Antifa, the GOP's made-up Boogieman
Just like Socialism, it's another made-up battle cry
TAT readers,
Well readers, here we are at another Monday in the battle to save ourselves from the ongoing Republican Coup. The good news now, is that we are making some progress overall, but with still a long way to go. Today’s essay, is to establish the truth about Antifa, which is the opposite of what today’s GOP is spewing. As a short reminder to new readers, I spent the majority of my Army career serving in the CT/ Counterterrorism community, both on the battlefield and at home. Radicalization, extremist organizations and preventing violent extremism, is precisely in my wheelhouse. Enough said on this, so let’s get at this dangerous type of conspiracy theory the GOP is employing, called Narrative Warfare.
Without going down the rabbit hole about Narrative Warfare, what matters most as it pertains to this story, is that once established, it becomes extremely difficult to alter the perspective of those who have fully bought into such conspiracy theories. Today’s GOP is fully brainwashed and will believe anything told to them by their narrators, like Trump, politicians or the dime-a-dozen extremist, right-wing influencers saturating most of our media.
Today’s essay is to offer insights about Antifa, to those not under influence of GOP propaganda. Via his worthless declaration of Antifa being a “designated terrorist organization,” he intends the “Insurrection Act” which gives him the opportunity to declare Martial Law. It’s up to us resisting and those sitting quietly in the middle, to stop their overt dishonesty, with reality. Fun facts; factchecking alone will not convince the opposition, and without a strong narrative of our own counternarratives don’t work. It’s up to us to tell the truthful story right now, that inspires the silent middle, to find their voices.
Onward
Antifa background
Before we go any further, let’s make one thing perfectly clear, Antifa is not an organization. It is overwhelmingly, a loosely followed ideology that opposes fascism and the tenets of fascism such as, racism, misogyny and any other of the defining traits of today’s GOP. It has no leadership, structure or agenda of starting violence. They are a defensive movement only. Fascists or fascist leaning movements around the world, either are or support the wave of far-right governments around the plaguing democracy. Even India, the world’s largest democracy, has the BJP as their ruling party, and whose ideology is little different from the US Republican ideology, that displays strong fascist traits.
The only difference in India, is that they substitute Hindutva, Hindu violent nationalism for our White Christian Nationalism. Fascism is a global threat! Hindutva, which is also a threat within the US, and dovetails easily into the fascist ideology that we see all around us from the MAGA GOP. The GOP’s fascist tactics appear daily on our TV screens and social media feeds, due to the state-sponsored police and military actions, against Americans, legal residents and undocumented immigrants. It is no surprise that there are plenty of Indian American and Hindutva-friendly citizens and immigrants, that are associated with the GOP. I absolutely do not mean any disrespect to the overwhelming majority of Hindus, not in or not supporting, Modi’s BJP party.
The importance of the last two paragraphs is to demonstrate that these fascist traits are part of a two or three decade global, far-right movement, that employs fascist strategy and tactics, in support of their quest to acquire and maintain a myriad of extreme, right-wing governments and movements. What concerns us today, is that those governments and movements, are a severe threat to the US and constitutional republic. Like the Antifa ideology that is only defensive in protecting others from fascism and fascist violence, every true American patriot, is or should be… Antifa.
The only issue that fascist governments care about, is that a limited number of people with Antifa beliefs, will when attacked or in defense of others, employ violence when the innocent are under direct threat of fascist physical violence or that it is imminent. Then they will blame that tiny number of arrestees, in order to justify Martial Law. Expect this around the midterm elections or sooner should resistance continue to increase at its current rate. When ICE and other Executive Branch thugs operate aggressively and violently against the US citizenry, self-defense is the only answer. The violent accusers have zero moral high-ground when the administration’s enforcers, are the ones wielding mass violence proactively. Antifa, like the rest of America, have the right to not be aggressively and massively abused by their own government.
"CSIS data—as well as recent threat assessments conducted by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—indicate that Antifa poses a relatively small threat in the United States, particularly compared to violent white supremacists and anti-government extremists such as militia groups." - Examining Extremism: Antifa - Center for Strategic and International Studies - Seth G. Jones and Catrina Doxsee - June 24th, 2021
The history of Antifa is long but summarizes fairly easily. The movement began between the first and second world wars, when the previous global outbreak of fascism, led us at ever-increasing speed towards WW II. Across Europe, individual groups and movements began as a counter to the fascism of Hitler and Mussolini. Over time, these individual groups coalesced as a combined effort with one thing as their objective, to defeat fascists before they could wreak havoc on the world. They were not enough in 1939 and America in 1941, entered the war on the side of our allies, also fighting desperately for their lives against the fascists of Germany and Italy, along with the imperial Japanese military.
As Europe steadily marched towards war with the fascist threats from Germany and Italy, the Great Depression accelerated the pace of that march. Allies, addressing their own aspects of the depression and seemingly reluctant to place any significant obstacle in the way of the fascist war machines from Berlin and Rome, gave Hitler and Mussolini all the latitude they needed. Hitler and Mussolini did the rest by propagandizing and drawing these depression demoralized and angry workers into fascist paramilitary groups that would end up as shock troops for both fascist leaders.
The fascist cat, was out-of-the-bag and war became imminent, despite British Prime Minister Chamberlain’s claim of “peace in our time,” after signing over the Sudetenland portion of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. He naively believed that Hitler would be appeased and stop his aggression towards the rest of Europe and the world. After all, Hitler had already and illegally acquired Austria. Britain especially but also much of the rest of Europe, silently hoped for peace as well. They were all wrong. Appeasement proved a worthless approach and to this day, most often refers to a failed understanding of threats and strategy. The rest as they say, “is history.”
After the war, most falsely assumed that fascism was dead, but it had only briefly gone dormant and just not in Europe alone. The US still had to deal with the Klan, and those long associated pre-war, with the German Bund, a massive American Nazi sympathizer movement, that even held rallies in Madison Square Garden, among other prestigious venues. Between the Klan, the remnants of the German American Bund and several other extreme, right-wing movements, America began its march back towards fascism post war, despite the cost of roughly 420,000 dead and far more wounded.
The US Civil Rights Era, greatly expanded the White Supremacist and other fascist tendencies, which led to more Antifa-like movements fighting back against these American fascists of many flavors. Today, not only do these fascist movements live, but thrive in the US with the full support of today’s GOP, that sees no problem with associating with and cooperating with these American fascists. This is why much of today’s GOP rhetoric, propaganda and tactics, emulates fascism, regardless of which flavor or type. If you are a history buff as I am, at the embedded link, you can find a brilliant and deeply detailed history of Antifa and more, in a 286 page report titled, Antifa, the Anti-Fascist Handbook, from Rutgers’ University professor, Mark Bray.
On a related note, this respected professor and his family moved to Spain just four days ago, after receiving death threats in the wake of TPA, Turning Point America’s campaign to have him fired. TPA was Charlie Kirk’s organization.
"An expert on anti-fascist groups who teaches at Rutgers University says he is fleeing with his family to Spain after getting death threats amid a campaign by the campus chapter of Turning Point USA and other conservative groups to get him fired. Mark Bray, an assistant professor of history, said Thursday that he decided to make the move out of concern for his family’s safety after being falsely labeled as a member of antifa, a term used to describe far-left activist groups that oppose fascism. “I do not have any affiliation with any antifa group and don’t plan to,” said Bray, who wrote the book “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” which documents the philosophy and tactics of militant anti-fascist movements in the U.S. and around the world. He has taught courses on anti-fascism and terrorism at the university since 2019." - Antifa expert at Rutgers University says he is moving to Spain because of death threats - Associated Press - By BRUCE SHIPKOWSKI - Updated 1:52 PM CDT, October 9, 2025
A variety of different types of right-wing extremist and violent extremist organizations, now make up today’s GOP and support their Project 2025, Hitleresque ideology and strategy. Who can forget Trump’s debate shoutout to the Proud Boys to, “stand back and stand by” or his deep affinity for Nick Fuentes, white supremacist leader extraordinaire. Project 2025 is closely aligned and somewhat patterned on Hitler’s “Nazification” strategy for taking over the German government before WW II. The members of these groups and movements, are the foot soldiers of today’s GOP.
"These two themes were also reflected in the mix of symbology scattered in the crowd – far-right symbols that included symbols of the Confederacy, Nazism, white supremacy, and anarchy, experts said. Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a sociology professor at American University who studies extremism and far-right movements, said that along with some “violent extremists from within the MAGA or Trump supporting group,” the mob included “a toxic mix” of groups from across “the far-right spectrum.” - The symbols of hate and far-right extremism on display in pro-Trump Capitol siege. Some rioters displayed extremist symbols of white supremacy and anarchy. - Associated Press - Deena Zaru - January 14th, 2021
Now, let’s bring things up to where we are today. The current GOP regime that fully controls all three branches of our government, has been pushing ridiculous and unsupported battle cries with terms like, radical left, woke, extremists, terrorists and now most importantly, insurrectionists. Trump’s AG, William Barr tried this in Portland during the George Floyd protests, sending in all types of law enforcement from across the executive branch. After his failed operations, Barr had to publicly admit, that there was no organized Antifa, nor were they a threat. This was largely due to the then Director of the FBI, Christopher Wray making a public statement that dispelled any evidence of an organized Antifa. Yet the Republican lies and conspiracy theories survive, and are now bolstered by even more egregious lies.
To be perfectly clear and reinforce earlier statements, yes, Antifa when in defense of the innocent from fascist assaults, can be violent, but the evidence of this is sparse and widely disassociated from any of the Republican Party’s rhetoric.
"On the same day a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, the Department of Homeland Security received a damning internal report about its intelligence operations targeting racial justice protesters in Portland last summer. It outlines how senior leadership pushed unfounded conspiracies about antifascists, encouraged staff to violate constitutional rights, and made spurious connections between protesters who engaged in criminal activity. The report is an internal review focused on the agency’s Office of Intelligence & Analysis. It shows political appointees at DHS pressured career analysts to further the Trump administration’s political agenda." - Senior Homeland Security leaders pushed unfounded antifa conspiracy at 2020 Portland protests, report states - Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) - By Jonathan Levinson (OPB) and Conrad Wilson (OPB) - Oct. 1, 2021 5:06 p.m.
The GOP in the days after January 6th, also blamed Antifa, despite FBI Director Wray, continually declaring that there was no evidence of FBI involvement or involvement of Antifa in Trump’s and the GOP’s first coup attempt. Despite Wray’s declarations, supported by hardcore FBI investigations at the time, 58% of polled republicans still believed that January 6th, was an Antifa event. When someone is brainwashed to only believe their party regardless of overwhelming evidence, factchecking and expert testimony will not change their minds.
Three weeks ago, Trump expressed wishes to have Antifa designated a domestic terror organization along with those in Portland that are protesting the unconstitutional and illegal thuggery of ICE and their sister agencies. Let me be blunt; there can be no “designated terror organization, if there is no organization. As we learned earlier in this essay, Antifa is an ideology that defends the same principles that our nation was founded upon. The GOP is the opposite. The GOP is an organization while that Antifa is not. I have no idea how to make this simpler.
In order to wrap up this relatively brief explainer about Antifa, we must ignore the White House and Trump administration claims. The GOP is attempting to scapegoat an ideology, without evidence. They also claim an insurrection by all Americans not MAGA Republicans, also without evidence. Right-wing broadcasters, continue to get caught wielding videos and photos from 2020 Oregon riots and from riots in other parts of the country in 2020, in the aftermath of the George Floyd murders. They are selling these conspiracy theories hard, and if we allow them to succeed, countless other Americans and residents, will suffer grievously.
"Purporting to go after “domestic terrorism,” the president presents an imagined left-wing conspiracy and authorizes punishments for even tenuous connections to speech the administration doesn’t like." - Trump’s Orders Targeting Antifascism Aim to Criminalize Opposition - Brennan Center for Justice - By Faiza Patel - October 9th, 2025
At the end of the day, if there were no fascists, there would be no Antifa, because they are a solely defensive organization. Maybe today’s GOP should consider this basic fact, rather than attempting to subjugate all Americans to forceful aggression, detention, arrests etc. Just because they insist on fiction and conspiracy theories, rather than reality, doesn’t mean that we must. They’ve been living on conspiracy theories for so long, that they may not ever again, recognize reality.
Fascist systems don’t last, and reality does not favor perpetual dishonesty and violence. True patriots won’t put up with this much longer and the Republicans don’t have the full force of the US military behind them at this point. As I often say, there is a line-in-the-sand in the DNA of most Americans, that cannot be crossed when faced with fascism. This administration from top to bottom, is just about to find out where exactly that line is. They are playing with fire, and no one should ever wish for the civil war that Trump and his minions are attempting to trigger, but it may become the only way to restore our republic.
Back later in the week,
Paul
a.k.a. Publius Redux