Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick pushes back against Antifa.

Police in El Paso, Texas, have arrested Patrick Crusius, 21, of Allen, Texas, for the murder of 20 people, with 26 wounded at this writing. The carnage was still being sorted out on Saturday when Democrats began unloading on President Trump.

“He is a racist, and he stokes racism in this country,” presidential candidate Robert Francis O’Rourke, who likes to be called “Beto,” told reporters in El Paso. “We’ve had a rise in hate crimes every single one of the last three years.” In similar style, “I do think Trump’s rhetoric has fueled more hate in this country,” opined Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. In all the sound and fury, the media failed to give full attention to a statement by Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick to the group calling itself Antifa.

“Stay out of El Paso,” Patrick told Fox News, “We didn't need them to begin with before this happened. I would say to Antifa: scratch Texas off the map and don't come in. It’s not the time and place for them to come at any time, but particularly in aftermath of what just happened in El Paso.”

Patrick’s warning came 29 days before Antifa’s “Border Resistance” training tour slated for Texas. Journalist Andy Ngo, recently attacked and injured by Antifa, posted materials for the ten-day “Call to Action” in El Paso. This was hardly the only justification for Patrick’s warning.

Antifa purports to be an “anti-fascist” movement, but in a classic example of projection, it is in fact a fascist group, right down to the wardrobe. Mussolini’s Blackshirts, Camicie Nere, were violent leftist thugs. In similar style, the Antifa movement is a squadre d’azione surging from a rump of leftist groups such as the Revolutionary Communist Party.

They believe the United States of America is a Nazi state and their demands include the removal of President Trump and vice president Pence. The group deploys intimidation and violence against peaceful, innocent civilians but has found favor among Democrats and so-called “progressives.” Former vice president Joe Biden has called the group “courageous” and CNN host Chris Cuomo explains that “fighting hate is right” and “those who oppose it are on the side of right.” So on the left, blackshirts matter a great deal, and meet little resistance.

Antifa has spearheaded violent demonstrations in Berkeley, California, with relative impunity. During Antifa actions in Oregon, as Law Enforcement Today recalls, “Portland officers have repeatedly been told to stand down.” Mayor Andy Wheeler “tends to side with the liberal agenda,” and “things have gotten violent a number of times.” In Portland last month, Antifa thugs attacked conservative journalist Andy Ngo, who called attention to the blackshirts’ coming action at the border.

President Trump noted the attack on Ngo and tweeted “Consideration is being given to declaring ANTIFA, the gutless Radical Left Wack Jobs who go around hitting (only non-fighters) people over the heads with baseball bats, a major Organization of Terror (along with MS-13 & others). Would make it easier for police to do their job!”

Republican Senators Bill Cassidy and Ted Cruz, introduced legislation that would designate the group as a domestic terrorist organization. “Antifa are terrorists, violent masked bullies who ‘fight fascism’ with actual fascism, protected by Liberal privilege,” Cassidy said in a statement. “Elected officials must have courage, not cowardice, to prevent terror.”

Dan Patrick, one of the few with the courage to push back, told Antifa to “stay out of El Paso” and “stay out of Texas.” Whether they will stay out remains uncertain, and Democrats remain passive with the blackshirts. Beto O’Rourke, for example, has been rather quiet about Antifa and the website I Side With is currently “researching his stance” on the issue.

O’Rourke also kept quiet after a Bernie Sanders supporter named James Hodgkinson, who belonged to a group called “Terminate the Republican Party,” opened fire with a high-powered rifle on a group of Republicans playing baseball. Sanders was quick to denounce the “despicable act” which nearly took the life of Rep. Steve Scalise. Many Democrats and their media allies were slow to join in, but always quick to blame President Trump for any mass shooting. The previous president got a free pass.

In 2009 at Fort Hood, Texas, Nidal Hasan a self-described “soldier of Allah,” gunned down 13 unarmed American soldiers and wounded more than 30. President Obama called the mass murder “workplace violence,” not even gun violence. Democrats did not say similar attacks were more likely on the watch of a president who said the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.

The day after El Paso shooting, a gunman killed nine in Dayton, Ohio. President Trump ordered flags at half-staff in remembrance of the victims of two “senseless attacks” in less than a day. Sunday afternoon the president tweeted, “Melania and I are praying for all those impacted by this unspeakable act of evil!”

In El Paso, meanwhile, shooter Patrick Crusius is in custody and the mass murder will be prosecuted as a hate crime. As Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said, “We’re never going to give up to the shooters, never going to give up to the lawbreakers.”