You mean the fictitious boogeyman "group" that not one member has ever been identified and the movement for black rights that was widely brutalized by the police?
I suppose not, seeing as one is a fantasy and the other clearly had the police paying attention to their plans.
Besides, neither has attempted a coup to overturn an election so it's not really the same is it?
> Activists in Utah have spent months condemning Sullivan, who has at turns identified himself as a racial justice protester and leftist documentarian, and they have warned others to be leery of his motives and any events he sponsored.
> He held rallies featuring Black organizers. But attendees said one demonstration also featured members of the Proud Boys, an all-male extremist group with ties to white nationalism. The Proud Boys who attended, organizers said, told the crowd they wished to make peace with Black activists.
> Later in the summer, Sullivan helped organize a pro-gun-rights rally and marched with self-styled militia members at the Utah Capitol, KSL-TV reported, further infuriating Black activists.
> Sullivan’s reputation as an agitator and bad actor has followed him into other protest circles. In encrypted chats among left-leaning activists, organizers routinely flag posts by Sullivan to new members, saying, “Don’t trust that guy” and, pointing to his past ties with the Proud Boys, “He’s a double agent.”
"Our mob can be incited to kill a cop by a single probably-not-really-antifa infiltrator tagging along" is a hell of a way to argue they're not dangerous.
"We fought against white militia. [expletive]. We are going to rip Trump out of office. We are going to rip that [expletive]. "
The left may have abandoned this guy now after his arrest and are busy deflecting all association, but he was most definitely an "anti-trump" activist.
It takes just a couple of people to incite a riot honestly and this guy is an expert who was egging people on while standing safe.
> The left may have abandoned this guy now after his arrest and are busy deflecting all association, but he was most definitely an "anti-trump" activist.
I honestly believe that antifa is not an organized entity.
Antifa exists as a vaguely defined concept around the idea of counterprotesting right-wing groups. Its the same thing as the alt-right, an ill-defined idea that can be whatever bogeyman you want it to be to whoever you want to scare.
This is the problem. You asked if people really don't believe that antifa is real. Obviously it is real in some sense since we are talking about something called antifa, but we have no idea if you are thinking of the bogeyman organization that doesn't exist, and I am thinking of a philosophy of counterprotest.
When people talk about 'getting rid of antifa' there's a reason that so many people on the left laugh. It's because there is a false conception on the right that it is some sort of unified organization like the ACLU or NRA where you can literally be a card carrying member. People on the left understand that there is no such thing, it is just an ill-defined idea.
How is it that this fictitious bogeyman group has managed to take over portions of Seattle, get two people killed in Seattle, and spend months burning down neighborhoods in Seattle and Portland?
Easy, my friend. All it has to do is deny its existence, and ensure that this denial is reflected up and down the stack. Under such cover, it can do anything, and blame anything that goes wrong on its opponents.
Oh right, I forgot about the part where "Antifa" or the BLM protests ended in them infiltrating the United States Capitol, killing guards with fire extinguishers and american flags, stole laptops from members of congress and attempted to sell them to Russia, and were wearing literal Nazi propaganda and claiming a revolution.
An angry mob surrounded the White House and tried to burn down the Church of the Presidents on May 31, 2020.
Trump had to shelter in the bunker, but he was just a coward, and the people were just demanding justice.
> Then came darkness, and with it, another night of mayhem. In the park, protesters faced the familiar pop, pop, pop of pepper bullets and stinging clouds of tear gas meant to push back hundreds of them as they tried, again and again, to break through the police barricades set up around President Trump’s home.
> Later, American flags and parked cars and buildings were lit ablaze — including St. John’s Church, a historic landmark opened in 1816 and attended by every president since James Madison. Firefighters quickly extinguished the basement fire, which police said was intentionally set.
Protesters then, as on Jan 6th, tried to entice officers to take their side;
> A black officer, according to witnesses, briefly took a knee in solidarity with the protesters, who cheered.
> Not long after, another officer made an announcement on a megaphone: “Attention: We will continue to move back unless you break the police line.”
> And again, cheering from the protesters, many of whom appeared to want the officers to join them rather than fight with them.
This is the biggest downer of our time to me. The media/elite control of the narrative is astounding and nearly ironclad - and as best I can tell social media is just being used to reinforce it.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that if white supremacists performed those same actions, it would be described as a violent terroristic insurrection.
You don’t think attacking the elected head of state is related to a transfer of power? At least 11 Secret Service agents had to be hospitalized after they defended the WH and President from angry rioters...how on earth is that materially different from January 6? Suppose they had succeeded in breaking through the line?
What exactly is so sacrosanct about elections that disputing them is an insurrection, but not storming Senate chambers to stop a Supreme Court confirmation, trying to storm the WH, or literally declaring an autonomous zone not subject to the US government?
It’s hard for me to understand how this is not simply nit picking some insubstantial detail and using it to put the things we like on one side and the things we don’t like on another. Never mind that the election nor the integrity thereof were ever remotely threatened by these riots.
Yeah, I was reflecting back on that incident where BLM tried to breach the White House barriers. It was widely seen as a moment of weakness for Trump and opportunity to dunk on him for lying about it, and protests themselves described in supportive tone "Protesters have turned the newly constructed White House fence into a living memorial to racial justice"[0] / passive voice "started relatively cheerfully ... "tensions between protesters and police mounted ... multiple fires broke out near the White House late on Sunday evening etc etc." not like "an angry mob was about to try to storm the White House and that's bad"[1]
In fact these were really violent, dangerous protests and god knows what would have happened if they had breached the fences. Likely a lot of dead protestors and a major regime legitimacy crisis.
The night prior, more than 60 Secret Service personnel were injured from thrown bricks, rocks, bottles and fireworks, officials said.
"Secret Service personnel were also directly physically assaulted as they were kicked, punched, and exposed to bodily fluids," the Secret Service said. "A total of 11 injured employees were transported to a local hospital and treated for non-life threatening injuries."[1]
It's impossible to play the counterfactual, but I have to believe months of extremely violent political protests being tacitly allowed/encouraged sent a signal to many in the country that violent political protests are ok or even good, or at least what the other side has coming to them.
