It was easy to fret over the fighting, its optics and its effects, whether the sucker punch given to the openly white supremacist leader and Trump supporter Richard Spencer was an appropriate expression of disapproval for his promotion of racism. But politicians and pundits have been saying for the last year that a Trump presidency was an existential threat to American democracy; on the day the man was sworn in as leader of the free world, the anarchists and antifascists were the only ones acting like they believed it. Two hundred and thirty protesters were arrested, the majority of them on “felony rioting” charges that carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

Continue Reading