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<\/a><\/p>\nOver the weekend, America suffered two mass shootings within hours of one another, in El Paso, Texas<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, and Dayton, Ohio<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. These followed another mass shooting in Gilroy, Calif., a week earlier. The alleged perpetrators of the attacks were young, \u201clone-wolf\u201d gunmen. All three carried out carnage against innocents using high-power rifles. All told, Santino \u00adLegan (Gilroy), Patrick Crusius (El Paso) and Connor Betts (Dayton) killed 34 people and injured dozens more.<\/span><\/p>\n While the attacks are similar, the response from liberals and leftists has been anything but.<\/span><\/p>\n Democratic presidential candidates Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders succinctly condemned white nationalism \u2014 the ideology espoused by the El Paso shooter in his purported 2,300-word manifesto.<\/span><\/p>\n However, when it comes to condemning the Dayton shooter\u2019s militant far-left views, all remain mum. Others, such as anti-police activist Shaun King, even claimed the Dayton shooter targeted blacks in a hate crime, though \u00adracism doesn\u2019t appear to have been a component of his twisted worldview.<\/span><\/p>\n While Betts, the Dayton shooter, didn\u2019t leave behind a manifesto, his extensive social-media footprint provides clues<\/strong><\/span><\/a> as to what may have inspired him. Federal investigators announced Tuesday that they are looking into his exploration of violent ideologies.<\/span><\/p>\n Betts had long expressed support for antifa accounts, causes and individuals. That would be the loose network of militant leftist activists who physically attack anyone to the right of Mao in the name of \u201canti-fascism.\u201d In particular, Betts promoted extreme hatred of American border enforcement.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cKill every fascist,\u201d the shooter declared in 2018 on twitter, echoing a rallying cry of antifa ideologues. Over the next year, his tweets became increasingly violent. \u201cNazis deserve death and nothing else,\u201d he tweeted last October. Betts frequently flung the label \u201cNazi\u201d at those with whom he disagreed online.<\/span><\/p>\n By December, he reached out on Twitter to the Socialist Rifle \u00adAssociation, an antifa gun group, to comment about bump stocks, and the SRA responded to him. (A bump stock is an attachment for semiautomatic rifles that allow them to fire much faster.)<\/span><\/p>\n In the months leading to his rampage, Betts expressed a longing for climactic confrontation. In \u00adresponse to an essay by Intercept writer Mehdi Hassan titled, \u201cYes, Let\u2019s Defeat or Impeach Trump\u2014but What If He Doesn\u2019t Leave the White House?\u201d the shooter wrote: \u201cArm, train, prepare.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n By June he tweeted: \u201cI want socialism, and I\u2019ll not wait for the idiots to finally come round understanding.\u201d Last week, he promoted posts that demonized Sens. Ted Cruz and Bill Cassidy\u2019s resolution against antifa extremism.<\/span><\/p>\n America\u2019s historical and contemporary struggles with fringe far-right violence has provided politicians, leaders and media with blueprints to identify and confront that form of extremism. The national unity in rejecting violent white-nationalist ideologues like James Fields and Dylan Roof are emblematic of America\u2019s resolve against the far right.<\/span><\/p>\n The unanimous rejection of the El Paso shooter\u2019s beliefs<\/strong><\/span>,<\/a> including by President Trump, once more demonstrated the nation\u2019s resolve against hard-right hate. Yet when it comes to far-left violent extremism, there is a gaping blind spot in the mainstream discourse, and we are less safe because of it.<\/span><\/p>\n Beyond banal condemnations of violence, politicians and leaders must work to uproot far-left militant beliefs from mainstream politics. The Dayton shooter promoted the same virulently anti-law-enforcement rhetoric that too many mainstream figures on the left flirt with. And yet it was courageous police officers who finally ended his carnage when they shot and killed him outside the Ned Peppers Bar in Dayton\u2019s entertainment district.<\/span><\/p>\n His case also makes clear that antifa\u2019s violence goes far beyond the street hooliganism it has become infamous for. The group espouses the belief that liberal democracy is irredeemably oppressive \u2014 fascistic, even \u2014 and must be thoroughly destroyed.<\/span><\/p>\n Hence, acts of extreme violence against individuals, property and the state are seen as stepping stones, bringing us closer to the collapse of society and a new, more just societal order. As anyone familiar with 20th-century history knows, apocalyptic ideas of this kind won\u2019t stop with street thuggery.<\/span><\/p>\n