is like bringing lit matches and gunpowder together. It really doesn’t matter which one you think is which, when they come together, a violent explosion is nearly 100% certain.

Some of President Trumps critics claim that when he pointed out that Antifa charged in with clubs in hand, he was making Antifa and white supremacists morally equivalent.  That is blatantly twisting the facts.  He made no argument for the moral equivalence of the two groups.  Rather, than address the morals of either side, he noted the detestable actions of both sides.  As much as most of us may hate what they say, white supremacists have the same rights to free speech as anyone else.  No one has the right to use violence to silence the free speech of another.  If you start down the road of justifying allowing one group to violently silence another in the name of moral rectitude, soon you will have a society of self-righteous prigs living in an echo chamber where only the views they like will be heard.

So, where do these two groups come from and what does the name Antifa mean?  Antifa characterize themselves as anti-fascists.  The white supremacists commonly wave the NAZI flag and use the symbols of NAZI Germany in their materials along with the Confederate “Stars and Bars” battle flag.  The white supremacists call the Antifa socialists and communists and the Antifa call the white supremacists fascists and the Alt-Right.   The name calling, on both sides, is missing the mark more often than not.

Wikipedia gives a pretty good definition of fascism as “a form of radical authoritarian nationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and control of industry and commerce.”  This gives us a four-point checklist to keep in mind as we identify fascism.

1.       Authoritarian Nationalism

2.       Dictatorial Power

3.       Forcible Suppression of Opposition, and

4.       [Governmental] Control of Industry and Commerce

Leading up to the American Civil War, the Northern States were characterized by being a racial melting pot that fueled an emerging industrial economy. They were anti-slavery.  However, that virtue may have been as much of an economic as a moral stance.  Slave labor was a threat to the working poor of the North.

Northern culture was characterized by a work ethic focused on individuals making their own way and eating their bread in the sweat of their brow.  The majority of the norther colonists had come from commoners and religious dissenters who fled Europe to avoid death at the hands of clerics and aristocrats.

Southern culture was oriented more toward the notion of European aristocracy.  Wealthy southerners sent their daughters to Paris for their finishing school.  The European notion of aristocracy eschews manual labor as a sign of poverty and commonality.  The ideal aristocrat does not labor for his money.  Rather, his time is free to hunt, to whore, and to adventure.

This culture of indolence sat at the top of the Southern social model and its values filtered down throughout the society all the way to common men who wore their indolence as a badge of honor.  In spite of their impoverished circumstances, they placed greater esteem on hunting, whoring and adventuring than in hard work.

This cultural conflict is part of the reasons the State of Missouri enacted an extermination order on Mormons.  Mormon converts, coming mostly from the New England area at that time, migrated to Missouri to establish Zion.  Their inherited ethic and regard for hard work directly conflicted with the indolent ethic of the Missourians.  Adding in religious elements to this basic clash of culture and intolerance, misunderstanding, and violence were almost inevitable.

Fast forward to the years just before the Civil War.  You find the Republican Party leaning heavily toward abolition of slavery.  You find Northern states ranging from open hostility toward slavery to tolerance as long as it stays out of their state.

In the South, you find aristocratic Democrats holding the levers of power and doing all in their power to preserve the institution of slavery because of its key role in their agricultural economy and Southern society.  They were ready and willing to use the powers of government to preserve slavery by putting down slave rebellions (individual and collective), and even waging open war on other states which want to abolish slavery in the entire Union.  Their behavior was definitely racist.  They were possessed of violent nationalism, although it was directed to supporting the distinct sovereignty of each state as though it were a nation.  They lacked dictatorial control and lacked the governmental control of commerce and industry that is a hallmark of fascism.  On balance, the Confederate States of America was a racist, but not a fascist government, scoring only two of the four points on the Wikipedia-derived checklist for fascism.

When the Emancipation Proclamation appeared during the Civil War, impoverished Irish in the North, at the bottom of the economic ladder engaged in race riots against the blacks, out of fear that the newly freed slaves will displace them and push them even further down the economic ladder.  This behavior was definitely racist, lacking any clear government support, they little resemblance to fascism.

After the Civil War, the Democratic party continued to support racism and its members filled the ranks of the Ku Klux Klan as the paramilitary arm of the Democratic party, using terror to resist allowing blacks to enjoy all the rights of citizens.  If a dictatorial power existed within their ranks, it was a secret which has never been revealed to the wider world.  So, they continued as racists, but not full-blown fascists.

Fast forward again to the time leading up to World War II.  In Europe, as well as the United States, communism and its younger brother socialism gained substantial political grounds since the emergence of the nation with a communist government (post-Czarist Russia). 

Where the communism strives to establish one world government where government owns all and individuals own nothing, and we are all part of one family of man, its little brother, socialism has a slightly different vision.  Socialists want to apply the governmental principles of communism while retaining the pride and distinctiveness of each nation.  These pre-WWII national-socialists diluted the absolute anti-capitalist communism to embrace some elements of capitalism, as long as it operates under the close control of the government (and can be used as a means of extending the reach of government without all the budgetary and bureaucratic mess inherent in government).  The new national-socialist-psuedo-capitalists gained the name of fascists. The fascists tweaked their nationalism (twisting it would have required greater effort) into a form of racial pride based on their nation, thus incorporating racism into their fascism.

The racist-fascist formula succeeded in gaining a much wider following than communism, and in short order, fascist governments were running Germany, Italy and Spain.  In America, they were openly admired by rich and powerful American Democrats such as John D. Rockefeller, Franklin D.Roosevelt and Henry Ford. 

In the polyglot world of America, the conflation of nation and race is not so intuitive as it was in Europe.  A quick study of European history shows that the nations of Europe arose around concentrations of racially and ethnically distinct groups.  The blond and red haired Aryans of the north were the core of countries such as Germany, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark.  The dark haired, white skinned Celts (the Romans called them Gauls) were the primary race in what is now France and the isles of Britain.  The dark haired, olive skinned Latins were the racial core of Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece.  These racial alignments, reinforced by centuries of racial warfare, pre-disposed the Europeans to embracing racial politics.

When the fascists took power in Germany, they brought with them an overweening pride in their race and asserted that the Aryans represented the only pure race among all the white races and that as such they were the master race which by rights of its purity should rule all the other elements of the human race.  Part of their plan for achieving this world domination involved not only killing off the unfit among themselves, but also in killing off entirely all the “lesser” races of humanity.  If they had succeeded, their slaughter of the Jews would have paled compared to how many of the “brown” races they would have happily destroyed beneath the heel of their racist regime.

Ironically, their Japanese allies on the other side of the world, although they ignored the lures of socialism or communism in favor of their own aristocracy, decided that the nation of Japan and the Japanese race were the embodiment of the master race which owned the right to rule humanity.  They embraced all the hallmarks of fascism and racism.  They happily treated the Koreans, Chinese, Philipinos and whites all as less than human.

An unfortunate side-effect of this nationalistic furor with its racial threads was that racism and fascism became interchangeable terms in the minds of many people.   This is especially true today.  As a result, anyone embracing racism and most especially the notion of a master race is deemed a fascist.  Although this is factually incorrect, many of the racist groups supporting white supremacy further promote this error by embracing the symbols of fascism such as the NAZI flag.  Most of these groups are neither socialists nor truly NAZIs.  They typically embrace the concepts of rugged individualism that permeate the political right.  However, their use of symbols of fascism and the master race rhetoric of the fascists makes it simpler to label them fascists than to give them the more discerning and accurate label of simple racists.

From the time of the Civil War until the middle of the twentieth century, the scions of the Democratic party held the levers of power in the South and used them to disenfranchise the blacks until the Republican party forced the passage of the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s and used the power of the Federal Government to break the last vestiges of the Democrats’ use of the powers of government to support their racism.  After the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Democrats adroitly changed their roles from would-be masters over the blacks to their would-be protectors.  Many leading black pundits today recognize that the welfare state (of which the Democratic Party is the primary champion) is no more or less than another way to keep blacks dependent upon the Democrats by making them dependent upon the transfer of wealth from successful individualists into the hands of the plantation slaves who, for more than a century, depended upon the generosity of their white masters for the food on their table and clothes on their back (see Star Parker’s book, Uncle Sam’s Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves the Poor and What We Can Do About It).

Recently, a movement known as Antifa (Anti-fascists) has appeared among the political left in the United States.  Although the Antifa attempt to link themselves to the historical anti-fascist movements in trans-WWII Germany, Italy and Spain, they define themselves as opponents to the likes of the white-supremacists, which they call the Alt-Right.  Because these white-supremacists are actually racists, not fascists, the legacy of the Antifa is not rooted in anti-fascism, rather it is anti-racism and more specifically, it is anti-white-supremacist.  The danger with being anti-white-supremacist is that it is easy to become anti-white, in reality or just perception.  Being anti-white is racism with a swap in roles for oppressor and oppressed.   

Calling the white supremacists fascists and the Alt-Right is inaccurate and misleading.  The reality is that fascism is not a political movement from the right of center.  It is a political movement from the left of center.  Racism too is not a movement from the right of center.  It has historically been used and supported by the Democratic Party.  Labeling Democrats as left and Republicans as right of center is as nuanced as saying that the sky above is blue and the earth beneath is brown.  The characterizations lead to misperceptions and hide the truth.  Although many Democrats embrace the political ambitions of the left, many leading Republicans do likewise.

In the US and most of the world today, the political left is the champion of the rights of groups over the rights of individuals, “authoritarian nationalism”, “dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and [governmental] control of industry and commerce” are the hallmarks of their vision for government.  The political right is the champion of individual rights such as freedom of speech, religion, association, and self-protection, smaller, less-intrusive government, and minimal governmental regulation of industry and commerce.

Government sponsored racism, is not an artifact of the political right.  The political right has its roots in respect for the rights and civic responsibilities of the individual.  It is embodied in such phrases as those found in the Declaration of Independence that, “all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.  Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  These sentiments and philosophies allow no room for racism and certainly do not support any notion of a master race.  Rather, they point the mind toward the universal brotherhood of humanity as sharing a common creator.

Government sponsored racism, such as that found in the fascist nations of World War II, is only possible where despotism prevails.  It is an aberration when free people choose to unleash the powers of their government against a minority of any sort.  Although an aberration, it is not without precedent in the history of the United States of America.

Before the Civil War, the people of the United States of America supported and encouraged their government to wage open war against the members of the Mormon church.  The Civil War seems to have burnt out of the main of our nation the inclination to use the powers of government to oppress minorities, racial or religious.

I am sure some will argue that the wars against the Native Americans was a racist war that was supported by the people.  While there may be some truth of racism buried in there, the reality is that the Native Americans were (and are) sovereign nations (as well as peoples).  When the United States prevailed against them, the results were not racial cleansing, enslavement or extermination.  Rather, the results were disarmament, subjugation and restriction.

From my view of history, the racist strains of the US were scorched (although not entirely burnt out), root and branch, and the government sponsored racism of the south was broken long before the fascists of Europe arose to take a place on the world stage.  Those in this country with whom fascism resonated most were not Republicans, but old-guard Democrats who hewed to the notions of the Southern Democrats that whites are superior and that blacks can be excluded from the rights delineated in our founding documents because they aren’t actually human, or not fully human.

The scary part of this last point is that black supremacists today embrace the same notion, that whites aren’t really true humans.  The only true humans are those with dark skins.

Today, white supremacists and other racists want to implement government sponsored agendas of racism which are incompatible with the ideals of freedom and individual worth.  Those ideals are the hallmarks of the political right.

This white supremacist fringe is no more an alternate right (Alt-right) than West is an alternate North.  Those who seek to equate racism with the political right are either ignorant of the facts of history, or are selling something.  It behooves every responsible citizen to examine the motives of those who use labels to hide rather than to shed light on the true motives and ideals of others.

ADDED Material
Today's Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed piece about the Free Speech Rally in Boston.  They noted that Antifa was there trying to suppress free speech with fascist tactics.  There were about two dozen free-speech advocates at the rally and hundreds of Antifa-led counter protesters there to prevent anyone from being heard, except them.  The author notes, "Neo-Nazis and white supremacists may be a continuing American embarrassment and eyesore, but they are not today’s most pressing threat to our civil liberties."

The day before this article, CNN "unmasked" the Antifa as "undocumented immigrants, transgender people, low-wage workers, those who don't conform to the traditional 9-to-5."  They believe somehow that it will work to "use force in the name of eradicating hatred."  Like that will work?  When was the last time having someone punch you in the face made you want to agree with them and embrace love?  For most people violence only makes them want to respond with violence.  And violence inspires hatred, it doesn't eradicate it.

Here are a few more quotes from the CNN article...

"Antifa activists often don't hesitate to destroy property.."

"Antifa members also sometimes launch attacks against people who aren't physically attacking them."

"...members focus on outing people they believe are neo-Nazis, even trying to get them fired and evicted from their homes."

John Morley, in 1874, is credited with saying, "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him."  President John F. Kennedy repeated nearly the same sentiment many years later.  Antifa's methods lead me to believe that rationality is not at the core of their movement.  It is based wholly on emotion.  They are the leading advocates of mob rule in our country today.  And it was lynch mobs and mob rule that fueled and led the charge for racists throughout the civil rights era of the 60's.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:  I confess I was mildly surprised when mainstream media sources began condemning Antifa actions.  Then, I saw this article where no less a venerable liberal scion than Nancy Pelosi trashed Antifa (follow the link to the WSJ article).  Her statement must have given the green-light to the left-conforming editors and reporters of the mainstream media to decry the actions of their leftist allies who resorted to fascist behavior to violently suppress the free speech of others in the campaign to combat fascism.

Related Links:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-great-nazi-scare-of-2017-1503440903
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/18/us/unmasking-antifa-anti-fascists-hard-left/index.html

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM). 

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein. 

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