On Sunday, violence erupted again in Berkeley, California, when around 100 masked, black-clad antifa members jumped a police barrier and attacked a small group of peacefully protesting Donald Trump supporters. The violence resulted in 13 arrests and injuries to six people. Joey Gibson, the Japanese-American leader of Patriot Prayer, one of the pro-Trump protest groups, called out Democrat leaders for their failure to speak against the violence perpetrated by leftist groups like antifa, even as they eagerly condemn the violence of white supremacists. Gibson said, “I’m asking Mayor [Ed] Lee and I’m asking Nancy Pelosi to speak against this violence and speak against this hatred, and be consistent with your message.”

Even as Republicans and Trump spoke out against the violence perpetrated in Charlottesville, and condemned racism specifically, the reality is that many Democrat leaders have failed to disavow and reject the violence and violent rhetoric espoused by groups like antifa and Black Lives Matter. At the violent protest in Berkeley, antifa members were heard chanting, “No Trump! No Wall! No USA at all!”

Frank Somerville, a news anchor in the San Francisco Bay area, witnessed the Berkeley violence and wrote, “I have experienced hate firsthand today. It came from these people dressed in all black at a protest in Berkeley. Ironically they were all chanting about no hate.” Somerville continued, “It’s one thing to read about hate. It’s another thing to be right next to it. In my opinion, these people dressed in black are just as hateful and intolerant as the people they are protesting.”

The real threat to American freedom isn’t coming from small fringe racist groups like the KKK and neo-Nazis but from those who are actively seeking to silence the free speech rights of others through violence. It’s coming from the intolerance espoused by leftists who fail to guard — and in many cases flatly reject — America’s most foundational and cherished constitutional rights. Antifa does not seek to promote the U.S. and the freedoms Americans hold dear, rather these hoodlums seek to destroy our nation based on the false premise that the U.S. is an oppressive and racist nation. The irony is that the real oppressors are those masked, black-clad thugs who seek through violence to silence those with whom they disagree.

> Update: Nancy Pelosi later put out a statement: “Our democracy has no room for inciting violence or endangering the public, no matter the ideology of those who commit such acts. The violent actions of people calling themselves antifa in Berkeley this weekend deserve unequivocal condemnation, and the perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted.”