How I Found Myself in the Middle of ‘Anti-Fascist’ Violence at UC Berkeley

I was warned there would be trouble. Students and staff at the University of California at Berkeley have earned a reputation for intolerance. After I told some friends that I had agreed to speak on campus at a Turning Point USA event, at least three of them predicted that violence would ensue. One even suggested that I should withdraw. Naturally, I failed to heed the prophecies, even though we all know that the Cassandridae are never wrong.

Last Monday’s event had been initially planned as the final stop on Charlie Kirk’s tour, so tensions were understandably high and security had been ramped up accordingly. I was to appear on stage with the comedian Rob Schneider and the philosopher Peter Boghossian (whose excellent Substack is here). We made our way to Zellerbach Hall together in an SUV, where we were dropped off in an underground car park and found ourselves suddenly flanked by men with guns. We had arrived hours early to avoid the swarms. They came later.

With only an hour to go, waiting backstage, we were shown footage of the fracas unfolding outside. While ticket holders were attempting to enter the venue, protesters had descended on them to threaten them into leaving. One member of staff showed me a clip of what he said was tear gas being deployed (it turned out to be smoke bombs). Other images were quickly going viral: a car being deliberately backfired to simulate gunfire and deter audience members, a line of people calling on audience members and police to kill themselves and chanting “fuck your dead homie” (a macabre reference to Charlie Kirk). One group was attempting to break through a barrier, and the ringleader was wearing a “fags against fascism” patch. I’m a ‘fag against fascism’ too, I thought. Where’s the solidarity?

All in all, it was a surreal experience. At one point, two heavily armed campus police officers burst into our green room, apparently looking for other potential points of entry that might be breached by the zombie-like hordes outside. When we finally reached the stage and took questions from the audience, I found myself scanning the hall with a sense of bewilderment. Armed police were lining the stage and were positioned all around the perimeter, like that final concert scene in The Blues Brothers. And all of this because a conservative group had offered to share their ideas on campus and hear them challenged. What the hell was going on?

The political tribalism of our times appears to have emboldened the extremists on all sides. Untethered to reality, they spend their time squabbling with ghosts, secure in the belief that they are brave warriors in a righteous cause. It may be simply a failure of imagination, an inability to consider that there might be other ways of looking at the world. Some of us are more solipsistic than others, and it is all too easy to grasp at catch-alls like ‘fascist’ to explain those views that we find intuitively inexplicable.

These protests seemed to represent an inversion of reality, with groups determined to suppress free speech in the name of ‘anti-fascism’, and those who consider themselves to be ‘compassionate’ and ‘progressive’ celebrating murder and urging others to commit suicide. A man wearing a t-shirt bearing the word “Freedom” was beaten bloody and racially abused (“you’re bleeding, white boy”), presumably in the name of liberty and anti-racism. As a final touch, the man arrested for his assault was named ‘Jihad’.

One would have expected those at a university campus to have the necessary historical literacy to understand what ‘fascism’ entails, rather than seeking to embody its core aspects. To the extent that there can be any rationale behind such collective mania, it would seem to run along the following lines: ‘Although the members of Turning Point are not open about their fascism, they are nonetheless Nazis in embryonic form. If not eliminated now, they will flourish into the stormtroopers of the future.’ It should be noted that this is precisely the same fallacious reasoning given by Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar for his decision to assassinate his friend; not that he is a tyrant, but that he ‘may’ become one.

While only a minority of the protesters participated in the actual violence, the majority were happy to cheer it on. They were perfectly entitled to behave obnoxiously, of course – protests are ineffective unless they are irritating somebody – but there is no excuse for a mob of students forcing others to bend to their will. Many members of the college had bought tickets to the event, but were prevented from attending because others had decided against it. The university must bear some responsibility for this state of affairs.

If the protesters genuinely objected to the idea of conservatives (and some liberals) participating in a public discussion, they could simply not buy a ticket. The problem of their squeamishness at others exercising their free speech would be thereby resolved. Or they could buy a ticket and join the queue to challenge the speakers on stage. They chose instead to impose their wishes on others. The event was completely sold out, and yet the hundreds of empty seats were evidence of the triumph of authoritarianism.

And what of the media reaction? While the Telegraph described the “violent clashes” that ensued, Politico opted to gaslight its readers by describing the mania as “largely peaceful”, a conclusion that no serious journalist could have reached after examining the footage. It’s reminiscent of CNN’s report from Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020, with the chyron describing protests as “mostly peaceful” while Omar Jimenez appeared against a backdrop of burning cars and buildings. The BBC similarly described a protest in London in June 2020 as “largely peaceful” even though its own headline acknowledged the injuries sustained by 27 police officers. These are truly the days of ‘alternative facts’.

All of which is a reminder that truth has been the ultimate casualty of the culture war. Narrative has become more important than reality, and the search for a purpose has led many to conjure enemies into existence in order to fight them. If any further evidence were needed, consider the piece I wrote about the event for the Washington Post. In it, I made the case that these protesters appeared to be mistaking mainstream conservative viewpoints for ‘fascism’, had no understanding of the definition of the term and were evidently impervious to reason. There are over 1,800 comments beneath that article, virtually all of which are repeating the same definitional errors, complaining that Charlie Kirk was a ‘fascist’ and blaming the victims at UC Berkeley for provoking the assaults. They have proven the point of my article far more effectively than I ever could. (You can read the article and the comments here.)

Andrew Doyle is a writer, comedian and broadcaster. His latest book is The End of Woke: How the Culture War Went Too Far and What to Expect from the Counter-Revolution. This article was first published on his Substack. You can subscribe here.