In February, on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, a violent group of left-wing protesters prevented the right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking; in April, anarchists and “anti-Fascists” interrupted a right-wing event in a Berkeley park, sparking a day of street clashes that came to be known as the Battle of Berkeley. “I got tired of seeing the far left smashing people instead of letting them speak,” Merwin said. “My idea was that everyone’s voice deserves to be heard.”