As a left-leaning individual myself, I despise Antifa. They are honestly the best allies that the right-wing has right now, because they drive everybody who isn't a radical Socialist (or to the left of Socialism) away from the Left. They also seem to have no ability to learn from the results of their actions, as evidence by what happened at King's College of London when they "shut down" a Sargon of Akkad event. This event happened about a year ago, but stands out as one of the dumbest things Antifa has done. (Note, this article is adapted from one that I wrote shortly after the event happened. Since then, there have been plenty of other huge blunders on Antifa's part, which I will likely talk about in the near future).
First, let's talk about who they shut down. Sargon is an English YouTuber and a Liberal in the English sense of the word Liberal. In the US he would basically be a moderate or slightly right-leaning on our political spectrum. Before this controversy, he had a little over 755k subscribers. Within a few days he was nearing 770k due to publicity from this event. I have disagreements with Sargon - I am to his Left, but he has some good criticisms of SJWs, modern Feminism, and radical groups like Antifa. He is a strong supporter of Free Speech, which I respect about him. The event also featured Yaron Brook, a Jewish Israeli-American objectivist who heads the Ayn Rand Institute (another group I certainly have disagreements with). His Jewish background is relevant because Antifa tried to claim that Sargon was a Fascist/Part of the antisemitic Alt-Right. I don't know any Nazis or Fascists, but I don't believe they have a history of teaming up with Jews to work towards the same goals.
So what happened? As Sargon and Yaron were about to begin their talk, Antifa members pulled the fire alarm at the event and rushed the stage. Fighting broke out almost immediately, with one member of Antifa starting an encounter by laying hands on an attendee at the event. This resulted in the Antifa member getting injured after he was punched in the head and hit several other times by other attendees. Another Antifa member laid hands on Sargon, but was quickly pulled off. Neither speaker sustained any injuries. Other Antifa members had been stopped by security and thrown back when they tried to push their way in. Those who did make it in were removed within one minute. Ultimately, Sargon's supporters grabbed an Antifa flag away from the violent protesters. Sargon now mounts the flag on his wall as a trophy. See the video below for proof of all of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPj3CyBJrIE
These complete and utter fools at Antifa somehow interpreted this as a victory. Or at least that is what they posted publicly on Facebook. I personally suspect they know that they failed and are simply desperately trying to spin this story. The post, which can be found below, is dominated by those defending Sargon, both in the comments and in the reactions. Laugh reactions are by far the most popular, and angry reactions are close to being in third.
But that gets me to the point of this article. This was the most counter-productive thing Antifa could have done. The Streisand Effect that resulted from this even helped Sargon gain tens of thousands of subscribers. Antifa's "Deplatforming" has given Sargon the largest platform of his life. On top of that, Sargon was able to give his speech to those who came at a different nearby venue, so he was not even really deplatformed. In addition, dozens of Conservative sites, and probably over 100 YouTubers, covered the story. That is an even larger platform for Sargon. The story quickly made the rounds on Conservative Reddit.
Antifa apparently is not smart enough to realize that all of the Conservative media is ready to respond whenever something like this happens. Antifa is so predictable that Conservatives can basically just turn on the auto-pilot to defeat them and amplify the Conservative message. So you shut down one talk (kind of), but then you get thousands, or even more, people talking about this who would never have heard of it before. How much more counter-productive could this have been?
I do want to be clear that, although Left-leaning, I strongly support Freedom of Speech myself, and disagree with what Antifa does on ideological and ethical grounds, in addition to pragmatic considerations. I have some criticisms of Sargon on the issues and some of his beliefs, but now, thanks to Antifa, I feel a need to defend him. Instead of an intelligent debate about the flaws in Sargon's arguments, the world focused on Antifa's stupidity. Again, totally counter-productive.
All in all, I would like to congratulate Sargon on his win, and further disavow the idiotic, counter-productive, immature, and generally despicable behavior of Antifa.
