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The “entartistes” of the 1990s were a group of Quebec-based mischief-makers who threw cream pies in the faces of political and corporate elites. Amongst their victims: Jacques Parizeau, Stéphane Dion, Jean Chrétien, and BMO head Matthew Barrett. Their motto was “You work for us. You can’t be too big for your britches or you’ll get a pie in the face.”

Reaction was divided. Some saw in the campaign only the humour of political satire. Others saw it as low-level terrorism. I don’t find anarchy funny in any form. I imagined being pied as a frightening shock to the victim. Pies — and milkshakes, the current trend, which began in the U.K. with anti-Brexiteers — thrown by light-hearted satirists can act as dog whistles to dark-hearted revolutionaries. If someone can get to you with a pie, after all, he can get to you with acid.

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Or a milkshake with quick-drying cement in it that can cause burns, as alleged in a recent assault on conservative reporter Andy Ngo, out on his regular beat covering an Antifa confrontation with the far-right Proud Boys in downtown Portland, Ore. Masked Antifa members, who loathe Ngo for his continual exposure of their aggression and lawlessness, first milkshaked him, then stole his camera and launched a (video-captured) vicious assault on the slight, defenceless journalist. The Portland police were typically slow to act. At the hospital, a brain bleed was discovered.