“No one is suggesting that the Timbers support fascism,” writes Abe Asher for Portland Mercury. “What they are suggesting is that by supporting the Iron Front ban, they are creating space for a political movement that physically endangers a great number of their players, staff, and supporters.”

While I suppose it’s true that no one is suggesting that the Timbers willfully support fascism, “creating space for a political movement” that “endangers” people, when that political movement is, well, fascism, means that the Timbers do support fascism, even if their true, honest, and earnest intention is otherwise.

What matters now, since language matters, is for the Timbers to explain how and why they made the decision to ape bogus conservative talking points about the nature of antifa. The rhetorical acrobatics in the Timbers statement had to require conscious thought, and giving credence to the dangerous mythology being constructed by the right is a problem the front office needs to confront.