Honestly outside of a few useful idiots like Nick Spencer I’m starting to think the majority of people saying “don’t punch nazis”… are nazis. Just saw someone saying “Hitler deserved a fair trial, not to be punched” for example but it quickly became obvious they were Alt Right. Remember that Gater tactics didn’t just involve harassment they involved massive disinformation campaigns. Totally possible we’re seeing that here, and that “civic-minded liberals” calling for the sanctity of freeze peach are actually mostly sockpuppets. And Nick Spencer.
I’d say there’s likely plenty of this, but there are also plenty of leftists, including centrist liberals, who would likely take this stance. Here’s One Example. And a liberal taking the Exact Opposite Stance from the exact same blog.
So to me the thing is this: “Liberal” constitutes a pretty wide ideological area, and “Left” even more so. Sure, the whole labeling “liberals” the problem coming from some quarters of the Left bugs me as a person who 1)is happy to take that label and 2)understands the long history of rightists pulling the above and generally trying to turn “liberal” into a dirty word, BUT at the same time the claim that there are centrist liberals opposed to pushing back against fascists with violence isn’t spun from whole cloth.
I guess what I’m saying is you just gotta look into the source for these things if you want to know whether the person’s being sincere, or just trying to sow discord. And also that it’s just as important to keep this stuff in its proper perspective as it is to know its purpose: Antifa tearing into, specifically, “liberals who denounce violent protest” are still far closer to those liberals politically than folks like Spencer or his supporters who Crowdfunded a Bounty for info on his attacker. Making each other the enemy distracts from our shared goal.