Antifa, Antifa, Antifa
The President is calling us names.
On Wednesday, Oct. 8, the President of the United States, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and an assortment of conservative influencers got together to tell each other some scary stories. Leading off story-hour was Trump, claiming that there is an “epidemic of left-wing violence and Antifa-inspired terror [that] has been escalating for nearly a decade.”
Pam Bondi said, “We can’t and we will not let masked terrorists burn our buildings, attack our law enforcement, and intimidate our communities.” (Who wants to tell her that that is exactly what ICE and the Border Patrol are doing in Chicago and Portland?) Somebody named Brandi Kruse said, ‘’I genuinely believe there would be people at these tables who would be dead today and would’ve been killed in Portland” had the President not designated Antifa as a terrorist organization. And an unnamed journalist described covering a horrific (presumably Antifa) attack on a woman in 2020 “simply for waving an American flag on the streets of Washington D.C.” The speaker went on to express regret that there was no record of this attack, saying “by the way, if you guys try to go and find any of this footage, you won’t find any of it because Twitter deleted all of it.”
Oh that Twitter, managing to completely erase incendiary footage from the internet! They are so clever over there, even before Elon Musk bought them up. And I guess the journalist or the photographer was not able to catch this evidence of Antifa violence with their cell phones either. What a shame.
Antifa, Antifa, Antifa. What on Earth is Antifa?
Antifa is, according to the accumulated wisdom of this panel, a “network of organized criminal thugs, gang bangers, and yes, domestic terrorists.” The internet begs to differ, pointing out that Antifa is short for Anti-Fascist, and therefore everyone’s grandfather who fought in World War II is Antifa. So is anyone who opposed Benito Mussolini, who has the distinction of being the inventor of Fascism. It might even include these folks:
Some who protested in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder were described as Antifa, and also those who demonstrated against the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in 2017, which is fair enough–police violence and white supremacy are aligned with fascism. Antifa is the ideology that opposes the ideology of fascism.
So, that’s us! Those of us who are protesting, who are calling our representatives, and writing postcards, and offering whatever help we can to those in the regime’s crosshairs, etc. And we must continue to be brave in all of our Antifa-ing now, because Trump is busily signing Official Documents designed to take us out.
Benjamin Wittes, writing for Lawfare, describes the EO and the memorandum together as “a weird mix of nonsense and menace.”
On September 22, Trump signed an Executive Order “Designating Antifa as a Domestic Terrorist Organization.” (This EO was one of the 207 he has signed in the eight months of his second term. The EO he signed just before this one was entitled simply “The Gold Card,” and it permits anyone to immigrate to the United States without fear of ICE or deportations so long as they are able to cough up $1 million or, if they can find a corporation to donate on their behalf, $2 million. So much for the huddled masses.)
He also issued a National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM-7) aimed at “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.” NSPM-7 establishes a National Joint Terrorism Task Force to “investigate, prosecute, and disrupt entities and individuals engaged in acts of political violence and intimidation designed to suppress lawful political activity or obstruct the rule of law.” The Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JJTFs) created by this memorandum will be watching us all for “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.” (For helpful summary and commentary on the NSPM-7, click here.)
What constitutes extremism or hostility? You might well ask. It’s whatever they say.
Because Trump and his followers mean Antifa as a general slur. Antifa is, in Trump’s fevered imagination, the radical left lunatic spitting on ICE agents (has this EVER happened? Trump refers to it constantly), burning American flags and American cities, offering aid and comfort to Tren De Aragua, and signing up illegal aliens for Obamacare.* It’s anyone who didn’t vote for him, or who doesn’t believe his lies, or who would really really like to know, finally, what is in the Epstein files.
I say again, that is us. We are anti-fascism, anti-authoritarianism, anti-oligarchy, anti-dictatorship, and we don’t want to be ruled by a would-be king. We are pro-democracy, pro-free speech, pro-civil rights, pro-human rights, pro-leaving the library books on the shelf, pro-loving LGBTQ people for exactly who they are, pro-immigrant, pro-science, pro-truth, and pro-government that uses the resources of this nation to serve the people of this nation.
And on October 18, we will peacefully assemble and be Antifa! Join us! It’s OUR country. The fascists can’t have it.
*The lie that Democrats shut down the government because Republicans wouldn’t give undocumented immigrants free health care is being widely broadcast, to include Speaker of the House Mike Johnson saying it out loud on “Good Morning America” and doubling down when he was corrected by George Stephanopoulos.
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This is outrageous. My grandfather was a Marine who fought in the Pacific theatre in WWII. He was a real antifascist. Greta Thunberg is a real antifascist. Harriet Tubman was a real antifascist. Antifa is a bunch of anti-free speech macho thugs. A participant once placed a noose icon on one of my posts for standing up for free speech. Antifa has threatened wonderful people like Chris Hedges and Meda Benjamin of Code Pink. They have assaulted vulnerable people. They are disgusting!