Vox is confused by the actions of Antifa this weekend. The site was all over the Unite the Right 2 rally and one piece, in particular, concludes Antifa seem to be behaving rather badly, even by their own low standards. Naturally, this comes as a bit of a shock:

Sunday’s counterprotests against the white nationalist “Unite the Right 2” rally in Washington, DC, were largely peaceful. Thousands of people held multiple rallies across the city to celebrate diversity and push back against the hateful views the white nationalists espouse.

But a few left-wing “antifa” (short for “anti-fascist”) counterprotesters did engage in violence, throwing eggs and water bottles and shooting fireworks at police officers and some journalists who were covering the demonstrations.

The story highlights some of the Antifa violence in Charlottesville and in Washington, DC, which Jazz covered already. Vox does point out that Antifa has been violent before, including last August in Berkeley, but that violence was justified at the time (by Antifa) as necessary to de-platform white nationalists and prevent their message from spreading.

But as Vox itself reports, the Unite the Right 2 rally was a “pathetic failure.” No one showed up and the handful who did left early. Antifa could have packed it in and gone home too but instead, they went after an alternative target: the police. This turn is confusing to Vox:

This weekend in Charlottesville and DC, though, it wasn’t neo-Nazis and white supremacists the antifa attacked. It was police who were there to help keep the peace among all the demonstrators and journalists who were there to cover the events.

How that factors into antifa’s ideology is anyone’s guess.

It’s a mystery!

Let me see if I can offer a little help here. Antifa are pro-violence and wear masks to avoid being identified by police. So, yes, they don’t care for the police in general.

But it goes beyond that. The far left in this country hates the police and always has. Six years ago when Occupy Wall Street was a thing, one of the most consistent features of the protests was the constant antipathy for cops. Here’s a reminder from Portland:

Remember this from Ferguson protests a few years ago?

Remember this Black Lives Matter chant:

How about this one from 2014?

I’m not even scratching the surface here. “Hands up, don’t shoot” was based on the idea that Mike Brown was surrendering when he was murdered by a white police officer. Chants like “Pigs in a blanket…” and “Cops and Klan go hand in hand” have been used at plenty of other far left marches and rallies.

Last month I wrote about Occupy ICE protesters in Portland who got angry when federal cops stepped in to clear out part of their protest. The far left protesters started directing streams of racist abuse at the black officers on the scene. Just last week, Antifa went after Candace Owens and when police stepped in, the mob started berating them instead.

The real question is this: Why is this remotely a surprise to Vox? Of course the far left hates the police. That should be obvious to anyone paying attention. The far left has a long history, going back to the 1960s, of thinking its moral superiority puts it above the law. Since police don’t usually buy into that, they become the enemy as traitors to the cause. This is nothing new but it’s nice to see that Vox is finally catching on.