Last month, Donald Trump signed an Executive Order formally designating “antifa” a domestic terrorist organization.
Vowing to unleash the full might of unrestrained federal firepower against its members, organizers and funders, the president declared: “Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law.”
In follow up, last week Trump held an “antifa roundtable” at the White House to “brainstorm” for Fox News cameras about how Trump could use armed forces to bring “antifa” down. Trump invited right-wing media influencers to the meeting, including Andy Ngo, Jack Posobiec, Nick Sortor, and Brandi Kruse, to infuse them with manufactured outrage, knowing they would dutifully spread “antifa” panic among their millions of online followers.
The session’s rollcall readout reflects trademark sycophancy. After Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem thanked Trump for “focusing on Antifa and the terrorists that they are,” she told the influencers: “These individuals do not just want to threaten our law enforcement officers, threaten our journalists and the citizens of this country, they want to kill them.” FBI Director Kash Patel, not to be outdone, vowed “to bring down this network of organized criminal thugs, gangbangers and, yes, domestic terrorists because that's what they are.” Multiple members of Trump’s Dear Leader cabinet amplified these claims in turn, each upping the fear and drama from the speaker before.
A construct, not an organization
The problem with Trump’s EO and roundtable is that none of it was true. It’s time for someone to let Trump in on a little secret: most Americans know that Trump knows that we know there’s no such thing as “antifa,” and that what Trump is really trying to do is outlaw his political opposition.
Experts and security analysts from PBS, the Associated Press, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and the Anti-Defamation League have all confirmed that “antifa” is not an organization. It is, instead, a decentralized ideology based on anti-fascist principles.
There is no organization called “antifa.” There are no headquarters, membership rosters, dues, press releases, or rules. There is no leader, unless you count Aunt Tifa, who, in fairness to Trump, could be intimidating in her “Passion for knitting, cats, and taking down the patriarchy.” Aunt Tifa has 162 followers on Facebook, and admittedly, 162 pairs of knitting needles — or 162 cats for that matter — could intimidate ICE goons when they aren’t busy body slamming peaceful protesters.
“Antifa” is a concept, an idea, a decentralized belief that fascism is wrong.
Hitler was a fascist. Benito Mussolini was a fascist. The murderous sycophants surrounding them, enabling their blood lust, were fascists. In 1945, the world reeled from unspeakable horrors they orchestrated. Millions upon millions of people perished in WWII — 15 million soldiers were smeared across battlefields; 45 million civilians were killed, including 11 million Jews, gay people and other minorities who drew their last breath in Hitler’s death camps. Together, Hitler and Mussolini devised the most sinister means of slaughtering humans the world has ever seen.
In World War II, every soldier, sailor and pilot who fought on the side of the Allies — and every woman who stayed behind to work in the munitions factories — fought to defeat Hitler’s fascist machine. That means my grandfather, your grandfather, and everyone who fought against Axis powers in WWII was aligned with “antifa.”
Every man, woman and child who emerged from the carnage committed to a collective global defense to avoid Hitlers of the future was “antifa.” The North Atlantic Treaty that established NATO and gave teeth to a free world order against fascism and governed by the rule of law? “Antifa.” Prized for its armed deterrence, NATO delivered the somber recognition that although Hitler was gone, the power-lust, brutality and villainy that drives evil men like him would remain.
To Trump, ‘Antifa’ means opposition
For world leaders who pushed the NATO alliance, the question wasn’t if Hitler-caliber evil would reappear on the world stage, but when. Small wonder Trump is antagonistic toward NATO. Small wonder groups fighting fascism today scare Trump so much he needed a label to vilify them.
It should be clear by now that “antifa,” to Trump, means anyone who opposes him politically. Trump’s chief henchman Stephen Miller said as much on Fox when he said the Democratic Party is “an entity devoted exclusively to the defense of hardened criminals, gang-bangers, and illegal, alien killers and terrorists. The Democrat Party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization.”
Miller called “Democrats” a domestic terrorist organization back in August, before the White House hatched the “antifa” plan in September.
Trump and Noem, aided by Fox News, are spreading panic and fear about “antifa” preparing to “kill” as a political strategy. If the public truly believes “antifa” threatens them, they will support Trump’s unwarranted aggression in rounding people up. If they truly believe “antifa” wants to kill them, they will be supportive when ICE and the National Guard start killing protestors.
Noem hit it home at the roundtable, telling the influencers: “This network of Antifa is just as sophisticated as MS-13, as TDA, as ISIS, as Hezbollah, as Hamas, as all of them. They are just as dangerous. They have an agenda to destroy us just like the other terrorists.”
“Antifa” is Trump’s rallying cry. When he calls Democrat-run cities a “war zone” before he invades them with occupying forces, understand that he is planning to turn them into one.
- Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
