Thanks for the respectful and concise response, please excuse the wall of text below. Brevity isn't my strong suit. :)

> Antifa itself is often discredited, but it's a response to the rise of far-right extremism.

And the right wing extremism is a response to the rise of left wing extremism. I could rebut the right wing extremism with reasons why it is a response to grievances that are not unfounded. I could cite the worst examples of racism, bigotry and violence on the left, and use that to justify measures that would silence anyone with left wing ideas.

Then, ultimately, you'd reply with why the bad things on the right are worse or less justified and the bad things on the left are more justified, and before you know it, both of us are in deep justifying extremists that (presumably) neither of us agree with, really.

> I'm not even a left-winger or whatever, I have my own thing

I don't identify as a left- or right- winger either, I have my own things that don't fit any mold. So, the real question for me isn't which side is more justified or more of a threat to the other, but rather - how is it that you and I find ourselves arguing on behalf of not just political parties, but the extremists in them. How is it each of us is relatively blind to the extremism on one side, but hyper aware of the other's?

George Floyd was a defining moment for me. For the first time in a long time, both left and right saw the same video, the same way. Some on the right would qualify their anger with "maybe there's an explanation", but few disagreed that the scene was unjust, and deeply disturbing. For the first time, we had a semblance of unity. Even some Fox News hosts condemned it. The right started to see the police problem for what it is.

So what happened? People wanted to help. They wanted to donate, and march in solidarity.

Cancel culture came for anyone who wanted to donate but questioned whether the official face of the protests, BLM (the organization) was the best place for corporations to be sending money in lieu of other efforts (and rightfully so).

Then riots happened. Groups of (often very white, very male, non-local) people started burning things down, destroying and looting buildings.

So where did that come from? From the peaceful protesters on the right who joined the left in solidarity? No.

Did it come from the peaceful protesters on the left? No.

People were angry, but they did not march down city blocks to burn down the very communities they were supposedly supporting.

But very quickly, the solidarity turned into Fox News saying "this is who the left is" and CNN saying "show me where protests are supposed to be peaceful". Before you know it, extremists successfully hijacked a positive movement and turned it against the very thing the movement was for. And the best part - those extremists are now defended by a population that doesn't even agree with their violence.

So where's the outrage from the peaceful protesters, against the extremists like Antifa who hijacked a peaceful movement? Well, it's there. In plain sight. MANY people who marched in those protests feel hurt and betrayed, but not just by Antifa - by the media and politicians, who STILL haven't even asked them what happened, or how they feel about it. The only way you would know they even exist is if you know them and speak to them personally (as I have).

Now, those peaceful protesters get to be pawns used in Fox News montages lumping them in with Antifa, and they get to be entirely ignored by CNN and MSNBC that spend more time covering up or justifying the violence than they do talking to anyone who was betrayed by it.

And that's the pattern. It repeated on the other side with the 2020 election protests, and it will repeat again, with one side or the other, sometime soon I'm sure.

There's a fray in this country that we're all unwittingly part of. Don't know who's doing it or why just yet, but it's there. And it's so hard to see the fray when you're in it, and it's even harder to pull yourself out of it, but pull ourselves out we must.