Your Handy Field Guide to the Surprisingly Few Factions of the Far Left, From Pastel Bloc to BAMN

The far-right and its many extremist factions may get most of the attention and notoriety, but these days an alt-lite foot soldier can barely tap out an objectionable tweet without a swarm of far-left activists coming to clobber them with equal-but-opposite memes. The same thing happens when the far-right amasses in real life; “free speech rallies” often turn into skirmishes, if not full-on brawls like the so-called “Battle of Berkeley.” But since extreme left groups seem to pop up only when white nationalists do, and their uniform is intentionally nondescript, it’s hard to keep track of who they are. Rather than simply replicating the format of yesterday’s guide, then, what follows sets out the basic symbology of the far left, along with its most prominent factions; terms that might help you make sense of things the next time these guys end up in your social media feed. Common Memes and Phrases While the far-right specializes in coded language—from mascots to in-jokes like “Kek” to fake memes—the far-left falls prey to the same institutional dourness that plagues its more centrist kin, from socialists to the Democratic party: It can’t match the far-right’s trollish glee, nor does it try to. So antifa have attempted an end run around terms-of-service violations by embracing images, turning a decades-old antifa rallying cry—“Bash the Fash”—into a meme.