Has antifa jumped the shark?

The Washington Post headline for its report of yesterday's violence in California reads significantly: "Black-clad antifa members attack peaceful right-wing demonstrators in Berkeley." The story itself reports that the usual black bloc types took the offensive against people identified as Trump supporters -- people who chose to express themselves despite being warned to stay home by organizers of an aborted "No to Marxism in America" rally. The story serves as a reminder, if not a revelation to some, that leftists often have been the aggressors in confrontations with right-wingers or Trump supporters since the President took office. These aggressors no more represent the left as a whole than any gathering of "alt" or "old" right represents the opposition as a whole. The black-bloc attackers reportedly represented about 100 people out of an estimated 7,000 people who showed up for a counter-demonstration against "No to Marxism." The mayor of Berkeley called out the attackers, stating that "Fighting hate with hate does not work and only makes each side more entrenched in their ideological camps.” It's an admirable sentiment, but will he back up words with actions? What is to be done about antifa? Ideally the term should become a pejorative as the peaceful opposition to Trump and Republicanism distances itself more distinctly from those who claim license to beat up "fascists" and "haters" while applying those labels to nearly everyone to their right. Shunning may not be enough, however. Ironically, one way to tame antifa might be to borrow from the old anti-Klan playbook and ban the wearing of masks and hoods in public by adults. At the same time, an old-fashioned civics lesson about tolerance for those we disagree with, or deeply dislike, couldn't hurt. It needs to be said authoritatively, from the left, that the Trump movement is not -- or is not merely white America's war against the world, before the widespread assumption that it is becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The worst thing that could happen over the next three years is for people to refuse to listen to Trump supporters, even if they're mostly wrong about things, for the express reason that they're white, as that might only encourage a counter-assumption that only white people are capable of citizenship on the terms Trumpists might deem necessary. The next-worst thing is to keep running around calling Trump people "fascists" when most of them probably haven't had a truly fascist thought in their entire lives -- though they probably have an idea by now of what real stormtroopers look like.