Antifa’s message discipline might need a little more work. Last night, in an action later claimed by a group calling itself Boston Antifa, attempted to embarrass the Red Sox and Major League Baseball by unfurling a banner declaring that “Racism is as American as baseball.” The sign drew boos from the crowd and a prompt response from stadium security, which pulled it down in short order.

However, as WBZ reports, it left some people scratching their heads. Did the sign protest against racism … or for it? Via Gary Gross:

The sign — draped over the top middle of the Monster — had a black background with white letters that read: “Racism is as American as baseball.”

It was up for about one batter, there was a spattering of boos from the crowd as Red Sox security forced them to remove it and escorted the people from their seats. …

“Yea I saw it,” Red Sox right fielder Mokie Betts told reporters after the game. “There’s no place for that,” he said.

“(I) saw it was draped over the Monster obviously, and from the dugout, you see someone expressing their opinion. And it looked like it was withdrawn relatively quick,” manager John Farrel said.

A group calling itself Boston Antifa took credit for the incident.

Supposedly, the Antifa group conducted this demonstration in support of Black Lives Matter. BLM probably wouldn’t have botched the messaging, and perhaps they’d prefer not to get “help” like this in the future.

But why would a group that’s supposedly dedicated to anti-fascism start moonlighting for BLM? Perhaps to glean some of the latter’s better publicity. A new survey from Reuters/Ipsos for the UVA Center for Politics puts BLM support among Americans at just 31%. However, support for Antifa comes in at a microscopic 8%:

• Roughly one-third of respondents (32%) said they supported Black Lives Matter, and another 24% indicated a middle position of neither supporting nor opposing. Among African Americans, 62% voiced support for the group, while 26% of whites and 33% of Hispanics also did.
• A plurality of respondents were against BLM, however, with 37% somewhat or strongly opposing the organization. The strongest core of opposition to the group came from whites, with 43% opposing BLM. There was also an obvious partisan difference in support or opposition to the organization: 52% of Democrats supported BLM and 62% of Republicans opposed it.
• 8% said they strongly or somewhat support Antifa versus 33% strongly opposing Antifa and another 6% somewhat opposing (39% total opposing). There is more uncertainty about Antifa than the alt-right, which could suggest a lack of familiarity with the groups themselves, or with the groups’ ideals: 32% answered “don’t know” when asked about their support or opposition to Antifa, versus 23% who said the same when asked about the alt-right.

If Antifa wanted to make itself more popular with its protest last night, or even more coherent, we’d have to call it … a whiff.