(Far-right protesters and far-left counter-protesters fight in the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday.)

WASHINGTON – Leftists claim they are fighting hate and violence, and they cite the deadly protest in Charlottesville, Virginia, as a prime example.

But the evidence indicates the left is actually spreading hate and violence.

Those are the conclusions of writers for two prominent left-leaning news outlets, the BBC and the Atlantic.

TRENDING: Undercover journalist turns the tables, sues Planned Parenthood for defamation

Their articles describe in detail how the taste for violence is seeping from the fringe left into its mainstream.

Peter Beinart's article for next month's issue of the Atlantic is titled, "The Rise of the Violent Left."

Brenna Cammeron's article for the BBC on Monday was headlined, "Antifa: Left-wing militants on the rise."

Beinart found:

"Antifa’s violent tactics have elicited substantial support from the mainstream left."

"[I]n the Trump era, the (violent leftist) movement is growing like never before."

"From Middlebury to Berkeley to Portland," the use of violence to deny "Trump supporters their political rights ... is on the rise, especially among young people."

Cammeron discovered, while the "violence and murder of a protester in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend has been attributed to far-right elements ... many conservatives say blame should be shared by (the violent leftist group) Antifa."

That was confirmed from the scene by New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg, who tweeted, "The hard left seemed as hate-filled as alt-right. I saw club-wielding 'antifa' beating white nationalists being led out of the park."

That insight ran counter to the major media narrative that what happened over the weekend in Charlottesville was a prime example of right-wing violence.

Like the reporting you see here? Sign up for free news alerts from WND.com, America's independent news network.

That's because it was a rare clash of actual extremists, due to the presence of white supremacists among the rightists protesting the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville.

However, Antifa and other leftists actually have been regularly attacking mainstream Republicans ever since President Trump became a candidate.

Simply put, the difference is that there were never any right-wing mobs attacking Hillary Clinton supporters, while attacks on Trump supporters by leftists became a familiar sight during the 2016 presidential campaign. And long after.

And, while there is no evidence of a growing right-wing extremist movement, even left-leaning journalists have found abundant evidence of a rapidly growing violent left-wing movement, as well as signs of it going mainstream, along with an increasing normalization of political violence.

Although the name is supposed to stand for "anti-fascist," John Hinderaker of the Powerline blog described Antifa as actually "a fascist group that has also rioted at Washington, Berkeley, Seattle and other places, (that) typically wears black clothes and masks, arms its members with baseball bats, ax handles and 2x4s, and often attacks random people on the street."

He called the group's behavior in Charlottesville as "not much better than usual," while adding rhetorically, "Who, exactly, brings bats and clubs to a demonstration?"

The left held 47 protests, many violent, against Trump from the day he announced his candidacy for president on June 16, 2015, until his election on Nov. 9, 2016.

That doesn't include dozens of furious anti-Trump protests, some of which became riots, immediately following the election, in major cities around the nation and the around the world.

In his Atlantic piece, Beinart recalled how leftists "punched and threw eggs at people exiting a Trump rally in San Jose, California," in June last year, which a website associated with Antifa celebrated as "righteous beatings."

And how, a few weeks later, 10 people were stabbed at a counter-demonstration by Anti-Fascist Action Sacramento.

Included among all the violent protests after the inauguration of Trump as president, WND reported on the outright call for violence by a Black Lives Matter speaker at an anti-Trump rally in Seattle on Jan. 31.

(Caution: Strong Language – this video contains repeated obscenities)

A woman who described herself as a preschool teacher declared, "We need to start killing people."

"First off, we need to start killing the White House," she added. "The White House must die. The White House, your f---ing White House, your f---ing presidents, they must go! F--- the White House.”

And, “F--- white supremacy, f--- the U.S. empire, f--- your imperialist a-- lives. That s--- gotta go.

Beinart further described how leftist violence has actually increased since Trump became president.

In Portland, Oregon, "Masked protesters smashed store windows during multiday demonstrations following Trump’s election," then, at another rally on June 4, "Antifa activists threw bricks until the police dispersed them with stun grenades and tear gas."

"Demonstrators have interrupted so many city-council meetings that in February, the council met behind locked doors."

"A similar cycle has played out at U.C. Berkeley," observed Beinart. "In February, masked antifascists broke store windows and hurled Molotov cocktails and rocks at police during a rally against the planned speech by Milo Yiannopoulos."

"The result," Beinart concluded, "is a level of sustained political street warfare not seen in the U.S. since the 1960s."

It is, no doubt, because of the increasing violence by the left, that President Trump has insisted on condemning the violence "by both sides" in the clash over the weekend in Charlottesville.

That has enraged the establishment media, as demonstrated at an explosive press conference by the president on Tuesday at Trump Tower in New York.

The major media, Democrats and even establishment Republicans such as Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell and John Kasich have insisted on placing all the blame for the weekend violence on the neo-Nazis at the Charlottesville protests, while ignoring legions of violent leftist counter-protesters.

"What about the 'alt-left' that came charging them?" Trump rhetorically asked a combative press.

"Excuse me. What about the alt-left that came charging at the – as you say, the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt? ... Let me ask you this. What about the fact they came charging – that they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs? Do they have any problem? I think they do."

"You had a group on one side and you had a group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs and it was vicious and it was horrible. And it was a horrible thing to watch. But there is another side," insisted the president, adding, "I think there's blame on both sides."

Trump also maintained, "But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides ... You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name."

"Not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists, by any stretch," declared the president.

Trump had stated a demonstrable truth, recorded by cameras, that there was violence from both sides. But, for some reason, that assertion enraged the press, which responded by trying to portray the president as defending the Nazis.

"Do you think what you call the alt-left is the same as neo-Nazis?" asked one reporter.

"Mr. President, are you putting what you're calling the alt-left and white supremacists on the same moral plane?" asked another.

"I'm not putting anybody on a moral plane," shot back the president. "What I'm saying is this: You had a group on one side and you had a group on the other and they came at each other with clubs. And it was vicious and it was horrible and it was a horrible thing to watch. But there is another side."

"I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists," the president explained, "because they should be condemned totally – but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, OK? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly."

In other words, the president described a mix of good and bad people among the protesters on the right. And then he described the counter-protesters on the left in the same terms.

Trump observed the counter-protesters were a mix of ordinary people and violent leftists: "You had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats."

But the press insisted that was making a moral equivalence between the ordinary counter-protesters on the left and the Nazi protesters on the right, while ignoring the violent leftists entirely.

(Leftist protesters topple a statue of a Confederate soldier, then kick and spit on it, Monday in Durham, N.C. Four people were arrested Wednesday on various charges, including rioting and property damage.)



Despite the fact journalists have traditionally regarded telling both sides of a story the most important part of their job, an editorial in the Washington Post on Wednesday ridiculed the president for saying there are "two sides to a story,” claiming that was a "false moral equivalency."

After acknowledging the president had "complained that not everyone who came to the 'Unite the Right' rally was a neo-Nazi or white nationalist," the Post then incongruously claimed, "These comments suggest very strongly that the president of the United States sees moral equivalence between Nazis and those who oppose Nazis."

In other words, despite the president's explicit condemnation of the Nazis, his recognition that there were non-Nazis among the protesters on the right was attacked by the Post as support of the Nazis.

And, despite that glaring contradiction, that is the charge now leveled by the president throughout the establishment media, Democrats and establishment Republicans.

In Tuesday's increasingly surreal press conference, one reporter actually asked the president of the United States, "Are you against the Confederacy?"

But, noting that the nation's first president was a slave owner, Trump countered: "So, this week it's Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson's coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week?

"And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you all – you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?"

"It’s easy to see where this is going,” because, "Five of our first seven presidents were slave owners," observed WND Managing Editor David Kupelian, the best-selling author of WND Books' "The Snapping of the American Mind."

Get David Kupelian's culture-war blockbusters: "The Marketing of Evil," "How Evil Works" and his latest, "The Snapping of the American Mind" at the WND Superstore.

He continued, "After the Civil War memorials and statues are torn down all across America, what will the left's next target be? It's obvious: Memorials commemorating America's founding generation – people like George Washington, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, all of whom owned slaves."

That was echoed Tuesday night by Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, who observed 41 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were slave owners.

He noted slavery was once so ubiquitous that even Native Americans such as the Cherokees owned slaves, long before the arrival of Columbus.

And that if slavery was used as the standard by which to judge historical figures from the past, then no one was safe, including Lincoln.

Related stories:

Setup? Man behind white-supremacist rally supported Obama

Black leader: Where were cops during Charlottesville 'mayhem'?

Big-name Republicans defend violent left

Related columns:

The alt-left vs. the alt-right by Joseph Farah

Understanding Charlottesville: Antifa and agitprop by Jack Cashill

Elites got a two-fer in Charlottesville chaos by Scott Lively

When liberals club people, it's with love in their hearts by Ann Couter

David Duke still matters -- who knew? by Larry Elder

Indeed, the Lincoln Memorial, dedicated to the president who freed the slaves, was defaced Tuesday with red spray paint that appeared read, "F--- law."

"But," further observed Kupelian, "this is not, at its deepest level, even really about slavery or racism. What the left is really intent on is annihilating and replacing America's core operating system – the Constitution."

"Leftist true believers have contempt for the Constitution because it prescribes a system of very limited government, while what they want is an all-powerful government – with them in charge. Thus they will attempt to overturn the Constitution – like a hated Civil War statue – by discrediting and demonizing those 'white slave-owners' who gave that Constitution to us."

Hatred for traditional America and ordinary Americans by the left can be seen rising along with its use of violence.

Beinart described how the leftist group Direct Action Alliance targeted Portland's annual Rose Festival because of the Republican Party of Multnomah County planned to take part.

Direct Action Alliance declared, “Fascists plan to march through the streets,” and warned, “Nazis will not march through Portland unopposed.”

The reporter described how, "The alliance said it didn’t object to the Multnomah GOP itself, but to 'fascists' who planned to infiltrate its ranks." Yet, Beinart found the leftists also denouncing mainstream marchers with "Trump flags" and "red MAGA hats" who could “normalize support" for a candidate who was "waging a war of hate, racism and prejudice."

In other words, hatred of mainstream Republicans was justified because of their ostensible enabling of the "racist" Trump.

Another leftist group, Oregon Students Empowered, created a Facebook page called “Shut down fascism! No nazis in Portland!”

Essentially, everyday Republicans had become the same as Nazis in the eyes of the radical left.

To make that sentiment crystal clear, Markos Moulitsas, the leftist founder of the Daily Kos website, tweeted Sunday, "NRA and American conservatives/Nazis are one and the same."

To remove any doubt about what he meant, Moulitsas added, "Media and so many still want to pretend we don't have a neo-Nazi in the White House."

So what's going on here?

How did America so suddenly arrive at the point where leftists are accusing mainstream Republicans, and the president they elected, of being Nazis? And using that to justify violent attacks?

It didn't really happen overnight, according to one well-known political observer on the right.

"The mob mentality follows demagoguery," former GOP presidential candidate and Rep. Michele Bachmann told WND.

"What we're witnessing is the fruit of decades of our federally captured public education system. Given hundreds of billions of dollars to spend, public educators in general chose to scuttle teaching objective knowledge facts and information."

She continued, "In its place they've indoctrinated our kids with Marxist/statist/totalitarian attitudes, values and beliefs. The result is a young populace in love with its self-righteousness, and clueless of its ignorance of objective fact."

Indoctrinating students with leftist values has been long-documented by numerous scholarly studies that have detailed the "long march" by Cultural Marxists through American academia, the media, Hollywood and Washington, ever since the end of World War II.

Those studies include the critically acclaimed book "The Devil’s Pleasure Palace," by Disney screenwriter and New York Post op-ed columnist Michael Walsh, who told WND last year that the problem lay in Critical Theory, the brainchild of the Frankfurt School, which has come to dominate thinking in American academia with its call to question any and everything.

Walsh said the theory in practice has become an attack on everything of value. He described the real goal of Critical Theory as an attempt to demolish Western civilization.

The author described the work of the Frankfurt School scholars as grounded in an ideology that performed “an unremitting assault on Western values and institutions, including Christianity, the family, conventional sexual morality, nationalistic patriotism … Literally nothing was sacred.”

Those observations were parallel to Bachmann's, who told WND Wednesday, "For decades our public schools have systematically removed America's Judeo-Christian foundations. An easily led mob is the result."

"Emotion and virtue signaling have replaced knowledge and reason," she added. "As the scripture teaches, when the foundations are removed, what can the people do?"

There is evidence that reason is quite literally being removed from American academia, and that it is increasingly seen as racist by academics.

Why racist?

Because reason was invented by white people, according to philosophy and religion professor John Caputo of Syracuse University.

“I think that what modern philosophers call ‘pure’ reason – the Cartesian ego cogito and Kant’s transcendental consciousness – is a white male Euro-Christian construction,” said Caputo in an interview with the New York Times in 2015.

He explained that "whiteness" had infected reason with racism because such expressions as the "lily whiteness" of "pure reason" were prejudiced.

And that philosophers had equated whiteness with rationality and that everything irrational was "colored."

The bottom line is American academia has reached the point where it is teaching students that reason is racist and not logical or moral.

And that is not unrelated to the rise in leftist violence, according to Bachmann.

"Without change, violence will continue to increase," she asserted. "If our public education system re-embraced teaching objective knowledge, facts and information, it would take a generation to see the results."

Despite painting a bleak outlook, Bachmann was not without hope.

"If America experienced a spiritual reawakening of the God of the Bible we could see a fairly immediate change."

And she counseled faith.

"That is why the best response is not to despair and curse the darkness, but instead to fervently apply ourselves to prayer beseeching heaven for divine intervention."

"History proves this is the only method that works."

Get the hottest, most important news stories on the Internet – delivered FREE to your inbox as soon as they break! Take just 30 seconds and sign up for WND's Email News Alerts!