Antifa CLEARLY has an unconscious identification, not with the Communists, but with the SA, the Sturmabteilung, the Brown Shirts. Their shirts are black, like those of the actual Mussolini Fascists, but I think their hatred of Hitler is really an unconscious desire to be released from the constraints of civilization and finally, finally, finally be able to vent this pent up rage within them that they cannot dispel with marijuana, video games, LARP’ing, or endless internet rants.
They want to be MEN, but they cannot say that. That is sexist. They want to be RIGHT, in a world where they dispute the notion of right and wrong. They want to fight the good fight, while rejecting any standards which would in the abstract, absent tribal feelings, justify such a thing. They want to belong, in a world their own ideology has denuded of all markers of belonging.
In their dreams, they want what the Communists and Nazis “had” in early 1930’s Berlin. They want passion. They want romance.
But they ARE the Nazis, and they have no Communists. The real Liberals are the Republicans, who continue to value civility and negotiation as ideals, even if the lunacy of the Democrats and Left generally make these generally unreachable goals. We continue to hope we can return to rational argumentation, to civil discourse, to congenial disagreement. We continue to hope our experiment, our UTOPIAN experiment, of generalizing political freedom, will not end in suicide.