The Fascists are Terrified of Antifa

Protests outside the White House on May 31 following the police brutality murder of George Floyd (Photo by Tom Brennan via Reuters)

Illinois passed into Phase Three of its coronavirus pandemic response plan, the first state in the nation to meet the CDC guidelines to do so, but not the first state to open businesses this way. In fact, just the first state to pull off the high wire balancing act between a toxic contagion on one side and a toxic federal leadership on the other.

But the emerging sunlight from Illinois’ accomplishment has been blocked by a recent chain of racist atrocities by law enforcement authorities across the nation and myriad levels of government. While angry but organized demonstrations grew across every major American city, burning and looting have broken out in its wake. And while suspicious characters have been seen provoking crimes, with reports of race-war boogaloo provocateurs instigating chaos and police targeting local and national cable news crews with rubber bullets and handcuffs, the president, Attorney General and local law enforcement have focused their blame on “Antifa,” or Anti-Fascist Action.

History does not repeat, Mark Twain is often credited with saying, but it often rhymes. Appearing in 1932, the leftist Antifaschistische Aktion (Antifa) was the product of factional violence in the volatile German Weimar government between the wars. In 1933, Hitler’s Nazis burned down the German representative lawmaking chamber, the Reichstag, creating an…