> One problem I've had with this perspective is that the BLM movement is ongoing and has developed into a more coherent (but still decentralized) organization
Yes, let me be perfectly clear that I'm not arguing that the whole BLM movement is violent. I distinguish carefully and deliberately between peaceful protesters and violent rioters. Certainly the majority was peaceful. Even still, there have been a lot of people who participated in the violence and many more who justified it and rationalized it. I'm not trying to suggest that the majority of the movement practiced or condoned violence; I'm only talking about a particular subset of leftists who practice or condone political violence, including the BLM violence.
> As for Antifa, that ends up being a whole conversation unto itself—a poignant one given the main topic of fascism. Antifa exists as an idea more so than a formal movement. It's not something you are, it's something you do. It is a form of counter protest directed at fascists and (particularly in the US) white supremacists. It isn't a club with members that you join. The most publicized actions are violent, but more often there is no violence involved. You can counter-protest a white nationalist rally, but you can also call the hotel they are staying at and warn the management that white nationalists will be frequenting the establishment.
I do understand that Antifa isn't an organization. I'm saying that the people who identify with Antifa tend to practice or condone violence. Since it's not a formal organization with a formal, agreed upon set of values, there will be exceptions. Suffice it to say, there are many people who identify with the "antifa" moniker who practice and condone violence--these are the people that I had in mind in my original post.
> They're an exceptionally fringe group, especially in the US, and I would appreciate some additional evidence for the claim that "many" support the USSR and China. Even for people on the left who explicitly advocate for socialism, they do so in advocacy of social justice and workplace democracy, neither of which is reflected at all in the USSR or China.
I don't have any quantitative evidence on hand. I see a lot of memes about how America/capitalism is terrible because of toilet paper lines during a pandemic from people with hammer/sickles and roses in their Twitter handle. Recently there's been a meme going around about how aliens in soviet films looked more docile and human while American films depicted scary monsters, suggesting that Americans are inherently xenophobic relative to Soviets (also this thorough rebuttal: https://twitter.com/SlavaMalamud/status/1361314705550307331). People who deny to various degrees the atrocities that took place in the USSR or China (or who continue to deny or downplay the ongoing oppression in China) or who fail to place them in the context of socialism and communism. Similarly (not quite USSR and China, but same energy) people who wear/praise Guerva or Castro. Maybe there's a possibility that I'm in some weird "tankie" social media bubble, but I don't think that's the case considering that my own views are pretty moderate.
> Again, I'd appreciate if you could provide some evidence for your claim of "many" left-wing Americans holding these views
I don't have quantitative evidence, but people advocate for this stuff all the time, even here on this board. Probably the most extreme example was the recent thread about the SF school board explicitly rejecting a qualified PAC candidate because he was white. That happened, and people in the comments still went to bat for the school board. To be clear, I'm not talking about advocating for segregated communities--at this point, it's mostly segregation in terms of facilities at universities and policies or cultural norms that discriminate on the basis of race. I think these kinds of beliefs are common, especially among the leftists I'm talking about (those who practice and condone violence). In fact, these kinds of views are so prominent that I would be comfortable arguing that they extend generally even to nonviolent BLM protesters and beyond.
> BLM is meant to be aspirational, not exclusionary: Black lives also matter.
That's the marketing, but I don't think that's the "truth on the ground" so to speak. In any case, I'm less interested in that it excludes whites and more interested in that it teaches us to obsess over race, to identify first and foremost with our race rather than our common humanity, etc. I'm also disappointed that the movement is pretty happy to talk about how black Americans are disproportionately killed by police but they refuse to confront questions about violent crime statistics or police encounters (or rather, they will talk about how those things are also manifestations of historical racial oppression, which while true, undermines the original thesis that the disparity in killings is a result of racist police).
> You talk about a horseshoe where the fringes of the political spectrum are closer together. This is, in my opinion, an incorrect projection of the political landscape, since it implies a single dimension between right and left.
Yeah, I agree. Political spectrum analogies are universally crumby. Still, that doesn't address my broader concern about why "fascism" seems to be the only kind of illiberalism that raises our collective alarm. After all, history teaches us that far-left ideologies are every bit as capable of wide-scale suffering and devastation as far-right ideologies. I'm really not here to grind axes or to put down leftists even though I obviously don't agree with them, but rather I want to understand why society (including a great many moderates) are only alarmed by illiberalism when it's labeled "fascism" (and conversely why we tolerate illiberalism in the name of combatting 'fascism'). I guess I'm hoping that someone can provide a plausibly principled answer, because it kind of feels like we're trading the liberal foundation of our society for some short term political expedience or catharsis, and that's deeply depressing.
> I don't want to dismiss the possibility or danger of left-wing authoritarianism. We have plenty examples of that. I do what to emphasize that fascism in particular is not one of them. It is a specific form of conservative authoritarianism that relies heavily on conservative ideology, specifically the desire for hierarchy. In every political movement we would identify as fascist, progressives and communists were the first group to be attacked as the fascists rose to power.
So it sounds like you and I agree that left authoritarianism is just as abominable as right authoritarianism, but perhaps you don't think that left-wing illiberalism is prominent? I do agree that fascism is a right-wing ideology; my question was more "why do we seem very alarmed by 'fascism' in particular but not left-wing authoritarianism". From the sounds of it, you think fascism is the more proximate threat?