Since “antifa” as a formal organization does not exist, Trump’s executive order amounts to a blanket authorization to brand opposition to his fascism as “terrorism.”

On Monday, just one day after the Republican Party staged a Horst Wessel-style memorial for Charlie Kirk in Glendale, Arizona, President Donald Trump signed an executive order designating “antifa” a “domestic terrorist organization.”

The order claims that antifa is a “militarist, anarchist enterprise” that uses “illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide.”

Antifa, as even FBI Director Christopher Wray was forced to admit in a September 2020 congressional hearing, is not an organization but a broad current of opposition to fascism. “Antifa is an ideology, not an organization,” said Wray, who also testified that the bureau had no data showing any lethal violence committed by the organization.

Since antifa as a formal organization does not exist, Trump’s executive order amounts to a blanket authorization to brand political dissent and opposition to his fascist regime as “terrorism.”

  • evenglow@lemmy.world
    62·
    12 hours ago

    In the last 30 years, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has documented only one killing committed by an alleged antifa supporter. On August 29, 2020, Michael Reinoehl shot and killed fascist Aaron “Jay” Danielson, a member of Patriot Prayer, during a protest in Portland, Oregon. On social media following the killing, Trump encouraged police forces to kill Reinoehl. “Do your job, and do it fast. Everybody knows who this thug is,” Trump said. Reinoehl was murdered by police and federal agents on September 3, 2020.

    While there have been virtually no documented killings committed by alleged antifa members, there have been hundreds of murders and tens of thousands of assaults committed by self-declared fascists, antisemites, far-right militia elements and white supremacists over the last 30 years.