And so the good people of Charlottesville, along with a fair number of masked anti-fascists and anarchists from god knows where, took to the streets on July 8. They drowned out the Klansmen with their own taunts and threats, tried to block them from driving away after the rally, and turned their ire toward the cops for “protecting” the Klan. The Charlottesville Police Department made matters worse, ordering the protesters to disperse in short order, then tear-gassing them in the ensuing chaos. Twenty-three protesters landed in jail. As Slate’s Jamelle Bouie noted in his eyewitness account, “if anyone was in danger, it was the Klan members, not the protesters.”
New Republic, “The Left’s Supporting Role in American Hate Theater”
