So a Republican club invited the leader of a far-right street gang to give a talk praising political assassination, the gang beat people up in the street, and the Republican club complains that counter-protesters infringed on the gang’s freedom of speech.
It definitely seems like conservative elites are cynically appealing to liberal values (e.g. freedom of speech) to excuse a street gang that embraces street violence and praises political violence. There is a name for that.
This is literally the politics of fascism. Maybe “fascism” is such a loaded term that for most people it’s become meaningless. Maybe we should find a different word to describe this. But I think it’s important to recognize this phenomenon, whatever we decide to call it.
