Whoopi Goldberg of ABC’s “The View” dabbled in conspiracy theories leading into the weekend by insinuating that conservatives “orchestrated” violence by so-called “anti-fascist” protesters since President Trump’s inauguration.
The black-clad collection of left-wing activists known as antifa was a topic of conversation for the ladies of “The View” on Friday, although its predilection for violence and it’s leftist origins quickly became a point of contention. Co-host Paula Faris found herself fielding conspiracy theories after mentioning “confidential government documents” and warnings about antifa written in 2016.
“When we look to see what they were talking about, there was nothing there because when you look at the bottom of the list the year that they’re talking about is when Obama was in,” Ms. Goldberg said, the conservative media watchdog NewsBusters reported Friday.
“So we went to see what they had been protesting — what fascist stuff antifa had been protesting. There’s nothing there. We can’t find anything. This to me — antifa is one of those things, I don’t want to say the right, but somebody came up with as a catch phrase so that you could say there’s violence on the other side.”
Ms. Faris countered that she was reporting on Mr. Trump’s inauguration in Washington, D.C., when antifa members began “storming the streets.”
“I was frightened,” Ms. Faris said. “We had to lock the restaurant we were in because they were knocking people over. They were burning things. They were attacking police, breaking the windows.”
SEE ALSO: Mark Bray, Dartmouth professor, calls ‘vital’ Antifa violence ‘collective self-defense’
Ms. Goldberg was not convinced, and she reiterated her lack of familiarity with antifa — an umbrella group of communists, socialists, anarchists and other left-wing activists — prior to Mr. Trump’s election.
“I kept saying who is this group?” the comedian said. “Because when you see how stuff is organized, you can say that’s who we are, we’re fighting for this. Oftentimes I found that sometimes the side that is kvetching the loudest has sort of orchestrated this so they can bitch about it. I’m not sure who was storming through the streets.”
Comedian Joy Behar then theorized that antifa’s violent means are “tactics” used against “equally violent” opponents.
“Isn’t their basic tactic to be equally violent, because they’re fighting violence with violence?” she asked.
The conservative blog Hot Air responded to “The View” on Friday by asking: “What exactly is [Whoopi Goldberg] getting at in questioning the 2016 Homeland Security assessment of antifa? Does she think *Obama’s DHS* would make something like this up?”
“By Goldberg’s logic,” writer Allahpundit said, “the alt-right could be a false flag by the left to make conservatives generally and Trump in particular look bad.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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