Progressive Activist Beaten by Antifa for the Sin of Carrying American Flag

There’s a disturbing story in The Oregonian this week – a feature about a guy named Paul Welch, a progressive activist who showed up to a Portland rally on August 4^th to wave the American flag, protest against fascism, and…get beat down by the masked, black-clad leftist group known as Antifa.

In a way, this story is the perfect accompaniment to the one about the liberal vegans who thought that “evil” was a fictional concept and embarked on a bicycle trek around the world. Since there exists no such thing as evil, they thought nothing of taking their scenic tour right into the heart of terrorist country in Tajikistan and were immediately murdered by ISIS. It’s impossible sometimes not to see the sharp glint of humor even in the most tragic of circumstances, but in reality there’s nothing funny about people who have become so deluded by the left-wing echo chamber that they lose all sense of what’s true and what’s real.

We can only assume that something similar happened to Paul Welch, who has undoubtedly been told by every news outlet he reads and every friend that he has that anyone who supports President Trump is a Nazi who wants to take over America, turn it into a fascist White Supremacist state, and then put every homosexual, Hispanic, and unarmed black man into a concentration camp. But when he showed up to protest the “fascists” in Portland, he found out that the only people peddling violence and intolerance were the people supposedly on his side. The “anti-fascists.” The leftists. The good guys.

From the Oregonian:

Paul Welch came to the downtown protest Aug. 4 to let his political leanings be known.

With pride he clutched his U.S. flag as he moved among the crowd of like-thinking demonstrators.

Soon a group of black-clad anti-fascist protesters, also known as antifa, demanded he lose the flag, calling it a fascist symbol. Welch refused, and a tug-of-war ensued.

It ended with Welch taking a club to the back of the head, lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood.

After spending the next two days recovering from his concussion, Welch reflected on what has happened as his so-called allies decided he needed to be bashed in the head for carrying the most potent symbol of our nation.

“It strikes me as the worst sort of political theater,” he said. “It’s kind of like you’re playing into your opponents’ hands when you do that sort of thing. That’s not what I was there for.”

Oh, you weren’t there to be beaten by leftist thugs? You don’t say.

We have our doubts as to whether Welch learned any larger lessons from his beatdown, but hopefully his story will resonate with other progressives who are not yet fully aware of who it is, exactly, that they are aligning themselves with when they head out to these rallies.