I've been seeing clashes between Trump Protestors for a month or more now. It was inevitable it would happen. The anti-Trump people in their bandanas were being destructive and mostly going unchallenged. It wasn't that the Trump supporters were afraid of them. It was that for the most part they were not present, and were trying to have some restraint.

Before I continue with my observations. I am neither a Trump or a Hillary supporter. I will be honest and say I prefer Trump over Hillary but I promised to never do the Lesser of Two Evils false dichotomy again. I kept my word.

It was obvious that the clashes were going to occur as the Trump Supporters were speaking up and finally tired of these black bandana clad Antifa thugs assaulting people, destroying things, and being anti-free speech.

I don't normally write posts like this, but today a friend and fellow steemit user @kidsysco shared the following video in a slack he and I have been part of since before steemit.

Skip to 1:25 in this video

It should be noted that I wasn't seeing too much mainstream media coverage over the last month of this topic. Most of it was from youtubers and places like Infowars.

This video showed some interesting things to me. Things that the news may not clue into, but if you've watched enough of these protests you get an idea.

Law Enforcement had created a divide between Pro-Trump and Anti-Trump protestors. This video then shows an M80 or something being set off at about the 2:00 minute mark and a black hoodie (hoodie down) person walking away. Minus the bandana this is not how a typical Pro-Trump supporter dresses, though it is how the Antifa dresses. That does not mean it is such a person. This is me sharing my observations.

2:06 shows an Antifa type spraying a camo decked out person and that looks legit. The spray is likely pepper spray or something similar.

2:20 is where things got particularly interesting to me. The video is talking about how police confiscated weapons, formed a line, and that worked for about an hour until people jumped the line.

Watch that video. Notice how both sides have bandanas though not all have them lifted? I honestly don't know that I've ever seen Trump supporters wearing bandanas and trying to conceal who they are and I've watched a number of these conflicts.

If that is enough watch how those two bandana groups go at it and how a lot of the punches and other things seem PULLED. It looks pretty staged in that particular case. To me this looks like a Provocateur type event where it was staged to cause escalation.

I have zero doubt it would have gotten more violent, but this particular clash looks staged at this point as though it was engineered to cause an eruption of conflict. It was also one of the few times I've seen Mainstream media conveniently positioned at the right place. Perhaps there was some yelling back and forth between these factions (real or actors... difficult to know) that managed to clue the news in. Perhaps the news was told they needed to check out this one really heated group. It is hard to know and all speculation.

All I know is that after watching a number of these that part of the video looked FAKED and STAGED to me. It actually looks like Antifa on Antifa.

I am not saying I am right here. It is pretty sad and stupid regardless.

I am sharing this as I'd like to see if you think I'm onto something here or not. I'll go look up some older example videos to compare and contrast between.

Also notice the wounded Trump supporters the news does tend to focus on. None of them have bandanas, and U.S. flag colors are a pretty common type of clothing, but not always the case. I also haven't heard of Trump supporters using pepper spray. That doesn't mean they are not. Again this is just me sharing observations and speculating.

1 Month ago

I don't see any Trump supporters with bandanas there. Quite a few Biker type Trump supporters though.

this one is sensationalized and not a very good example - shows you a biased approach from the other direction

Here is CNN's same coverage of the same Berkeley fights in the first video in this post

And yes, it did get pretty violent and REAL - but did it start this way?

That's enough... It seems pretty dicey to me. Yes, it is a powder keg. Am I wrong in thinking it looks like the match may have been lit intentionally?

A lot of the Antifa follow the works of revolutionaries that really only see violence as a solution. It is via inciting violence that they can bring more onto their side. Staged events are legit, and any technique that can achieve their goals is acceptable. I've known there are some in the movement that believe this. This does bias my views on a lot of what I am seeing here.

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Confession

I am not a Pro-Trump or Anti-Trump person. I do find myself very opposed to the Antifa movement. I believe these people have a serious lack of understanding about history and truly they are an ignorant mass manipulated weapon aimed with a purpose. The things they claim to support are the opposite of their actions and the things they state.

They claim to be anti-fascist. Some will claim to be anti-nazi.

Yet they dress in almost a uniform, and they are sponsored by people like George Soros. They are attempting to force their will upon everyone by force, and shouting with no debate or listening. In reality, they claim to be anti-fascist, yet their actions are those of fascists.

They obviously didn't study the history of World War II era very closely and what lead up to it. They may have a familiarity with the actual war as there are a lot of movies and shows on that. Yet, they clearly know almost nothing about the rise of Fascisim, National Socialism (aka Nazi), etc.

They may be wearing black... That's a color. The Nazis chose to inflame the youth and dress them in brown.

They called such people brown shirts...

They chant over and over again "No KKK, no Fascists USA" Ignoring anyone that tries to discuss with them. In fact when one of them does start to talk you'll usually see some "controller" show up and shake their head and say don't talk to them.

KKK is an organization founded upon intolerance. Yes, it is a specific racial intolerance, but it is still intolerance.

Now let me share some definitions from different sources. Do you notice how they differ?

Now you can read up on it in Wikipedia and it is worth following some of its links.

I have a personal thing I like to say "You cannot defeat racism, by being racist, you cannot defeat bigotry, by being a bigot".

I want to rephrase this for Antifa "You cannot defeat fascism by being fascists".

Fighting against free speech, being intolerant, unable to engage in dialog, and only able to answer challenges with chants and violence is not anti-fascist. It is embracing the concept hook, line, and sinker.

EDIT: I've used "Hook, Line, and sinker" before and not everyone may have heard or understood the idiom. Essentially it is referring to fishing. You have a hook at the end of the line that you typically want your fish to bite. The line extends out from there and often will have some weights attached to it to help it sink and be below the surface. These are called sinkers. So "hook, line, and sinker" is indicating that the target fish was so excited not only did it bite the hook. It also swallowed the line and the sinker that were beyond the hook.

Steem On!