DONALD Trump has slammed both the “alt-right” and the “alt-left” for violent scenes in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend that left three dead and scores injured.

James Alex Fields Jr of Ohio, a 20-year-old Nazi sympathiser, has been charged with murder and other counts after a fatal hit-and-run crash that killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injured 19 others.

After initially condemning violence “on both sides”, Mr Trump later gave in to pressure to specifically denounce the KKK, Neo-Nazis and white supremacists. On Tuesday, he returned to his previous attack on far-left protesters, which included members from extremist groups Antifa and Black Lives Matter.

“What about the alt-left that came charging at the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt?” Mr Trump told reporters. “What about the fact that they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs — do they have any problem? I think they do.

“As far as I’m concerned, that was a horrible, horrible day ... you had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent — and nobody wants to say that, but I’ll say it now. You had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit and they were very, very violent.”

Antifa, who claim to be “anti-fascists”, are a loosely organised group of far-left anarchist extremists who focus on “perceived injustices” involving “racism, sexism and anti-Semitism”, according to the New Jersey Department of Homeland Security, which lists the group under domestic terrorist organisations.

Antifa has its roots in 1930s Germany’s Antifaschistische Aktion, a group formed to combat the Nazis, which was dissolved by Hitler in 1933 and revived during in 1980s with the rise of Neo-Nazism.

“Violent confrontations between Antifa members and white supremacists — as well as militia groups — will likely continue because of ideological differences and Antifa’s ability to organise on social media,” Homeland Security writes.

“In the past year, Antifa groups have become active across the United States, employing a variety of methods to disrupt demonstrations.”

James Anderson, one of a group of people who run a popular Antifa news website called It’s Going Down, told the BBC his traffic had grown from about 300 hits a day in 2015 to 20,000 daily, and his Twitter handle had gained 2000 new followers since Saturday.

Following clashes at a free speech rally in Berkeley in April, one Antifa member wrote: “Every Nazi that gets punched is a victory. We must realise that these days are going to become more and more common, unless we put a nail in this coffin once and for all.”

While the weekend’s clashes were between Antifa and genuine Neo-Nazis, the group and its supporters in the broader community have increasingly justified violence against all conservatives through the “Nazi” label.

Last week, for example, Google employees labelled sacked engineer James Damore a “Nazi” for penning a memo critical of what he called the company’s left-wing “ideological echo chamber”. “And you should absolutely punch Nazis,” one colleague wrote.

In the past year, Antifa and associated groups have been responsible for scores of violent incidents, including riots which forced the cancellation of a Trump rally in Chicago and left two police officers seriously injured, assaults on women and the elderly, and a riot at the University of California Berkeley where students trying to attend a speech by alt-right personality Milo Yiannopoulos were pepper sprayed and beaten unconscious with weapons.

Conservatives have accused the media of giving Antifa a free pass and largely downplaying the violence, while focusing attention on fringe racists like former KKK leader David Duke and white supremacist Richard Spencer to highlight their radical views.

“In last year’s presidential campaign Hillary Clinton was endorsed by Will Quigg, ‘grand dragon’ of the Ku Klux Klan’s California chapter,” Times columnist Melanie Phillips wrote on Tuesday. “Quigg’s support of Clinton was rightly dismissed as either mischief-making or barking mad. Yet when such people support Trump, this is held to define him.

“A white supremacist called Richard Spencer invented the blanket term ‘alt-right’ to associate his ilk with conservatives seeking merely to defend American identity and core values. Through this tactic, Spencer intended to boost the far right and simultaneously smear and thus destroy regular conservatives.

“The left has seized upon this smear with unbridled joy, routinely using the ‘alt-right’ term to try to destroy the national identity agenda by bracketing it with white supremacism. The result is a powerful boost for the far right. From deserved obscurity, they suddenly find the left are transmitting their every utterance to the world.”

As the violence escalates, there have been growing calls for a crackdown on Antifa.

In the US, a Change.org petition calling on the Trump administration to declare Antifa a terrorist organisation has attracted nearly 100,000 signatures, while a similar petition in Australia — launched after News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt was attacked on a Melbourne street by two masked men — has nearly 8000 signatures.

“Antifa thinks of itself as standing up to fascists, but is filled up with anarchists and others who are as fascistic as the supposed fascists they are beating,” Fox News host Erick Erickson wrote on Monday.

“The left gives them a level of moral right to do it because of who their opponents are. In reality, Antifa and the white supremacists are two sides of a common coin. The country seems headed down a path between right wing authoritarianism and left wing totalitarianism. Those of us who want nothing to do with either should be willing to call out both sides.”

‘THE POLICING WAS NOT EFFECTIVE’

It comes as the American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday hit back at Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe after he partially blamed the organisation for the weekend’s violence.

The City of Charlottesville had attempted to move the “Unite the Right” rally — protesting the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee — but it went ahead after the ACLU launched a successful legal challenge.

“The City of Charlottesville asked for [the demonstration] to be moved out of downtown Charlottesville to a park about a mile and a half away to a park with a lot of open fields,” Gov. McAuliffe told NPR on Monday. “That was the place where it should have been. We were unfortunately sued by the ACLU. The judge ruled against us. That rally should not have been in the middle of downtown.”

Claire Gastanaga, executive director of the Virginia branch of the ACLU, slammed Gov. McAuliffe’s comments and accused the police, acting under the direction of Charlottesville’s Democratic mayor, of intentionally allowing the violence to occur.

“We are horrified by the violence that took place in Charlottesville on Saturday and the tragic loss of life that resulted from it,” she said in a statement. “The ACLU of Virginia does not support violence. We do not support Nazis. We support the Constitution and laws of the United States.

“[Let’s] be clear: our lawsuit challenging the city to act constitutionally did not cause violence nor did it in any way address the question whether demonstrators could carry sticks or other weapons at the events.

“It is the responsibility of law enforcement to ensure safety of both protesters and counter-protesters. The policing on Saturday was not effective in preventing violence.

“I was there and brought concerns directly to the secretary of public safety and the head of the Virginia State Police about the way that the barricades in the park limiting access by the arriving demonstrators and the lack of any physical separation of the protesters and counter-protesters on the street were contributing to the potential of violence.

“They did not respond. In fact, law enforcement was standing passively by, seeming to be waiting for violence to take place, so that they would have grounds to declare an emergency, declare an ‘unlawful assembly’ and clear the area.”

In February, Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer held a rally declaring the city the “capital of the resistance” during the Trump presidency. Mr Signer said he would work with Virginia Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine — Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential running mate — whose son was charged in connection with a violent counter protest at a Trump rally in May.

frank.chung@news.com.au