Credulity is a funny thing. It can be hard to figure why some story lines fool us and others don’t. In the wake of early reporting about violence at a pro-Trump rally in Huntington Beach, some in the media, and even here at Daily Kos, rushed to parrot right-wing agitprop, vociferously condemn the few anti-Trump counter-demonstrators and bemoan and disavow the assumed violent tendencies of the left. Of course, while in some instances credulity is puzzling, the answer to why blaming the left for anything and everything appeals is no mystery. The phenomenon known as hippie-punching remains ever popular with reactionaries in both its figurative and its physical manifestations. Herewith is an OC Weekly piece with highlights from the violence Trump marchers visited on the relative handful of counter-demonstrators, as well as on OC Weekly staff and a beachgoing onlooker.
“After reviewing dozens of videos from every conceivable angle, bias, video device, and edit, here are the worst Trump thugs of HB's #MagaMarch. Yes, Trump supporters were punched and pushed by leftists—and yet none of their actions compare to the gleeful, unrepentant goonery that the following people displayed.”
OC Weekly provides detailed and supported accounts of vicious and premeditated violence by Trump supporters, in an atmosphere where neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic, white nationalist, and other hateful imagery and speech abounded.