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.”

  • tidderuuf@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    One can be anti fascist whilst not being a member of Antifa. Don’t forget people, these are the dumbest people in the world running this show.

    • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Yeah but the more you read up on the Nazis the more you find out they were pretty dumb too. Still killed millions of people.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      7 days ago

      No, “antifa” is, itself, the term for the position of being against fascism. There is no organization.

      They also will not care as they’re just going to accuse their enemies of it regardless of how left they are. They know exactly what they are doing, and they’ve been doing it way faster than I expected.

    • Donjuanme@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      I would argue there is no organization known as “antifa”. Certainly nothing with structure or presence like tpusa or the proud boys, ya know the organization that terrorized the seat of our nation 5 years ago…

      • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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        7 days ago

        Attend the planning meetings of any anti-fascist group that uses ‘antifa’ in their name, of which there are many; in my experience the ‘membership’ is almost identical to the ‘membership’ of the local Anarchist Book Fair planning committee.

        Or show up to an anti-fascist rally, even as a bystander, get arrested for nothing, and now your name is on a ‘known members’ list in some pig’s office :P

    • Luouth@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      So, so dumb that I can fully imagine a scenario like this playing out amongst the orange knobhead and his staff on the daily

    • flandish@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      explain how so? consider that there is no way to “be” a member of a group that does not exist in that manner. being of the cohort of people who are antifascist is not the same as being a “member.” I suppose we are saying the same thing. :)