On Sunday, a relatively small group of white nationalists, under the banner of “Unite the Right,” chose to make an ostentatious celebration of the anniversary of their rally in Charlottesville — the one in which one of their number killed a counterprotester with his car. This time, they protested directly in front of the White House.

Naturally, this attracted a significantly larger counterprotest, filled mostly with goodwill opponents of their racist ideology. But the hooligan-like behavior of some in the crowd, who threw eggs and water bottles and shot fireworks at journalists and the police, served as a reminder that the Hitler Junior crowd, odious as they are, are a much smaller and less threatening gang than the so-called "antifa," that mob of militant leftists known for their political street violence.

Fortunately, their uncivil antics were kept far milder than usual, in spite of their own best efforts to provoke a police confrontation. But bear in mind that both their numbers and their reach are far and away greater than anything the pathetic nationalists could ever muster. Their reach is also truly national.

Unlike the crowd that appeared last year in Charlottesville to universal condemnation, these rioters, with their cop-killer rhetoric and their skull-cracking, window-smashing tactics of political persuasion, now hold sway over many weak-minded politicians who sympathize with, collaborate with, or fear them too much to resist.

Even to call them "antifa" or "anti-fascist" is a mistake, an uncritical acceptance of their own euphemisms. Although they are a mix of Marxists and anarchists, they derive that term from Stalinist propaganda that started in the 1930s and picked up again in the 1940s after the Soviet Union abandoned its alliance with Nazi Germany. This word was used by the Soviet communists not only to help in the war effort, but also to reinforce their tyrannical domestic rule.

“Anti-fascism,” it turns out, is a great excuse for government to make people do anything you want them to do. Why, the Berlin Wall, from its construction in 1961, was always referred to behind the Iron Curtain as the "anti-fascist barrier," implying that it was there to keep out harmful Western influences.

It is in that spirit that this current crop of violent protesters and their allergy to dissenting views must be understood. They reject not just the current imperfect state of America, but its very founding vision. They would replace the Constitution and laws that made this country great with a single-party dictatorship. They are totalitarians who merely lack the formal power of a state to oppress and bludgeon dissenters with the full force of law behind them.

For now, the violent Left must instead settle for using lawless intimidation.

And why not, when they mostly get away with it? Their behavior at the inauguration riots in D.C. is going mostly unpunished. And they have been so bold as to use threats to shut down events in various cities, including Portland, Ore., and Berkeley, Calif., where city officials have at times shrugged and looked the other way as their citizens — not all of them Nazis, even — are deplatformed by violent threats, and those issuing the threats enjoy sanctuary.

Meanwhile, in contrast to President Trump’s verbal criticism of journalists, these left-wing provocateurs actually attack journalists for documenting events as they unfold. They did so on Sunday (at least Trump doesn’t call anyone a “ snitch ass news bitch ”), and as they have done previously on other occasions .

This is a dangerous time in the life of the nation. The violent Left wants to take advantage of a rise in popular belief in the illegitimacy of the United States government. They are also trying to use their battle with white nationalists in order to gain sympathy from ordinary people for their vile cause.

Beware, therefore, that when you call them nice names like “anti-fascist,” you are helping them achieve that goal.