ANALYZING THE CHARLOTTESVILLE VIOLENCE

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GaryK
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Re: ANALYZING THE CHARLOTTESVILLE VIOLENCE

Post by GaryK »

Bootstrap wrote:
GaryK wrote:It seems you are completely overlooking the whole point of the article Mike Atnip (not Ernie) wrote and are trying to turn this into something it's not meant to be. The point of the article is to analyze the violence that happened between the "extremes".
Possibly - we seem to be reading it differently. Can you tell me how you are reading it, giving me an outline of the article as you see it?

I think the main issue I have with the article is that it doesn't seemed focused on that. I suspect that another round of editing would be helpful. For instance:
Several so-called “Alt-Right” (meaning, strong “conservative” or “right-wing” political ideology) groups planned a rally for August 12 in Charlottesville, Virginia.
I'm sure he doesn't mean to make conservatives look bad, but surely "strong conservative" and "right-wing extremist" are not the same thing. I see quite a few statements that imply things that are not true, and don't seem related to the main point you say he is trying to make.
I think Hats Off explained it well in his post. Have you read it? Nobody is saying the editing couldn't have been better or that Mike got everything right. But I think he gives a pretty accurate description of what caused the violence.
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Re: ANALYZING THE CHARLOTTESVILLE VIOLENCE

Post by GaryK »

Bootstrap wrote:Incidentally, here's the best source I can find looking at the claims made by all sides on whether the driver was acting in self-defense, listing the charges, quoting the relevant law, etc.

http://www.factcheck.org/2017/08/driver ... f-defense/

That might suggest further changes to the article in the OP, which doesn't seem accurate on the current level of evidence. Better yet, avoid taking sides, since evidence is certainly going to be dribbling in over time.

Incidentally, does the Plain News list the sources it draws on for an article? I am not a subscriber, so I could not see the online version.
Once again, Mike is including the account of the driver because that was a major part of the violence that occurred which tragically ended in the death of a young lady. Whether he got all the details right to your satisfaction is sort of beside the point of the article. Do any of us claim to know with certainty everything about Charlottesville? One can find about anything needed online to bolster ones point of view.
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Re: ANALYZING THE CHARLOTTESVILLE VIOLENCE

Post by Bootstrap »

GaryK wrote:Once again, Mike is including the account of the driver because that was a major part of the violence that occurred which tragically ended in the death of a young lady. Whether he got all the details right to your satisfaction is sort of beside the point of the article. Do any of us claim to know with certainty everything about Charlottesville? One can find about anything needed online to bolster ones point of view.
I agree that you can find any point of view you want online, including photoshopped images and doctored videos. I think that's the point I'm making. As far as I can tell, Mike seems to have picked up on a story originating at The Department of Memes, which was picked up by several web sites. Is there better evidence for that claim?

Here's what the Charlottesville Police Department reported:

Image

That's a pretty good account from a first-hand source. The FactCheck account discusses where this story originated and how it spread, and compares the Department of Memes video to a longer one:
The Department of Memes story was picked up by several conservative websites, including one from commentator and former congressman Allen B. West.

In the video, it does appear that a pedestrian struck the back of Fields’ car with an object. But it isn’t clear from that video or others shared by the media that the driver had slowed, or that he was “behaving normally” prior to that. A longer version of the same video clip shows the car speeding down the street toward the crowd.
Here's that longer video, which really does not seem to show what the Department of Memes describes. A jury is going to look at various videos, but Mike's account seems to be going beyond reliable truth. If he's trying to give a fair account of the violence, based on what we know so far, I'd probably leave a lot of the more speculative stuff out, rely on first-hand sources whenever possible, and cite the sources.

Otherwise you run the danger of picking up memes manufactured by the various sides.
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Re: ANALYZING THE CHARLOTTESVILLE VIOLENCE

Post by GaryK »

Bootstrap wrote:
GaryK wrote:Once again, Mike is including the account of the driver because that was a major part of the violence that occurred which tragically ended in the death of a young lady. Whether he got all the details right to your satisfaction is sort of beside the point of the article. Do any of us claim to know with certainty everything about Charlottesville? One can find about anything needed online to bolster ones point of view.
I agree that you can find any point of view you want online, including photoshopped images and doctored videos. I think that's the point I'm making. As far as I can tell, Mike seems to have picked up on a story originating at The Department of Memes, which was picked up by several web sites. Is there better evidence for that claim?

Here's what the Charlottesville Police Department reported:

Image

That's a pretty good account from a first-hand source. The FactCheck account discusses where this story originated and how it spread, and compares the Department of Memes video to a longer one:
The Department of Memes story was picked up by several conservative websites, including one from commentator and former congressman Allen B. West.

In the video, it does appear that a pedestrian struck the back of Fields’ car with an object. But it isn’t clear from that video or others shared by the media that the driver had slowed, or that he was “behaving normally” prior to that. A longer version of the same video clip shows the car speeding down the street toward the crowd.
Here's that longer video, which really does not seem to show what the Department of Memes describes. A jury is going to look at various videos, but Mike's account seems to be going beyond reliable truth. If he's trying to give a fair account of the violence, based on what we know so far, I'd probably leave a lot of the more speculative stuff out, rely on first-hand sources whenever possible, and cite the sources.

Otherwise you run the danger of picking up memes manufactured by the various sides.
It seems to me that you are more focused on disproving what Mike is suggesting could be a possible reason for the driver doing what he did than you are in whether he's giving an accurate account of what happened as it relates to the violence. In general do you agree with his analysis of the violence?
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Re: ANALYZING THE CHARLOTTESVILLE VIOLENCE

Post by Ernie »

Bootstrap wrote:Mike's account seems to be going beyond reliable truth.
Otherwise you run the danger of picking up memes manufactured by the various sides.
Mike says the driver may or may not have had evil intentions. I think that is fair at this stage of the process.
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Re: ANALYZING THE CHARLOTTESVILLE VIOLENCE

Post by Bootstrap »

Ernie wrote:
Bootstrap wrote:Mike's account seems to be going beyond reliable truth.
Otherwise you run the danger of picking up memes manufactured by the various sides.
Mike says the driver may or may not have had evil intentions. I think that is fair at this stage of the process.
I think that's fair, and I really do think we should let the courts sort this out. And we should avoid speculating on people's motivations.

Mike gave a really detailed timeline of the car attack that surprised me, and the timeline leads to a very different conclusion than the Charlottesville police, eyewitnesses, victims, and the Department of Justice are currently expressing. But in any event like this, we'll see multiple timelines, different views of the videos, new facts will come in, and it takes time to sort out what is true. Personally, I would have left out the detailed timeline, or at least include the official accounts. Over time, we'll see which narratives are true.
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Re: ANALYZING THE CHARLOTTESVILLE VIOLENCE

Post by Bootstrap »

GaryK wrote:In general do you agree with his analysis of the violence?
I agree with most of it. I think it does a really excellent job of describing Antifa's contribution to the violence, but tends to tone down the White Supremacist contribution, and pays little attention to the accounts given by the police and other officials. In a few places, it seems to be taking sides, and I think that's unfortunate.

I'm not plain and I don't come from your culture, so I may be missing some of what the Plain News is trying to accomplish. And I have read only the few articles that find their way here, I am not a subscriber. Suppose this were a traditional publication and I were an editor - here's how I would change the analysis to make it more balanced. Or if I had published an article like that, these are ways I would balance out the story as it evolves over time.
  • The article talks about Antifa's violence at Trump's inauguration. That's good. That's when a lot of people started to get nervous about Antifa. But where was the other side at the inauguration? He doesn't mention that one of the main white supremacist organizers of the rally, Richard Spencer, attended the inauguration as a guest, invited by the Trump campaign, and gave a racist interview outside at the time, where an Antifa protester slugged him. In some ways, that's really where the story of violence starts, setting up a grudge match between two violent groups.
  • The description of Antifa was really excellent, one of the best I have seen. That's great. The description of white nationalists said "The White Nationalists feel that white people are being blamed for too much in America ..." - I think it's important to point out that they are openly talking about "peaceful ethnic cleansing", a "homeland for whites", "a new society based on very different ideals than the Declaration of Independence", using Nazi salutes, etc, and point out the threats to Jews, not just to blacks. These aren't just conservatives who feel Affirmative Action has gone so far. These are racists with college degrees, lots of money, and large Internet followings, telling Jews and blacks that they don't belong here, making offensive Holocaust jokes, etc. It's really easy to find them saying these things in their own words, and I think this is important for understanding the violence and the significance of Tiki torches, which both Nazis and the KKK used to threaten people.
  • One perspective that seems to be missing: the official accounts from the Charlottesville Police Department and the governor. It's hard to tell the story of the violence accurately without that. Here's how I understand their side of the story: The police tried to get the white supremacists to use another park where they felt they could offer better protection, the white supremacists sued and got the right to use both parks. The first violence between White Supremacists and Antifa started Friday night, the permit was for Saturday. The police offered to keep both sides separate, telling them each where to enter and exit, but the two violent groups ignored these instructions, which is one of the reasons the state of emergency was declared. The most significant violence happened after the state of emergency was declared and the State Police took over, separating the violent people from everyone else, but also squeezing the violent people closer together in the process. I don't know if there was a clean way to both separate violent people from everyone else and separate violent people from each other.
  • In general, I think we should cut the police some slack, and I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for people who come itching for a fight, disobey police instructions, then complain that the police didn't complain them enough. I would rather praise the service of the police, and mourn the loss of two fallen officers, if we want to discuss how they did.
  • Both the rally and the protesters had received official permission from Charlottesville to be there. When the protesters asked for permission, Charlottesville spokeswoman Miriam I. Dickler sent them an email that said this: "Please bear in mind that people do not need a permit to enter a public park, even when another event is scheduled to take place there, nor are they required to have one to be on streets or sidewalks adjacent to or outside the park". So both sides asked permission and were told they had a right to be there. But the violent groups on both sides were itching for a fight, and did not follow police instructions.
  • "Some carried guns" is a little faint. The governor of Virginia put it this way: “They came armed. They were armed better than my own state police. They had body armor, helmets and were walking around our beautiful city of Charlottesville with semi-automatic rifles.” That's one of the things that made it harder for the police, and I think it's an important part of telling the story of the violence. Gun laws have changed dramatically since the 1960s, and we don't have much experience with this kind of armed demonstration in the United States. (And it's not at all clear what the law says when people exercise their 1st Amendment rights armed like a militia. I predict this is something the Supreme Court will issue some rulings on in coming years.) So we should be really thankful that nothing more serious happened.
  • I thought the account of the car attack sounded like it was trying to make a legal case for self defense, and it seems to disagree with official accounts and the longer videos in important ways. I think a balanced approach is to be modest in what we know, not speculate on someone's state of mind at different times, and report bare facts. A car ran into some protesters, injured 19, killed 1. Suspect in custody, charged with second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and failure to stop in an accident that resulted in death. If you want to bring in some of the claims used to support a claim of self defense, balance requires looking at the other side, including the new charges - two more counts of malicious wounding and three counts of aggravated malicious wounding - and some of the new evidence that has been used to justify these charges based on intent. But once you go down that rabbit hole, you have a mountain of evidence to wade through, and I think it's a lot easier to wait and let the courts sort it out.
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Re: ANALYZING THE CHARLOTTESVILLE VIOLENCE

Post by GaryK »

Bootstrap wrote:
GaryK wrote:In general do you agree with his analysis of the violence?
I agree with most of it. I think it does a really excellent job of describing Antifa's contribution to the violence, but tends to tone down the White Supremacist contribution, and pays little attention to the accounts given by the police and other officials. In a few places, it seems to be taking sides, and I think that's unfortunate.

I'm not plain and I don't come from your culture, so I may be missing some of what the Plain News is trying to accomplish. And I have read only the few articles that find their way here, I am not a subscriber. Suppose this were a traditional publication and I were an editor - here's how I would change the analysis to make it more balanced. Or if I had published an article like that, these are ways I would balance out the story as it evolves over time.
  • The article talks about Antifa's violence at Trump's inauguration. That's good. That's when a lot of people started to get nervous about Antifa. But where was the other side at the inauguration? He doesn't mention that one of the main white supremacist organizers of the rally, Richard Spencer, attended the inauguration as a guest, invited by the Trump campaign, and gave a racist interview outside at the time, where an Antifa protester slugged him. In some ways, that's really where the story of violence starts, setting up a grudge match between two violent groups.
  • The description of Antifa was really excellent, one of the best I have seen. That's great. The description of white nationalists said "The White Nationalists feel that white people are being blamed for too much in America ..." - I think it's important to point out that they are openly talking about "peaceful ethnic cleansing", a "homeland for whites", "a new society based on very different ideals than the Declaration of Independence", using Nazi salutes, etc, and point out the threats to Jews, not just to blacks. These aren't just conservatives who feel Affirmative Action has gone so far. These are racists with college degrees, lots of money, and large Internet followings, telling Jews and blacks that they don't belong here, making offensive Holocaust jokes, etc. It's really easy to find them saying these things in their own words, and I think this is important for understanding the violence and the significance of Tiki torches, which both Nazis and the KKK used to threaten people.
  • One perspective that seems to be missing: the official accounts from the Charlottesville Police Department and the governor. It's hard to tell the story of the violence accurately without that. Here's how I understand their side of the story: The police tried to get the white supremacists to use another park where they felt they could offer better protection, the white supremacists sued and got the right to use both parks. The first violence between White Supremacists and Antifa started Friday night, the permit was for Saturday. The police offered to keep both sides separate, telling them each where to enter and exit, but the two violent groups ignored these instructions, which is one of the reasons the state of emergency was declared. The most significant violence happened after the state of emergency was declared and the State Police took over, separating the violent people from everyone else, but also squeezing the violent people closer together in the process. I don't know if there was a clean way to both separate violent people from everyone else and separate violent people from each other.
  • In general, I think we should cut the police some slack, and I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for people who come itching for a fight, disobey police instructions, then complain that the police didn't complain them enough. I would rather praise the service of the police, and mourn the loss of two fallen officers, if we want to discuss how they did.
  • Both the rally and the protesters had received official permission from Charlottesville to be there. When the protesters asked for permission, Charlottesville spokeswoman Miriam I. Dickler sent them an email that said this: "Please bear in mind that people do not need a permit to enter a public park, even when another event is scheduled to take place there, nor are they required to have one to be on streets or sidewalks adjacent to or outside the park". So both sides asked permission and were told they had a right to be there. But the violent groups on both sides were itching for a fight, and did not follow police instructions.
  • "Some carried guns" is a little faint. The governor of Virginia put it this way: “They came armed. They were armed better than my own state police. They had body armor, helmets and were walking around our beautiful city of Charlottesville with semi-automatic rifles.” That's one of the things that made it harder for the police, and I think it's an important part of telling the story of the violence. Gun laws have changed dramatically since the 1960s, and we don't have much experience with this kind of armed demonstration in the United States. (And it's not at all clear what the law says when people exercise their 1st Amendment rights armed like a militia. I predict this is something the Supreme Court will issue some rulings on in coming years.) So we should be really thankful that nothing more serious happened.
  • I thought the account of the car attack sounded like it was trying to make a legal case for self defense, and it seems to disagree with official accounts and the longer videos in important ways. I think a balanced approach is to be modest in what we know, not speculate on someone's state of mind at different times, and report bare facts. A car ran into some protesters, injured 19, killed 1. Suspect in custody, charged with second-degree murder, three counts of malicious wounding and failure to stop in an accident that resulted in death. If you want to bring in some of the claims used to support a claim of self defense, balance requires looking at the other side, including the new charges - two more counts of malicious wounding and three counts of aggravated malicious wounding - and some of the new evidence that has been used to justify these charges based on intent. But once you go down that rabbit hole, you have a mountain of evidence to wade through, and I think it's a lot easier to wait and let the courts sort it out.
"Balanced/balance" is really a subjective term especially when one has a dog in the fight, isn't it?
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Re: ANALYZING THE CHARLOTTESVILLE VIOLENCE

Post by temporal1 »

just to note, not to derail. :-|
Trump did not coin the words, "alt-left," altho this claim is repeated on this forum.

here is some history from a liberal source:
"How the term ‘alt-left’ came to be"
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/term-alt-left-came/

more, from a source so liberal+profane, i rarely, rarely view and do not recommend:
"alt-left"
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=alt-left

Returning to Ernie's worthwhile OP: :D
http://www.plainnews.org/2017/08/25/ana ... -violence/

ANALYZING THE CHARLOTTESVILLE VIOLENCE
Posted on August 25th, 2017

Recent violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, has attracted much media attention. As usual, mass media outlets have put their particular political spin in their reports. This article is an attempt to find the roots of the issue.
CHARLOTTESVILLE EVENTS
Several so-called “Alt-Right” (meaning, strong “conservative” or “right-wing” political ideology) groups planned a rally for August 12 in Charlottesville, Virginia. One goal of the meeting was to protest the proposed removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Some groups of African Americans and others feel that such statues glorify men who fought to maintain slavery in the US, and therefore the statues should be removed, rather than adored.
The day before the planned rally (which organizers say was to be the largest White-Nationalist rally in 20 years, in the US) some of the participants marched through the University of Virginia campus carrying torches and shouting “White lives matter!”, “Blood and soil!”, and “Jews will not replace us!” The White Nationalists feel that white people are being blamed for too much in America, citing, for example, that black Africans were responsible for most of the selling of other black Africans to white slave-traders in Africa. Africans and Native Americans practiced slavery long before the use of black slaves by white people, yet whites are blamed for promoting slavery in America (according to White Nationalist groups).
Meanwhile, the so-called Alt-Left (meaning strong “liberal” or “left-wing” political ideology) knew of the planned rally and organized a counter-rally. On Saturday morning, the 12th, the two groups encountered each other in a park in Charlottesville and violence ensued. At about 2 p.m., after most of the Alt-Right protesters had dispersed, a car driven by a White Nationalist rammed into a crowd of counter-protesters, leaving one woman dead and several others injured. The City of Charlottesville had earlier declared a local state of emergency because of fighting between the two sides. Some feel that the police and city officials did not do enough to keep the two groups separated.
THE BACKGROUND
Both sides of the protest knew beforehand that things could turn violent. Therefore some on both sides came to the event armed. Some carried guns, while others carried sticks and wore helmets and carried homemade shields. Bags of human waste, 2X4s, bricks, mace, frozen water bottles, and sticks were all used in the foray. This was not the first confrontation between the two groups. While the “Alt-Right” has been organized online (with Neo-Nazi, Ku Klux Klan, and White Supremist websites), the “Alt-Left” does not have a central organization. Included in the “Alt-Left” counter-rally were groups such as “Black Lives Matter,” which is not necessarily on the extreme “left” political spectrum, but rather concerns itself with issues surrounding oppression of black people.
ANTIFA
The “Alt-Left” is represented by a group known as Antifa (pronounced ON’-ti-fa). Antifa is short for “Anti-fascist.” A Fascist is a supporter of a strong nationalistic movement, such at Hitler in Germany and Mussulini in Italy during the early 1900s, political movements that tried to build a nation around a particular ethnic group (in Hitler’s case, Germans). Antifa supporters have no central leadership and are “organized” into local cell groups in various cities. Each local group may have a specific agenda that may not exactly match the next group. As such, one cell may be promoting communism, the next may promote gay rights, and the next may be anarchists (no government), and the next anti-capitalist. One thing Antifa groups have in common: they oppose the Alt-Right political movement. In a general sort of way, Antifa could be said to be a reforming of the “Occupy Wall Street” protests from a few years back, with some taking a more violent position.
Antifa has a reputation of violence. During Donald Trump’s inauguration, they smashed and burned a limousine. In California, they have become violent in protesting against political speakers who represent the political right. They openly acknowledge that they use violence, but say that since the government does not stop the “hate speech” of the extreme right, they are forced to use violence to stop it. While claiming to support “free speech,” they say that “hate speech” is not “free speech” and therefore must be stopped … even if it requires violence to do so. So even though the Alt-right groups had official permits to hold their rally in Charlottesville, Antifa felt that they had a moral duty to stop the rally, even if it needed to use clubs and mace to do so.
Antifa members sometimes prefer anonymity, dressing in full black with covered faces at rallies. This may be a way for them to use violence without being recognized.
THE CAR INCIDENT IN CHARLOTTESVILLE
One incident in the Charlottesville violence receives a lot of attention: a White Supremacist rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters. Media outlets that promote a “liberal” or “left” political view were quick to say that the driver was from the “Alt-Right” and plowed into the group of “peaceful” counter-protesters.
Only God and the driver knows what the intentions were, but details have surfaced that make it unclear exactly what may have been the man’s reason for driving into the crowd. Video captured by bystanders show the car proceeding down the narrow one-way street. A reporter from the Los Angeles Times says it was proceeding at a normal speed. Someone on the sidewalk then struck the rear of the car with a baseball bat as it passed (for reasons unknown). At that point the car suddenly sped forward. It it thought that perhaps the driver reacted in fear or panic (the baseball bat smack may have sounded like gunfire to him), then drove into the crowd ahead of him, rear-ending another vehicle. The approaching counter-protesters were only dozens of yards ahead of him when his car was hit with the bat and he sped forward.
As soon as the car plowed into the vehicle vehicles in front of it (two cars were slowed/stopped because counter-protesters were coming up the middle of the street in front of them), video shows several people dressed in black jumping out of the crowd, trying to bust the windows out of the car. Immediately the driver went in reverse at high speed, running into a few more people as it left.
In summary, many media outlets reported that the incident was a purposeful ramming into a peaceful crowd of counter-protesters. The fact is that some of those “peaceful” protesters were armed with sticks. While the driver of the car may have had evil intentions, video from the scene indicates that he may have drove innocently into a situation where he felt trapped and then panicked. And when counter-protesters started beating out his car windows, he very likely felt his life was in danger.
IN SUMMARY
The Charlottesville violence was a clash between two “extreme” political agendas.
Both sides knew in advance that there was likely to be a confrontation and came armed. Most major media outlets have condemned the violence and views of the “Alt-Right” while being initially quiet about the “Alt-Left” violence. A day or two after the events, as the presence of the relatively-unknown Antifa and their tactics were exposed, the major media outlets have published some information about the movement.
The bottom line is that the vast majority of Americans do not support the political agenda of either two sides who proceeded to use violence on each other in Charlottesville.
Yet major media outlets attempted to use the events to muddy the reputation of whichever political ideology they stood opposed to, instead of reporting that the violence was the work of two radical opposing groups who planned in advance for a confrontation.
A few hundred radical people on each side have been used to stigmatize or blame one political party or the other.
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Most or all of this drama, humiliation, wasted taxpayer money could be spared -
with even modest attempt at presenting balanced facts from the start.


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Re: ANALYZING THE CHARLOTTESVILLE VIOLENCE

Post by Bootstrap »

temporal1 wrote:just to note, not to derail. :-|
Trump did not coin the words, "alt-left," altho this claim is repeated on this forum.

here is some history from a liberal source:
"How the term ‘alt-left’ came to be"
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/term-alt-left-came/
Thanks, I was wrong, the term was used as early as August 2016. I had read an article that got it wrong. Now that I know, I won't say that again.

I think the most important thing is to remember that Alt-Right does not mean conservative. As the National Review explains:
One of the only nice things about the alt-right is that its leaders are honest about the fact that they want nothing to do with traditional American conservatism. Like the original Nazis, they seek to replace the traditional Right with their racial hogwash.
The alt-right groups are trying to tell people that white supremacists are the true conservatives, that they are the ones who really represent the right. And traditional conservatives want to stay far away from that garbage.

After Charlottesville, my guess is that most people who say "alt-left" mean Antifa. And if that's what it means, then this is a good summary (from the original post):
Both sides knew in advance that there was likely to be a confrontation and came armed. Most major media outlets have condemned the violence and views of the “Alt-Right” while being initially quiet about the “Alt-Left” violence. A day or two after the events, as the presence of the relatively-unknown Antifa and their tactics were exposed, the major media outlets have published some information about the movement.
The bottom line is that the vast majority of Americans do not support the political agenda of either two sides who proceeded to use violence on each other in Charlottesville.
Since Charlottesville, a lot more people are clear about what Alt-Right means and who Antifa is, and most politicians on both sides have been clearly denouncing these extreme groups. That's important.
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