Category Archives: Antifa

Anti-fascist political activist movement

Antifa () is a left-wing anti-fascist and anti-racist political movement in the United States. It is highly decentralized and comprises an array of autonomous groups that aim to achieve their objectives through the use of both nonviolent and violent direct action rather than through policy reform.[1][2][3] Much of antifa political activism is nonviolent, involving poster and flyer campaigns, mutual aid, delivering speeches, marching in protest, and community organizing.[4][5][6] They also engage in protest tactics, seeking to combat fascists and racists such as neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other far-right extremists, and differing from other leftist opposition movements by their willingness to directly confront far-right activists, and in some cases law enforcement.[2] This sometimes involves digital activism, doxing, harassment, physical violence, and property damage against those whom they identify as belonging to the far right.[7]

Individuals involved in the movement tend to hold anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, and anti-state views, subscribing to a range of left-wing ideologies. A majority of individuals involved are anarchists, communists, and other socialists who describe themselves as revolutionaries[8] and criticize liberal democracy,[9] although some social democrats and others on the American Left,[10] among them environmentalists, LGBT and indigenous rights advocates,[6] also adhere to the antifa movement.[9] The name antifa and the logo with two flags representing anarchism and communism are derived from the German antifa movement.[11]

Antifa activists' actions have received support and criticism from various organizations and pundits, with some on the American Left criticizing antifa for its willingness to adopt violent direct actions and for being counterproductive or backfiring by emboldening the right and their allies.[12] Part of the right characterizes it as a domestic terrorist organization or uses antifa as a catch-all term[13] for any left-leaning or liberal protest actions.[14] Some scholars argue that antifa is a legitimate response to the rise of the far right[15] and that antifa's violence such as milkshaking is not equivalent to right-wing violence.[3] Scholars tend to reject the equivalence between antifa and white supremacism.[2][16][17]

There have been multiple efforts to discredit antifa groups via hoaxes on social media, many of them false flag attacks originating from alt-right and 4chan users posing as antifa backers on Twitter.[18][19][20] Some hoaxes have been picked up and portrayed as fact by right-leaning media and politicians.[21][18][22][23] During the George Floyd protests in May and June 2020, the Trump administration blamed antifa for orchestrating the mass protests; analysis of federal arrests did not find links to antifa.[24] There were repeated calls by Donald Trump and William Barr to designate antifa as a terrorist organization[25] despite the fact that it is not an organization, a move that academics, legal experts, and others have argued would exceed the authority of the presidency and violate the First Amendment.[26][27][28] Several analyses, reports, and studies concluded that antifa is not a major domestic terrorism risk and ranked far-right extremism and white supremacy as the top domestic risk.[17][29][30]

The English word antifa is a loanword from the German Antifa, where it is a shortened form of the word antifaschistisch ("anti-fascist") and a nickname of Antifaschistische Aktion (19321933), a short-lived group which inspired the wider antifa movement in Germany.[31][32][33] The German word Antifa itself first appeared in 1930 and the long form antifaschistisch was borrowed from the original Italian anti-Fascisti ("anti-fascists").[31] Oxford Dictionaries placed antifa on its shortlist for word of the year in 2017 and stated the word "emerged from relative obscurity to become an established part of the English lexicon over the course of 2017."[32]

The pronunciation of the word in English is not settled as it may be stressed on either the first or the second syllable.[34][31]

The Anti-Defamation League recommends that the label antifa should be limited to "those who proactively seek physical confrontations with their perceived fascist adversaries" and not be misapplied to include all anti-fascist counter-protesters.[35] Journalist Conor Friedersdorf makes a distinction between "self-described members of the group" and "anyone who shows up in the streets to protest against fascists", arguing that "Antifa and antifascism are no more synonymous than being a member of Black Lives Matter and believing that black lives matter."[36]

During the Trump administration, the term antifa became "a conservative catch-all" term as Donald Trump, administration officials, Trump base supporters, and right-wing commentators applied the label to all sorts of left-leaning or liberal protest actions.[13] Conservative writers such as L. Brent Bozell III labeled Black Lives Matter as "antifa".[13] Politico reported that "the term [antifa] is a potent one for conservatives" because "[i]t's the violent distillation of everything they fear could come to pass in an all-out culture war. And it's a quick way to brand part of the opposition."[13] Alexander Reid Ross, who teaches at Portland State University, argues that the popularization of the term antifa was a reaction to the popularization of the term alt-right, "to the point where [antifa] simply describes people who are anti-fascist or people who are against racism and are willing to protest against it."[13]

Individuals involved in the antifa movement tend to hold anti-authoritarian,[37] anti-capitalist,[38][39] anti-fascist,[40] and anti-state views,[10] subscribing to a varied range of left-wing ideologies.[41] A majority of adherents are anarchists, communists, and other socialists who describe themselves as revolutionaries,[9] although some social democrats and others on the American Left,[10] among them environmentalists, LGBT and indigenous rights advocates,[6] also adhere to the antifa movement.[9] According to Peter Beinart, "antifa is heavily composed of anarchists" and "its activists place little faith in the state, which they consider complicit in fascism and racism."[10] Antifa activists' ideologies, as well as their involvement in violent actions against far-right opponents and the police has led some scholars and news media to characterize the movement as far-left[2][42] and militant.[40][43][44] In his article "The Rise of the Violent Left" for The Atlantic, Beinart writes that antifa activists "prefer direct action: They pressure venues to deny white supremacists space to meet. They pressure employers to fire them and landlords to evict them. And when people they deem racists and fascists manage to assemble, antifa's partisans try to break up their gatherings, including by force."[10]

According to historian Mark Bray, an expert on the movement,[45] the "vast majority of anti-fascist organizing is nonviolent. But their willingness to physically defend themselves and others from white supremacist violence and preemptively shut down fascist organizing efforts before they turn deadly distinguishes them from liberal anti-racists."[46] Described as a pan-leftist and non-hierarchical movement,[9] antifa is united by opposition to right-wing extremism and white supremacy.[40][47] Antifa activists reject both conservative and liberal anti-fascism.[47][48][49] The antifa movement generally eschews mainstream liberal democracy,[9] having "an illiberal disdain for the confines of mainstream politics",[50] and favoring direct action over electoral politics.[40][47] Bray states that "[t]he vast majority of antifa militants are radical anti-capitalists who oppose the Democratic Party" and that Democratic Party leaders, including Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, have condemned antifa and political violence more broadly.[50] Despite antifa's opposition to the Democratic Party and liberalism, some right-wing commentators have accused their adherents of being aided by "liberal sympathizers"[51] and "affiliated with the Democratic Party"[50] as well as being "a single organization", "funded by liberal financiers like George Soros", "mastermind[ing] violence at Black Lives Matter protests", and that "Antifascists are the 'real fascists'", with Bray citing these as examples of five myths about antifa.[50]

The Anti-Defamation League states that "[m]ost antifa come from the anarchist movement or from the far left, though since the 2016 presidential election, some people with more mainstream political backgrounds have also joined their ranks."[35] Similarly, Bray argues that "[i]t's also important to remember that these are self-described revolutionaries. They're anarchists and communists who are way outside the traditional conservative-liberal spectrum."[9] ABC News notes that "[w]hile antifa's political leanings are often described as 'far-left,' experts say members' radical views vary and can intersect with communism, socialism and anarchism."[52] According to CNN, "Antifa is short for anti-fascists. The term is used to define a broad group of people whose political beliefs lean toward the left -- often the far left -- but do not conform with the Democratic Party platform."[53] The BBC notes that, "as their name indicates, Antifa focuses more on fighting far-right ideology than encouraging pro-left policy."[40] Beinart argues that the election of Donald Trump vitalized the antifa movement and some on the mainstream left were more willing to support them as a tactical opposition.[10]

Antifa is not a unified organization but rather a movement without a hierarchical leadership structure, comprising multiple autonomous groups and individuals.[35][9][46][54] The movement is loosely affiliated[40] and has no chain of command, with antifa groups instead sharing "resources and information about far-right activity across regional and national borders through loosely knit networks and informal relationships of trust and solidarity."[28] According to Mark Bray, "members hide their political activities from law enforcement and the far right" and "concerns about infiltration and high expectations of commitment keep the sizes of groups rather small."[28] Bray adds that "[i]t's important to understand that antifa politics, and antifa's methods, are designed to stop white supremacists, fascists, and neo-Nazis as easily as possible."[55] For Bray, "[t]he vast majority of their activities are nonviolent. They function in some ways like private investigators; they track neo-Nazi organizing across multiple social-media platforms."[55] In regard to doxing, Bray says that it is about "telling people that they have a Nazi living down the street, or telling employers that they're employing white supremacists", adding that "after Charlottesville, a lot of the repercussions that these khaki-wearing, tiki-torch white supremacists faced were their employers firing them and their families repudiating what they do."[55]

Activists typically organize protests via social media and through websites.[56] Some activists have built peer-to-peer networks, or use encrypted-texting services like Signal.[57] Chauncey Devega of Salon described antifa as an organizing strategy, not a group of people.[58] According to one group member, antifa's identification research on whether an individual or group is "fascist, Alt Right, White Nationalist, etc." is "based on which groups they are a part of and endorse." While noting that "Nazis, fascists, white nationalists, anti-Semites and Islamophobes" are specific overlapping categories, the main focus is "on groups and individuals which endorse, or work directly in alliance with, white supremacists and white separatists. We try to be very clear and precise with how we use these terms."[59] According to Colin Clarke and Michael Kenney, direct actions such as anti-Trump protests, demonstrations against the alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos and the clash with neo-Nazis and white supremacists at the Unite the Right rally "reflects many Antifa supporters' belief that Trump is a fascist demagogue who threatens the existence of America's pluralistic, multi-racial democracy. This factor helps explain why such Antifa supporters are so quick to label the president's 'Make America Great Again' supporters as fascists and why Trump is so quick to label Antifa as a terrorist organization."[60]

The antifa movement has grown since the 2016 United States presidential election. As of August 2017, approximately 200 groups existed, of varying sizes and levels of activity.[61] It is particularly present in the Pacific Northwest,[62] such as in Portland, Oregon.[63]

When Italian dictator Benito Mussolini consolidated power under his National Fascist Party in the mid-1920s, an oppositional anti-fascist movement surfaced both in Italy and countries such as the United States. Many anti-fascist leaders in the United States were anarchist, socialist, and syndicalist migrs from Italy with experience in labor organizing and militancy.[64] Ideologically, antifa in the United States sees itself as the successor to anti-Nazi activists of the 1930s. European activist groups that originally organized to oppose World War II-era fascist dictatorships re-emerged in the 1970s and 1980s to oppose white supremacy and skinheads, eventually spreading to the United States.[61]

Modern antifa politics can be traced to opposition to the infiltration of Britain's punk scene by white power skinheads in the 1970s and 1980s, and the emergence of neo-Nazism in Germany following the fall of the Berlin Wall.[10] In Germany, young leftists, including anarchists and punk fans, renewed the practice of street-level anti-fascism.[10] Peter Beinart, professor of journalism and political science at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York, writes that "[i]n the late '80s, left-wing punk fans in the United States began following suit, though they initially called their groups Anti-Racist Action, on the theory that Americans would be more familiar with fighting racism than they would be with fighting fascism."[10]

Dartmouth College historian Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, credits Anti-Racist Action (ARA) as the precursor of modern antifa groups in the United States.[37] In the late 1980s and 1990s, ARA activists toured with popular punk rock and skinhead bands in order to prevent Klansmen, neo-Nazis and other assorted white supremacists from recruiting.[10][65][66] Their motto was "We go where they go" by which they meant that they would confront far-right activists in concerts and actively remove their materials from public places.[46] In 2002, ARA disrupted a speech in Pennsylvania by Matthew F. Hale, the head of the white supremacist group World Church of the Creator, resulting in a fight and 25 arrests.[10]

In 2007, Rose City Antifa, likely the first group to utilize the name antifa, was formed in Portland, Oregon by former ARA members.[67][6][68] Other antifa groups in the United States have other genealogies. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, a group called the Baldies was formed in 1987 with the intent to fight neo-Nazi groups directly.[39] In 2013, the "most radical" chapters of ARA formed the Torch Antifa Network[69] which has chapters throughout the United States.[70] Other antifa groups are a part of different associations such as NYC Antifa or operate independently.[71]

According to Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at the California State University, San Bernardino, antifa activists feel the need to participate in violent actions because "they believe that elites are controlling the government and the media. So they need to make a statement head-on against the people who they regard as racist."[53] Historian Mark Bray wrote that the adherents "reject turning to the police or the state to halt the advance of white supremacy. Instead they advocate popular opposition to fascism as we witnessed in Charlottesville."[9] The idea of direct action is central to the antifa movement.[72] Former antifa organizer Scott Crow told an interviewer:

The idea in Antifa is that we go where they (right-wingers) go. That hate speech is not free speech. That if you are endangering people with what you say and the actions that are behind them, then you do not have the right to do that. And so we go to cause conflict, to shut them down where they are, because we don't believe that Nazis or fascists of any stripe should have a mouthpiece.[53]

A manual posted on It's Going Down, an anarchist website, warns against accepting "people who just want to fight". Furthermore, the website notes that "physically confronting and defending against fascists is a necessary part of anti-fascist work, but is not the only or even necessarily the most important part."

According to Beinart, antifa activists "try to publicly identify white supremacists and get them fired from their jobs and evicted from their apartments" and also "disrupt white-supremacist rallies, including by force."[72] A book review in The Washington Post reported that "Antifa tactics include 'no platforming,' i.e. denying their targets the opportunity to speak out in public; obstructing their events and defacing their propaganda; and, when antifa activists deem it necessary, deploying violence to deter them."[49] According to National Public Radio, antifa's "approach is confrontational" and "people who speak for the Antifa movement acknowledge they sometimes carry clubs and sticks."[74] CNN describes antifa as "known for causing damage to property during protests."[53] Scott Crow says that antifa adherents believe that property destruction does not "equate to violence".[53] According to the Los Angeles Times, antifa protesters have engaged in "mob violence, attacking a small showing of supporters of President Trump and others they accused, sometimes inaccurately, of being white supremacists or Nazis."[75] Antifa activists also used clubs and dyed liquids against white supremacists in Charlottesville.[76] According to The Kansas City Star, police asked persons carrying firearms (including both antifa members and members of the far-right militia movement group Three Percenters) at a September 2017 rally in Kansas City to remove ammunition from their weapons.[77]

Apart from the other activities, antifa activists engage in mutual aid such as disaster response in the case of Hurricane Harvey.[78][79][80] According to Natasha Lennard in The Nation, antifa groups as of January 2017 were working with interfaith groups and churches "to create a New Sanctuary Movement, continuing and expanding a 40-year-old practice of providing spaces for refugees and immigrants."[81] Antifa activists also conduct research to monitor far-right activity, hold conferences and workshops on anti-fascist activism, distribute literature at book fairs and film festivals as well as advocating ways of "fostering sustainable, peaceful communities" such as working in community gardens.[82]

Antifa activists often use the black bloc tactic in which people dress in black and cover their faces in order to thwart surveillance and create a sense of equality and solidarity among participants.[83] Antifa activists wear masks to hide their "identity from protestors on the other side (who might dox people they disagree with) or from police and cameras" and for philosophical reasons such as the beliefs that "hierarchies are bad and that remaining anonymous helps keep one's ego in check."[84] Joseph Bernstein from BuzzFeed News says that antifa activists also wear masks because "they fear retribution from the far right and the cops, whom they believe are sympathetic if not outright supportive to fascists."[85]

When antifa became prominent in the news during the George Floyd protests and was under attack for being responsible for much, if not most of the violence, a report in Vox stated that "[m]embers of antifa groups do more conventional activism, flyer campaigns, and community organizing, on behalf of anti-racist and anti-white nationalist causes", quoting Mark Bray as saying that this was the "vast majority" of what they did.[5] In July 2020, The Guardian reported that "a California-based organizer and anti-fascist activist" stated she saw "Trump's claims about antifa violence, particularly during the George Floyd protests, as a message to his 'hardcore' supporters that it was appropriate to attack people who came out to protest."[17] In August 2020, many small business owners interviewed by The New York Times in what was the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle blamed people they identified as antifa for much of the violence and intimidation of their patrons while distinguishing antifa from Black Lives Matter.[62] In September 2020, Scott Crow criticized a report for "equating the murder of human beings by the Boogaloo and neo-Nazis with property destruction because people are sick of having boots on their neck."[86]

Along with black bloc activists, antifa groups were among those who protested the 2016 election of Donald Trump.[10][43][81] Antifa activists also participated in the February 2017 Berkeley protests against alt-right provocateur[87][88][89] speaker Milo Yiannopoulos, where antifa gained mainstream attention,[56] with media reporting antifa protesters "throwing Molotov cocktails and smashing windows"[53] and causing $100,000 worth of damage.[90]

In April 2017, the Direct Action Alliance and the Oregon Students Empowered, described as "two self-described antifascist groups", threatened to disrupt the 82nd Avenue of Roses Parade in Portland, Oregon after hearing that the Multnomah County Republican Party would participate. The parade organizers also received an anonymous email, reading: "You have seen how much power we have downtown and that the police cannot stop us from shutting down roads so please consider your decision wisely." The two groups denied having anything to do with the email. The parade was ultimately canceled by the organizers due to safety concerns.[91][92]

In August 2017, antifa counter-protesters at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, reported The New York Times, "used clubs and dyed liquids against the white supremacists."[76] Journalist Adele Stan interviewed an antifa protester at the rally who said the sticks carried by the protesters were a justifiable countermeasure to the fact that "the right has a goon squad".[93] Some antifa participants at the Charlottesville rally chanted that counter-protesters should "punch a Nazi in the mouth".[74] Antifa participants also protected Cornel West and various clergy from attack by white supremacists, with West stating he felt that antifa had "saved his life".[94][95] Antifa activists also defended the First United Methodist Church, where the Charlottesville Clergy Collective provided refreshments, music and training to the counter-protesters.[96] According to a local rabbi, antifa counter-protesters "chased [the white supremacists] off with sticks."[94]

Groups that had been preparing to protest the Boston Free Speech Rally saw their plans become viral following the violence in Charlottesville. The event drew a largely peaceful crowd of 40,000 counter-protesters. In The Atlantic, McKay Coppins stated that the 33 people arrested for violent incidents were "mostly egged on by the minority of 'Antifa' agitators in the crowd."[97] President Trump described the protesters outside his August 2017 rally in Phoenix, Arizona as "antifa".[98]

During the Berkeley protests on August 27, 2017, an estimated one hundred antifa protesters joined a crowd of 2,0004,000 other protesters to confront alt-right demonstrators and Trump supporters who showed up for a "Say No to Marxism" rally that had been cancelled by organizers due to security concerns.[90][99] Protestors threatened to smash the cameras of anyone who filmed them.[100] Jesse Arreguin, the mayor of Berkeley, suggested classifying the city's antifa as a gang.[101] The far-right group Patriot Prayer cancelled an event in San Francisco the same day following counter protests. Joey Gibson, the founder of Patriot Prayer, blamed antifa, along with BAMN, for breaking up the event.[102]

In June 2018, a Nebraska antifa group published a list of names and photographs of 1,595 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, drawn from LinkedIn profiles.[103]

In November 2018, police investigated the antifa group Smash Racism D.C. following a protest outside the home of The Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson,[104] who has been described by the Associated Press as "a major supporter of President Donald Trump and his policies".[105] Activists of the group said through a bullhorn that Carlson was promoting hate[106] and chanted "We will fight, we know where you sleep at night!" and defaced the driveway of Carlson's property by spray-painting an anarchist symbol on it.[107] Twitter suspended the group's account for violation of Twitter rules by posting Carlson's home address. The group also posted addresses of Carlson's brother and a friend who co-founded The Daily Caller.[108][109][110][111][112][113]

In February 2019, anti-fascist activists marched in celebration through Stone Mountain, Georgia as a white supremacist, neo-Confederate rally planned to be held at the adjacent Stone Mountain Park was cancelled due to infighting and fear of personal safety. White supremacist groups originally sought to attract attention by marching at the Stone Mountain, a Confederate landmark carving, during Super Bowl weekend. The groups ignored the park's denial of permit due to "clear and present danger to the public health or safety", but this was thwarted when Facebook and Twitter terminated their organizing accounts and pages, and by one group leader's retreat due to "fears of violence from counter-protesters". In their absence, more than 100 antifa activists marched peacefully through the adjacent village, burned a Klansman effigy and chanted slogans such as "Good night, alt-right" and "Death to the Klan", before joining another civil rights rally at Piedmont Park held by the NAACP and the SPLC.[114][115][116]

Historian Mark Bray, who has studied the antifa movement, stated that "[g]iven the historical and current threat that white supremacist and fascist groups pose, it's clear to me that organized, collective self-defense is not only a legitimate response, but lamentably an all-too-necessary response to this threat on too many occasions."[15] Alexander Reid Ross, a lecturer in geography and an author on the contemporary right, has argued that antifa groups represented "one of the best models for channeling the popular reflexes and spontaneous movements towards confronting fascism in organized and focused ways."[117]

Historian and Dissent magazine editor Michael Kazin wrote that "[n]on-leftists often see the left as a disruptive, lawless force. Violence tends to confirm that view."[118] Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat was "worried that antifa's methods could feed into what she said were false equivalencies that seek to lump violence on the left with attacks by the right." Ben-Ghiat argued that "[t]hrowing a milkshake is not equivalent to killing someone, but because the people in power are allied with the right, any provocation, any dissent against right-wing violence, backfires", with the effect that "[m]ilitancy on the left" can "become a justification for those in power and allies on the right to crack down" on the left.[3]

Peter Beinart, a professor of journalism and political science, wrote that "[a]ntifa believes it is pursuing the opposite of authoritarianism. Many of its activists oppose the very notion of a centralized state. But in the name of protecting the vulnerable, antifascists have granted themselves the authority to decide which Americans may publicly assemble and which may not. That authority rests on no democratic foundation. [...] The people preventing Republicans from safely assembling on the streets of Portland may consider themselves fierce opponents of the authoritarianism growing on the American right. In truth, however, they are its unlikeliest allies."[10]

Black studies professor Shirley Jackson stated that antifa had made things more difficult for Black Lives Matter by causing a loss of focus.[4] Historian Marc Rodriguez said that "the ideas about anti-fascism for them are (currently) concerns in the United States about racism" and that antifa was similar to the 201920 Hong Kong protests, but that what antifa was "not so great at is coming to the realization that eventually social protests seek to bargain."[4]

Veteran anti-racist Cornel West, who attended a counter-protest to the Unite the Right rally, said in an interview that "we would have been crushed like cockroaches if it were not for the anarchists and the anti-fascists", describing a situation where a group of 20 counter-protesters were surrounded by marchers whom he described as "neofascists".[119][120][121]

Veteran radical Noam Chomsky described antifa as "a major gift to the right", arguing that "the movement was self-destructive and constituted a tiny faction on the periphery of the left."[122] Eleanor Penny, an author on fascism and the far-right, argued against Chomsky that "physical resistance has time and again protected local populations from racist violence, and prevented a gathering caucus of fascists from making further inroads into mainstream politics".[122] A. M. Gittlitz and Natasha Lennard[5][55] have argued against Chomsky and others, citing the 2017 events at Charlottesville and Richard B. Spencer's suspension of his college tour in March 2018,[123][124] respectively, as "a victory"[125] and as "a sharp rebuttal to the glut of claims that antifa practices serve as a gift to the far right."[126][127]

Some "anti-anti-fascists" on the left have argued that antifa attack a symptom of liberal democracy rather than combating structural racism itself and in doing so distance themselves from revolutionary politics.[125]

According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), "most established civil rights organizations criticize antifa tactics as dangerous and counterproductive."[35] In 2017, the ADL criticized antifa for its use of "unacceptable tactics" such as violence and warned that such tactics provided a powerful propaganda and recruitment tool to right-wing extremists.[35] However, the ADL stated that "it is important to reject attempts to claim equivalence between the antifa and the white supremacist groups they oppose", noting that right-wing extremist movements are much more violent and have been responsible for hundreds of murders in the United States while "there have not been any known antifa-related murders."[35] In 2020, the ADL noted that while there have been hundreds of murders by far-right groups in the last few decades, there has only been one suspected antifa-related murder.[128]

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), designating antifa as a domestic terrorist organization is dangerous and a threat to civil liberties.[129] The SPLC also reported that antifa members "have been involved in skirmishes and property crimes, 'but the threat of lethal violence pales in comparison to that posed by far-right extremists.'"[29]

In June 2017, the antifa movement was linked to "anarchist extremism" by the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness.[130] This assessment was replaced with one in 2019 which states that "Antifa is a movement that focuses on issues involving racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism, as well as other perceived injustices. The majority of Antifa members do not promote or endorse violence; however, the movement consists of anarchist extremists and other individuals who seek to carry out acts of violence in order to forward their respective agendas."[131] In September 2017, Politico obtained confidential documents and interviews indicating that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) believed that "anarchist extremists" were the primary instigators of violence at public rallies against a range of targets in April 2016.[132]

In July 2020, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, who stated in an earlier press release[133] on June 4 that "anarchists like Antifa" are "exploiting this situation to pursue violent, extremist agendas",[134] testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that the agency "considers antifa more of an ideology than an organization"[24] which was later reiterated the same year in a September 17 remark to lawmakers.[54] This contradicted President Trump's remarks about antifa and put Wray at odds with the Trump administration.[54] According to the Associated Press, Wray "did not dispute that antifa activists were a serious concern", stating that antifa was a "real thing" and that the FBI had undertaken "any number of properly predicated investigations into what we would describe as violent anarchist extremists", including into individuals who identify with antifa, whom the FBI identified as "a movement or an ideology" rather than as "a group or an organization".[54] Wray stated that "racially motivated violent extremists, such as white supremacists, have been responsible for the most lethal attacks in the U.S. in recent years", although "this year the most lethal violence has come from anti-government activists, such as anarchists and militia-types."[54]

Three August 2020 DHS draft reports did not mention antifa as a domestic terrorism risk and ranked white supremacy as the top risk, higher than that of foreign terrorist groups.[30]

On August 29, 2017, Nancy Pelosi, then House Minority Leader for the Democratic Party, condemned the violence of antifa activists in Berkeley.[135]

In July 2019, Republican Senators Bill Cassidy and Ted Cruz introduced a nonbinding resolution that would designate antifa a domestic terrorist organization.[136]

In June 2020, Republican Senator Tom Cotton advocated using military force to quell nationwide protests against police brutality and racism, calling for the 101st Airborne Division to be deployed to combat what he called "Antifa terrorists".[137] Cruz accused "Antifa protesters" of "organizing these acts of terror"[138] and called for "systematic law enforcement targeting Antifa and other terrorist groups".[139]

In September 2020, 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden also condemned antifa violent actions,[50] having previously already condemned violence across the political spectrum and expressed his support for the peaceful protests.[140]

In August 2017, a petition was lodged with the White House petitioning system We the People calling upon President Donald Trump to formally classify "AntiFa" as terrorist. The White House responded in 2018 that federal law does not have a mechanism for formally designating domestic terrorist organizations.[141][142][143] The writer of the petition later stated he had created it to "bring our broken right side together" and to "prop up antifa as a punching bag".[144]

In 2017, Politico interviewed unidentified law enforcement officials who noted a rise in activity since the beginning of the Trump administration, particularly a rise in recruitment and on the part of the far right as well since the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally. One internal assessment acknowledged an inability to penetrate the groups' "diffuse and decentralized organizational structure". By 2017, the FBI and the DHS reported that they were monitoring suspicious antifa activity in relation to terrorism.[132]

During the nationwide protests against the killing of George Floyd in May and June 2020, Attorney General William Barr blamed the violence on "anarchic and far left extremist groups using Antifa-like tactics"[145] and described the actions of "Antifa and other similar groups" as "domestic terrorism",[146] echoing similar statements by National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien.[147] In Twitter posts and other statements, Trump blamed "ANTIFA and the Radical Left" for violence[145][148] and repeatedly pledged that the federal government would designate antifa as a "Terrorist Organization".[149][150][151][152] However, Trump lacks the authority to do so because under existing law the federal government may designate only foreign organizations as terrorist and antifa is a loosely associated movement rather than a specific organization.[153][154][155] Legal experts, among others, believe that designating antifa as a terrorist group would be unconstitutional, raising First Amendment and due process issues.[26][27] According to historian Mark Bray, antifa cannot be designated as a terrorist organization because "[t]he groups are loosely organized, and they aren't large enough to cause everything Trump blames them for." In addition, Bray argued that the political right has attempted to "blame everything on antifa" during the George Floyd protests and that in assuming antifa to be "predominantly white", it "evince[s] a kind of racism that assumes that black people couldn't organize on this deep and wide of a scale."[28]

On June 2, 2020, The Nation reported on a copy of an FBI Washington Field Office internal situation report it had obtained which stated that the FBI had "no intelligence indicating Antifa involvement/presence" in the violent May 31 D.C.-area protests.[156] Two days later, Barr claimed that "[w]e have evidence that antifa and other similar extremist groups, as well as actors of a variety of different political persuasions have been involved in instigating and participating in the violent activity."[157] However, the Trump administration has provided no evidence for its claims[158] and there is no evidence that antifa-aligned individuals played a role in instigating the protests or violence, or that antifa played a significant role in the protests.[24][159][158] According to Bray, while "confident that some members of antifa groups have participated in a variety of forms of resistance" during the protests, it is "impossible to ascertain the exact number of people who belong to antifa groups."[28] As of June 9, 2020, none of the 51 people facing federal charges were alleged to have links to antifa.[160] As of September 16, 2020, no antifa or left-wing group has been charged in connection with the civil unrest.[86]

In an August 2020 interview, Trump asserted "people that are in the dark shadows" control his Democratic presidential opponent Joe Biden and then claimed that "we had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend, and in the plane it was almost completely loaded with thugs, wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms, with gear and this and that", adding that "they're people that are on the streets. They're people that are controlling the streets." Antifa activists commonly dress in black.[161] Trump's remarks were similar to false social media rumors during preceding months that planes and buses full of antifa gangs were preparing to invade communities, allegedly funded by George Soros.[162][163][164] Two days after Trump's remarks, Barr asserted he knew antifa activists "are flying around the country" and "we are following them".[165] However, there is no evidence of any such flight.[161] According to Reuters, "[l]aw enforcement, intelligence and Congressional officials familiar with official reporting on weeks of protests and related arrests said on Tuesday they were aware of no incidents or reports that would confirm Trump's anecdote."[165]

In a September 2020 whistleblower complaint,[166] Brian Murphy, who was the Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis until August 2020, asserted that DHS secretary Chad Wolf and his deputy Ken Cuccinelli instructed him "to modify intelligence assessments to ensure they matched up with the public comments by President Trump on the subject of ANTIFA and 'anarchist' groups."[167] On September 18, 2020, Trump publicly criticized FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and hinted that he could fire him over Wray's testimony about antifa and Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections.[168][169][170]

On September 25, 2020, the Trump campaign released details on a "Platinum Plan for Black America", under which "Antifa" and the Ku Klux Klan would be prosecuted as terrorist organizations.[171][172] The plan does not include any mention of other white nationalist organizations or of prosecuting far-right terrorism.[173]

Questions on how effective antifa is and whether it is a reasonable response have been raised and discussed by news media.[5][36][10][55][124][174]

In relation to the events of the Unite the Right rally, a 2018 study conducted by professor of criminology Gary LaFree on the link between antifa and terrorism concluded that "while the events share many characteristics of terrorist attacks", the actions by antifa supporters during this event "do not include all of the elements of terrorism required by the GTD". Whereas it fulfilled the requirements of an action led by "sub-national actors" with "violence or threat of violence", it lacked in particular the "intentionality of the incident", that is the "result of a conscious calculation on the part of the perpetrators." LaFree also questioned "whether antifa can be considered to constitute a 'group' at this point in time" and stressed "how complicated it is to distinguish terrorism from other forms of illegal violence" such as those by antifa supporters.[175]

In June 2020, the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) assembled a database of 893 terrorism incidents in the United States beginning in 1994.[17][176][177] An analysis of the database conducted by The Guardian in July 2020 found no murder linked to antifa or anti-fascism since 1994. According to The Guardian, the only death resulting from an anti-fascist attack recorded in the database was that of Willem van Spronsen, who was shot dead by police while allegedly firebombing a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Tacoma, Washington. In contrast, the study highlighted that 329 people were killed by American white supremacists or other right-wing extremists during the same period. The Guardian quoted Heidi Beirich, a co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, as saying that "Antifa is not going around murdering people like rightwing extremists are. It's a false equivalence. I've at times been critical of antifa for getting into fights with Nazis at rallies and that kind of violence, but I can't think of one case in which an antifa person was accused of murder." Seth Jones, a counter-terrorism expert who led the creation of the CSIS's database, told The Guardian that "[l]eftwing violence has not been a major terrorism threat" and that "the most significant domestic terrorism threat comes from white supremacists, anti-government militias and a handful of individuals associated with the 'boogaloo' movement that are attempting to create a civil war in the United States."[17]

The CSIS database was updated in October 2020 to include the suspected killing of Aaron Danielson by Michael Reinoehl.[178] In September 2020, when the investigation was still ongoing, Brian Levin said that if Reinoehl was implicated, it would mark the first case in recent history of an antifa supporter being charged with homicide.[179]

A September 2020 report by the Network Contagion Research Institute and researchers at Rutgers University found that some left-wing movements, including antifa, associated in "fringe online forums", posted dehumanizing memes about police, used violent rhetoric and coordinated riot activity.[180] Voice of America summarized the report as stating that "far-left movements such as antifa, while decentralized and seen as less lethal than their counterparts on the far right, are just as capable of turning peaceful protests into violent confrontations with law enforcement". According to Voice of America, "the Justice Department has not charged any left-wing groups in connection with the civil unrest, and extremism experts say while the threat of violence from antifa is real, organized groups on the far right pose a greater threat of violence." Josh Lipowsky, a senior research analyst with the Counter Extremism Project, stated that "the decentralized antifa movement poses a lesser threat than the better organized groups on the far right."[86]

Conspiracy theories about antifa that tend to incorrectly portray antifa as a single organization with leaders and secret sources of funding have been spread by right-wing activists, media organizations and politicians,[181][182] including Trump administration officials[29][50][183][184] and the 2020 Trump campaign.[185]

In August 2017, a #PunchWhiteWomen photo hoax campaign was spread by fake antifa Twitter accounts.[186][187] Bellingcat researcher Eliot Higgins discovered an image of British actress Anna Friel portraying a battered woman in a 2007 Women's Aid anti-domestic violence campaign that had been re-purposed using fake antifa Twitter accounts organized by way of 4chan. The image is captioned "53% of white women voted for Trump, 53% of white women should look like this" and includes an antifa flag. Another image featuring an injured woman is captioned "She chose to be a Nazi. Choices have consequences" and includes the hashtag #PunchANazi. Higgins remarked to the BBC that "[t]his was a transparent and quite pathetic attempt, but I wouldn't be surprised if white nationalist groups try to mount more sophisticated attacks in the future".[19] A similar fake image circulated on social media after the Unite the Right rally in 2017. The doctored image, actually from a 2009 riot in Athens, was altered to make it look like someone wearing an antifa symbol attacking a policeman with a flag.[188] After the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, similar hoaxes falsely claimed that the shooter was an antifa "member"; another such hoax involved a fake antifa Twitter account praising the shooting.[189][190] Another high-profile fake antifa account was banned from Twitter after it posted with a geotag originating in Russia.[20] Those fake antifa accounts have been repeatedly reported on as real by right-leaning media outlets.[18][23]

In October 2017, a conspiracy theory claiming that antifa groups were planning a violent insurrection or civil war the following month spread on YouTube and was advanced by far-right figures including Alex Jones, Lucian Wintrich, Paul Joseph Watson, and Steven Crowder.[191][192][193][194][195] The basis for the conspiracy theory was a series of protests against Donald Trump organized by the group Refuse Fascism.[191][192][193][196] The protests passed off as planned without causing significant disruption.[197]

During the nationwide George Floyd protests against police brutality and racism in May and June 2020, false claims of impending antifa activity circulated through social media platforms, causing alarm in at least 41 towns and cities.[198] On May 31, 2020, @ANTIFA_US, a newly created Twitter account, attempted to incite violence relating to the protests. The next day, after determining that it was linked to the white nationalist group Identity Evropa, Twitter suspended the fake account.[199] An FBI's Washington Field Office report stated that members of a far-right group on social media had "called for far-right provocateurs to attack federal agents, use automatic weapons against protesters" during the D.C.-area protests over Floyd's killing on May 31, 2020.[156] Conservative news organizations, pro-Trump individuals using social media, and impostor social media accounts propagated false rumors that antifa groups were traveling to small cities, suburbs, and rural communities to instigate unrest during the protests.[200] In May and June 2020, Lara Logan repeatedly promoted hoaxes as part of Fox News' coverage of antifa, including publishing a false document she described as an antifa battle plan and claiming that a joke about juggalos was evidence of a clandestine antifa hierarchy.[201] In an appearance on Fox News's The Ingraham Angle in June 2020, Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani claimed that "Antifa" as well as "Black Lives Matter" and unspecified communists were working together to "do away with our system of courts" and "take your property away and give it to other people", asserting without evidence that they receive significant funding from an outside source. Giuliani had previously criticized George Soros, who has been a frequent target of conspiracy theories, claiming he funded such groups and demonstrations.[202]

In June 2020, a multiracial family on a camping trip in Forks, Washington, were accused of being antifa activists, harassed and trapped in their campsite when trees were felled to block the road.[203][204][205] In Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, groups of armed right-wing vigilantes occupied streets in response to false rumors that antifa activists were planning to travel to the city while similar rumors led to threats being made against activists planning peaceful protests in Sonora, California.[206] In Klamath Falls, Oregon, hundreds of people, most of whom were armed, assembled in response to false rumors that antifa activists would target the city, spread by a commander in the Oregon Air National Guard.[164] In an August 2020 interview, Trump spread a similar conspiracy theory, claiming that "thugs, wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms, with gear and this and that" had boarded a plane to Washington, D.C. to disrupt the 2020 Republican National Convention.[161] Also in August 2020, a fake antifa website began to redirect users to the Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign website. Although this has been described as "clearly a ploy to associate the Democratic Party with antifa", those on the right seized upon it.[50] A study by Zignal Labs found that unsubstantiated claims of antifa involvement were one of three dominant themes in misinformation and conspiracy theories around the protests, alongside claims that Floyd's death had been faked and claims of involvement by George Soros.[182] Some of the opposition to antifa activism has also been artificial in nature. Nafeesa Syeed of Bloomberg News reported that "[t]he most-tweeted link in the Russian-linked network followed by the researchers was a petition to declare Antifa a terrorist group".[207]

As wildfires raged on the West Coast in September 2020, rumors spread on social media that antifa was deliberately setting fires and preparing to loot property that was being evacuated, which local police departments debunked. Some residents refused to evacuate based on the rumors, choosing to defend their homes from the alleged invasions. Authorities pleaded with residents to ignore the false rumors.[208][209][210][211] A firefighters union in Washington state, also debunking these rumors, described Facebook as "an absolute cesspool of misinformation" on the topic.[212] Prominent promoters of the unfounded rumors included adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory.[212] One false claim that six antifa activists had been arrested for setting fires was specifically amplified by "Q", i.e. "the anonymous person or people behind QAnon".[213] QAnon had for months been organizing "digital soldiers" on social media and internet message boards to wage information warfare to influence the 2020 United States elections.[214]

In January 2021, a conspiracy theory that antifa was responsible for the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, which was carried out by Trump supporters with Trump's encouragement, was spread by other far-right activists and supporters of Trump, including Representative Mo Brooks, Mark Burns, Lou Dobbs, California State Senate minority leader Shannon Grove, Laura Ingraham, Mike Lindell, former Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, actor Kevin Sorbo, Eric Trump and L. Lin Wood.[215][216][217][218][219][220] The conspiracy theory began on 4chan and similar websites before spreading to more mainstream conservative news sites.[221] Representative Paul Gosar was the first member of Congress to falsely claim that people associated with antifa were responsible for the attack.[216] Representative Matt Gaetz claimed that the facial recognition company XRVision had identified those who broke into the Capitol as belonging to antifa; XRVision described Gaetz's claims as "completely false."[216] Steve Benen of MSNBC described the claims of Gosar, Gaetz and others as "stark raving mad" and indicative of cognitive dissonance, noting that the far-right rioters did not attempt to conceal their identities or allegiances and were subsequently praised by Trump.[222] In posts on Parler, a social networking service used primarily by the far right, leaders of the Proud Boys had disclosed plans to attend the rally wearing "all black" clothing associated with antifa activists and arrive "incognito" in an apparent effort to shift blame for any violence on the movement.[223][224] Users of the right-wing social media site TheDonald.win were angered by the claims that antifa were responsible for storming the Capitol, one post stating: "It's sickening seeing people give Antifa the glory of fed-up Americans."[225] During Trump's second impeachment trial, his attorney Michael van der Veen falsely asserted on the Senate floor that after the storming of the Capitol, "One of the first people arrested was the leader of antifa."[226] The FBI said there was no evidence of antifa involvement in the mob incursion.[227][228] A February 2021 survey conducted by the American Enterprise Institute found that 50% of Republicans believed antifa was mostly responsible for the incursion, compared to 30% of respondents overall, while 15% of Republicans believed Trump had encouraged his supporters to invade the Capitol.[229]

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Antifa (United States) - Wikipedia

Antifa has seen a steady increase in media attention ever since President Donald Trump was first inaugurated in January 2017. Republicans often portray antifa as a highly organized group of "terrorists" worthy of national watch lists.

Right-wing media blames antifa members for rioting and looting. Democrats have also condemned such violence, but many on the left say the rhetoric about antifa is greatly exaggerated, and that it's less of an organized movement than just something of "an idea."

But much of what politicians say about antifa isn't quite true. Here's what antifa is, what it isn't, and what you need to know.

Antifa is not a highly organized movement, nor is it merely an idea. Antifa is a loose affiliation of local activists scattered across the United States and a few other countries.

The term "antifa" is short for anti-fascist; it's used both by its adherents and its foes.

In general, people who identify as antifa are known not for what they support, but what they oppose: Fascism, nationalism, far-right ideologies, white supremacy, authoritarianism, racism, homophobia and xenophobia. Some antifa activists also denounce capitalism and the government overall.

Mostly, people aligned with antifa are on the left of the political spectrum. Antifa is not, however, affiliated with Joe Biden, the Democratic Party or its leaders. Biden has condemned antifa and called violence "unacceptable."

Antifa actions have included everything from tracking and publicly identifying members of alt-right groups to physically attackingadversaries.

In "Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook," author Mark Bray, an organizer for the Occupy Wall Street movement, lays out antifa's methods this way:

"Despite the media portrayal of a deranged, bloodthirsty antifa the vast majority of anti-fascist tactics involve no physical violence whatsoever. Anti-fascists conduct research on the far right online, in person, and sometimes through infiltrations; they dox them, push central milieux to disown them, pressure bosses to fire them

"But it's also true that some of them punch Nazis in the face and don't apologize for it."

During public demonstrations, antifa activists often wear top-to-toe black; even before the coronavirus pandemic, they were also known for wearing face coverings at public gatherings.

Antifa has no official national leadership, though followers have organized themselves into small, local cells that sometimes coordinate with other movements, such as Black Lives Matter. Some self-described antifa adherents have organized to confront Patriot Prayer, the Proud Boys, and other far-right groups during public demonstrations. Some of those rallies have devolved into violence.

Some antifa adherents keep a very low profile, while other local groups venture to give themselves a more public profile with a name and a website. One of the oldest such groups appears to be Rose City Antifa, which says it was founded in Portland, Oregon, in 2007. According to its website, its main focus is "any work that prevents fascist organizing, and when that is not possible, provides consequences to fascist organizers. This is supported by researching and tracking fascist organizations."

Over President Trump's years in office, coverage of "antifa" has skyrocketed in the mainstream press. That coverage started on the day of his inauguration, when dozens of people took to the streets of the nation's capital in a protest that would soon grow violent. Authorities would later arrest several dozen of them, many of whom later identified themselves as antifa, and accuse them of starting fires and riots. Charges were eventually dropped for the bulk of the defendants, while others were acquitted by juries.

President Trump pointed a finger at what he called the "alt-left" following the infamous "Unite the Right"rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. After a white supremacist deliberatelyplowed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a woman namedHeather Heyer, Mr. Trump sparked more outrage when he suggested an equivalency between the white supremacists and the protesters on the other side, who despite his claims were mostly peaceful.

"What about the alt-left that came charging at, what you say, the alt-right?" Mr. Trump wondered aloud. "Do they have any semblance of guilt? What about the fact they're charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs, do they have any problem? I think they do."

In the years since then, media coverage has identified antifa as participants, and sometimes agitators, in clashes at numerous rallies and protests around the country. That includes a 2017 anti-hate rally in Berkeley, California, and a Patriot Prayer "freedom rally" in Portland, Oregon, in 2018.

In at least one instance, a person self-identifying as an antifa supporter has been linked to a deadly attack at a protest. Michael Forest Reinoehl, 48, was considered a prime suspect in the August 2020 killing of 39-year-old Aaron "Jay" Danielson, a right-wing activist who was shot during heated demonstrations in Portland. Reinoehl was later shot to death by federal authorities as they moved to arrest him.

Reinoehl had described himself in a social media post as "100% ANTIFA."

In the summer of 2019, Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Bill Cassidy introduced a resolution calling for antifa to be labeled as a domestic terror organization. President Trump voiced his support on Twitter.

But the Trump administration's own Department of Homeland Security and FBI don't appear to view antifa as aleading threat. A DHS draft document from September 2020 reportedly namedwhite supremacist groups as the biggest terror threat to America. That same document doesn't mention antifa at all.

The FBI also considers far-right groups the "top of the priority list." FBI director Christopher Wray said in February 2020 that the FBI places the risk of violence from racially-motivated extremist groups "on the same footing" as the threat posed by foreign terrorist organizations such as ISIS and its sympathizers.

That's not to say the FBI hasn't also taken aim at antifa. After arson and looting broke out amid the protests in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd, Wray said: "We're seeing people who are exploiting this situation to pursue violent, extremist agendas anarchists like ANTIFA, and other agitators. These individuals have set out to sow discord and upheaval, rather than join in the righteous pursuit of equality and justice."

But the idea of designating antifa a terror group worries some civil rights advocates.

"The designation would grant federal law enforcement broad powers, under the federal terrorism code, to surveil and investigate anyone labeled as antifa," the Southern Poverty Law Centersaid in a statement. "It could also allow federal law enforcement to broadly target anyone involved in protests viewed unfavorably by the Trump administration, even retroactively."

The center added, "President Trump's announcement is rooted in politics, not the present realities of the terror threat in the U.S."

Antifa has earned its reputation for sporadic violence. But many other rumors about antifa have been spun from whole cloth, sometimes by people later identified as right-wing extremists. In June 2020, Twitter shut down multiple fake antifa accounts that were inciting violence against white suburbs; subsequent investigations tracked the accounts to Identity Evropa, a white supremacist organization.

Right-wing figures and other commentators on social media also have falsely accused unspecified antifa members of starting wildfires on the West Coast, prompting police and fire officials to appeal to the public to stop spreadingwhat one agency called "an UNTRUE rumor."

Another common conspiracy theory has alleged, without evidence, that billionaire philanthropist George Soros is funding antifa.

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What is antifa? Is it a group or an idea, and what do ...

Antifa, the far-left militant movement that calls itself "antifascist," has no definedorganizational hierarchy or membership process. The collection ofautonomous Antifa groups in mostly left-wing cities sees itself as a descendant of the Europeananti-Nazi movements, and generally agrees that the best way to combat ideas they find odiousis not through speech or debatebut by direct action and physical confrontation.

The first modern Antifa group traces its roots back to Portland, Ore., in 2007, and more than a decade laterthat city has proven a hotbed for many Antifa members'preferred activities: threatening and violently assaulting journalists, declaring that all police officers should be killedor at least fired, wearing dark clothing and ski masks that sometimesobscure their artificially colored hair, and even engaging in performative clashes with right-wing groups to dull the monotony of typical suburban life.

Antifa was present during the infamous and deadly August 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Va. The event saw violent clashes between white supremacists, individuals protesting the removal of a Confederate statue, and left-wing groups. In a haunting moment caught on video, aneo-Nazi drove a car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one.

President Trump quickly condemned white supremacists, while noting that not everyone protesting the statue removal was necessarily a neo-Nazi or white supremacist. However, his comments were widely misinterpreted as praising white supremacists,galvanizing Antifa andbolstering its momentum.

Antifa protesters at a rally. (Mark Graves/The Oregonian/via AP)

Following one of manyclashes between Antifa and right-wing groups, Trump tweeted last year that major consideration is being given to naming ANTIFA an ORGANIZATION of TERROR.Nevertheless, Antifa has remained one of the most visible and violent left-wing groups in the United States.

In May 2020, Trump said the U.S. would indeed designate Antifa a "terrorist organization," after a rash of violent protests following the in-custody death of George Floyd. The move gives authorities more tools to track and prosecute criminal members of Antifa.

It remainedunclear exactly who was behind the escalation of what began as peaceful protests against police over Floyd's death, with accusations lobbed against both far-left extremists and white nationalists. The president has been forceful in pointing the finger at the former. "Its ANTIFA and the Radical Left. Dont lay the blame on others!" Trump tweeted.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was less decisive in stating who is behind the looting, arson, and violence that has taken place. While he called rioters "Antifa-like" during an appearance on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures," he said, "I think it still remains to be seen exactly how" the situation devolved from peaceful protests to something entirely different.

Amid the mayhem, the son ofMinnesotaAttorney General Keith Ellison tweeted that he is declaring his support forAntifa. Jeremiah Ellison, who is a member of the Minneapolis City Council, noted in the tweet that he believes "white power" terrorists are actually the ones engaging in the looting, arson and other riot activities. Democrats have made scattered claims that the Russians and outside white supremacists are leading the violence, despite contrary evidence indicating that most arrested individuals are local.

Also in late May,Twittersuspendedan account claiming to belong to Antifa.The suspension came after the small accounturged membersto go into "white hoods" and "take what's ours." The account, itlater emerged, was actually set up by a known white supremacist group.(Twitter and President Trumphave sparredover censorship.)

Although several videographers and reporters have covered Antifa, Portland-based independent journalist Andy Ngo has perhaps most extensively documented attacks by self-described Antifa members on journalists, police officers,and even other Antifa members and left-wing supportersin recent years.

Last June, Ngo himself wasattacked by Antifawhile covering their confrontation with the far-right Proud Boys group,and suffered a brain injury.

"During today's events, there were multiple assaults reported, as well as projectiles thrown at demonstrators and officers," the police said in a statement after Ngo's injury."There were also reports of pepper spray and bear spray being used by people in the crowd. Officers deployed pepper spray during the incident.There were reports of individuals throwing 'milkshakes' with a substance mixed in that was similar to a quick-drying cement. One subject was arrested for throwing a substance during the incident."

SUSAN RICESAYS THE RUSSIANS COULD BE BEHIND VIOLENCE

Ngo told Fox News that Trump's efforts to consider Antifa a terror group "will provide a framework for local authorities and, especially, federal authorities to start investigating this criminal cartel for the street thugs that they are."

"In addition to the street hooliganism that we see over and over on the streets of America, this movement also has a political ideology that is agitating for a violent political revolution,' Ngo added.

FOX NEWS CREW CHASED, ATTACKED BY ANGRY MOB OUTSIDE WHITE HOUSE

A few weeks later, an individual who saidhe was associated with Antifa upgraded from cement to molotov cocktails and an AR-15, as he waged an assault on a federal immigration facility in Washington state. Willem Van Spronsen, 69, was shot dead quickly by responding authorities.

Top Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, sought a federal investigation of the episode, saying Portland's mayor and police department are incompetent and failing to adequately protect citizens' civil rights.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., joined Cruz in advancing federal legislationto take on Antifa.

After a confrontation between authorities and protestors, police use pepper spray as multiple groups, including Rose City Antifa, the Proud Boys and others protest in downtown Portland, Ore., on Saturday, June 29, 2019. (Dave Killen/The Oregonian via AP)

"It would give law enforcement greater tools, greater permission to use tools, in order to combat Antifa. Antifa is spreading from the West Coast, where it started, to different cities. Their intimidating tactics should be stopped where they are and not allowed to spread, Cassidy said on"Fox & Friends."

Local authorities, meanwhile, have shown little interest in the matter.

"We're not going to come out and saveyou," police told a journalist last week as Antifa militants chased him away with pepper spray.

Portland Police Association PresidentDaryl Turner released a statement last year after a flareup of Antifa violence, blaming Portland Mayor Wheeler for lack of enforcement and saying the mayor must remove the handcuffs from our officers and let them stop the violence through strong and swift enforcement action.

In response, Wheeler distanced himself from responsibility for the police response to Antifa and took a shot at Cruz for calling for the feds to step in.

JOURNALIST ATTACKED BY ANTIFA DESCRIBES HALLOWEEN INCIDENT AT HIS HOME: 'IT LOOKED LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF THE PURGE'

I thought it was beneath a United States senator, Wheeler told the outlet. The truth is, I wasn't even here. I wasn't even in the United States. I was with my family in Ecuador on a wildlife tour.

He added: One of the things I would like the public to know, is there is a unified incident command center that's engaged during these demonstrations."

Left-wing academics, meanwhile, have defended Antifa. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a professor of history at New York University, told The New York Times that Antifa's tactics ofphysically assaulting political opponents tend to attact negative press only because the right-wing media is being very unfair about it.

Throwing a milkshake is not equivalent to killing someone, but because the people in power are allied with the right, any provocation, any dissent against right-wing violence, backfires, Ben-Ghiat said.

Three people were arrested in early February after a demonstration in downtown Portlandturned "violent" and a war memorial wasvandalized.

ThePortland Police Bureausaid the protesters gathered to counterademonstration outsidethe Multnomah County Courthouse that was abruptly canceled.

Policedid not provide details about thepreviously planned demonstration, butOregon Live reportedit was rumored to be aKu Klux Klan white supremacy rally at a downtown park. Counter-protesters, including members of Antifa, still showed up even though police said the original event was scrapped.

ANTIFA PLANS MASSIVE ANTI-COP ACTION IN NY SUBWAYS, PUSH FOR FREE TRANSIT, ENDING POLICE PRESENCE

Messages can be seen spray-painted on a war memorial in Portland, Ore. after a demonstration on Saturday. (Portland Police Bureau)

"While the rally was being held and was peaceful, Portland Police officers stayed away," the policebureau said. "However, some people in the group began acting in a violent, threatening manner against attendees who were legally capturing photos and videos."

According to police, some people used metal-tipped umbrellas to "jab toward people and chase them down the street." Other objects, such as rocks, concrete, batons, cansand food werethrown at members of the publicand officers.

At least two incendiary devices, believed to be flares, were thrown into nearby traffic, police said. The event spanned nearly four hours and required a "large police response" that limited the department's ability to respond to calls for service citywide.

Messages reading "Punch Cops," "Kill Cops," and "All Cops are Bastards" could be seen on the memorial in photos released by police.

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The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office said Willy Cannon, 25, was charged with a misdemeanor for abusing a memorial and a felony for criminal mischief. In addition to Cannon, the sheriff's office said Brandon Farley, 31, was charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct and Heaven Davis, 19, was charged with misdemeanor criminal mischief.

Willy Cannon, Heaven Davis, and Brandon Farley were arrested after the demonstration in Portland on Saturday, according to police. (Multnomah County Sheriff's Office)

Fox News' Travis Fedschun and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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What is Antifa, the far-left group tied to violent ...

This article is about the history of anti-fascism as a movement. For its post-war developments and groups called Anti-Fascist Action (Antifa), see Post-World War II anti-fascism.

Opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals

Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were opposed by many countries forming the Allies of World War II and dozens of resistance movements worldwide. Anti-fascism has been an element of movements across the political spectrum and holding many different political positions such as anarchism, communism, pacifism, republicanism, social democracy, socialism and syndicalism as well as centrist, conservative, liberal and nationalist viewpoints.

Fascism, a far-right ultra-nationalistic ideology best known for its use by the Italian Fascists and the Nazis, became prominent beginning in the 1910s while organization against fascism began around 1920. Fascism became the state ideology of Italy in 1922 and of Germany in 1933, spurring a large increase in anti-fascist action, including German resistance to Nazism and the Italian resistance movement. Anti-fascism was a major aspect of the Spanish Civil War, which foreshadowed World War II.

Prior to World War II, the West had not taken seriously the threat of fascism, and anti-fascism was sometimes associated with communism. However, the outbreak of World War II greatly changed Western perceptions, and fascism was seen as an existential threat by not only the Communist Soviet Union but also by liberal-democratic America and Britain. The Axis powers of World War II were generally fascist, and the fight against them was characterized in anti-fascist terms. Resistance during World War II to fascism occurred in every occupied country, and came from across the ideological spectrum. The defeat of the Axis powers generally ended fascism as a state ideology.

After World War II, the anti-fascist movement continued to be active in places where organised fascism continued or re-emerged. There was a resurgence of antifa in Germany in the 1980s, as a response to the invasion of the punk scene by neo-Nazis. This influenced the antifa movement in the United States in the late 1980s and 1990s, which was similarly carried by punks. In the 21st century, this greatly increased in prominence as a response to the resurgence of the radical right, especially after the election of Donald Trump.[1][2]

With the development and spread of Italian Fascism, i.e. the original fascism, the National Fascist Party's ideology was met with increasingly militant opposition by Italian communists and socialists. Organizations such as Arditi del Popolo[3] and the Italian Anarchist Union emerged between 1919 and 1921, to combat the nationalist and fascist surge of the post-World War I period.

In the words of historian Eric Hobsbawm, as fascism developed and spread, a "nationalism of the left" developed in those nations threatened by Italian irredentism (e.g. in the Balkans, and Albania in particular).[4] After the outbreak of World War II, the Albanian and Yugoslav resistances were instrumental in antifascist action and underground resistance. This combination of irreconcilable nationalisms and leftist partisans constitute the earliest roots of European anti-fascism. Less militant forms of anti-fascism arose later. During the 1930s in Britain, "Christians especially the Church of England provided both a language of opposition to fascism and inspired anti-fascist action".[5]

Michael Seidman argues that traditionally anti-fascism was seen as the purview of the political left but that in recent years this has been questioned. Seidman identifies two types of anti-fascism, namely revolutionary and counterrevolutionary:[6]

Seidman argues that despite the differences between these two strands of anti-fascism, there were similarities. They would both come to regard violent expansion as intrinsic to the fascist project. They both rejected any claim that the Versailles Treaty was responsible for the rise of Nazism and instead viewed fascist dynamism as the cause of conflict. Unlike fascism, these two types of anti-fascism did not promise a quick victory but an extended struggle against a powerful enemy. During World War II, both anti-fascisms responded to fascist aggression by creating a cult of heroism which relegated victims to a secondary position.[6] However, after the war, conflict arose between the revolutionary and counterrevolutionary anti-fascisms; the victory of the Western Allies allowed them to restore the old regimes of liberal democracy in Western Europe, while Soviet victory in Eastern Europe allowed for the establishment of new revolutionary anti-fascist regimes there.[7]

Anti-fascist movements emerged first in Italy during the rise of Benito Mussolini, but they soon spread to other European countries and then globally. In the early period, Communist, socialist, anarchist and Christian workers and intellectuals were involved. Until 1928, the period of the United front, there was significant collaboration between the Communists and non-Communist anti-fascists.

In 1928, the Comintern instituted its ultra-left Third Period policies, ending co-operation with other left groups, and denouncing social democrats as "social fascists". From 1934 until the MolotovRibbentrop Pact, the Communists pursued a Popular Front approach, of building broad-based coalitions with liberal and even conservative anti-fascists. As fascism consolidated its power, and especially during World War II, anti-fascism largely took the form of partisan or resistance movements.

In Italy, Mussolini's Fascist regime used the term anti-fascist to describe its opponents. Mussolini's secret police was officially known as the Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism. During the 1920s in the Kingdom of Italy, anti-fascists, many of them from the labor movement, fought against the violent Blackshirts and against the rise of the fascist leader Benito Mussolini. After the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) signed a pacification pact with Mussolini and his Fasces of Combat on 3 August 1921,[8] and trade unions adopted a legalist and pacified strategy, members of the workers' movement who disagreed with this strategy formed Arditi del Popolo.

The Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGL) and the PSI refused to officially recognize the anti-fascist militia, while the Communist Party of Italy (PCd'I) ordered its members to quit the organization. The PCd'I organized some militant groups, but their actions were relatively minor, and the party maintained a non-violent, legalist strategy. The Italian anarchist Severino Di Giovanni, who exiled himself to Argentina following the 1922 March on Rome, organized several bombings against the Italian fascist community.[9] The Italian liberal anti-fascist Benedetto Croce wrote his Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals, which was published in 1925.[10][pageneeded] Other notable Italian liberal anti-fascists around that time were Piero Gobetti and Carlo Rosselli.[11]

Concentrazione Antifascista Italiana (Italian Anti-Fascist Concentration), officially known as Concentrazione d'Azione Antifascista (Anti-Fascist Action Concentration), was an Italian coalition of Anti-Fascist groups which existed from 1927 to 1934. Founded in Nrac, France, by expatriate Italians, the CAI was an alliance of non-communist anti-fascist forces (republican, socialist, nationalist) trying to promote and to coordinate expatriate actions to fight fascism in Italy; they published a propaganda paper entitled La Libert.[12][13][14]

Between 1920 and 1943, several anti-fascist movements were active among the Slovenes and Croats in the territories annexed to Italy after World War I, known as the Julian March.[15][16] The most influential was the militant insurgent organization TIGR, which carried out numerous sabotages, as well as attacks on representatives of the Fascist Party and the military.[17][18] Most of the underground structure of the organization was discovered and dismantled by the Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism (OVRA) in 1940 and 1941,[19] and after June 1941 most of its former activists joined the Slovene Partisans.

During World War II, many members of the Italian resistance left their homes and went to live in the mountains, fighting against Italian fascists and German Nazi soldiers. Many cities in Italy, including Turin, Naples and Milan, were freed by anti-fascist uprisings.[20]

The anti-fascist resistance emerged within the Slovene minority in Italy (19201947), whom the Fascists meant to deprive of their culture, language and ethnicity.[citation needed] The 1920 burning of the National Hall in Trieste, the Slovene center in the multi-cultural and multi-ethnic Trieste by the Blackshirts,[21] was praised by Benito Mussolini (yet to become Il Duce) as a "masterpiece of the Triestine fascism" (capolavoro del fascismo triestino).[22] The use of the Slovene language in public places, including churches, was forbidden, not only in multi-ethnic areas, but also in the areas where the population was exclusively Slovene.[23] Children, if they spoke Slovene, were punished by Italian teachers who were brought by the Fascist State from Southern Italy. Slovene teachers, writers, and clergy were sent to the other side of Italy.

The first anti-fascist organization, called TIGR, was formed by Slovenes and Croats in 1927 in order to fight Fascist violence. Its guerrilla fight continued into the late 1920s and 1930s.[24] By the mid-1930s, 70,000 Slovenes had fled Italy, mostly to Slovenia (then part of Yugoslavia) and South America.[25]

The Slovene anti-fascist resistance in Yugoslavia during World War II was led by Liberation Front of the Slovenian People. The Province of Ljubljana, occupied by Italian Fascists, saw the deportation of 25,000 people, representing 7.5% of the total population, filling up the Rab concentration camp and Gonars concentration camp as well as other Italian concentration camps.

The specific term anti-fascism was primarily used[citation needed] by the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), which held the view that it was the only anti-fascist party in Germany. The KPD formed several explicitly anti-fascist groups such as Roter Frontkmpferbund (formed in 1924 and banned by the social democrats in 1929) and Kampfbund gegen den Faschismus (a de facto successor to the latter).[26][27][need quotation to verify][28][need quotation to verify] At its height, Roter Frontkmpferbund had over 100,000 members. In 1932, the KPD established the Antifaschistische Aktion as a "red united front under the leadership of the only anti-fascist party, the KPD".[29] Under the leadership of the committed Stalinist Ernst Thlmann, the KPD primarily viewed fascism as the final stage of capitalism rather than as a specific movement or group, and therefore applied the term broadly to its opponents, and in the name of anti-fascism the KPD focused in large part on attacking its main adversary, the centre-left Social Democratic Party of Germany, whom they referred to as social fascists and regarded as the "main pillar of the dictatorship of Capital."[30]

The movement of Nazism, which grew ever more influential in the last years of the Weimar Republic, was opposed for different ideological reasons by a wide variety of groups, including groups which also opposed each other, such as social democrats, centrists, conservatives and communists. The SPD and centrists formed Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold in 1924 to defend liberal democracy against both the Nazi Party and the KPD, and their affiliated organizations. Later, mainly SPD members formed the Iron Front which opposed the same groups.[31]

The name and logo of Antifaschistische Aktion remain influential. Its two-flag logo, designed by Max Keilson and Max Gebhard, is still widely used as a symbol of militant anti-fascists in Germany and globally,[32] as is the Iron Front's Three Arrows logo.[33]

The historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote: "The Spanish civil war was both at the centre and on the margin of the era of anti-fascism. It was central, since it was immediately seen as a European war between fascism and anti-fascism, almost as the first battle in the coming world war, some of the characteristic aspects of which - for example, air raids against civilian populations - it anticipated."[34]

In Spain, there were histories of popular uprisings in the late 19th century through to the 1930s against the deep-seated military dictatorships.[35] of General Prim and the Primo de la Rivieras[36] These movements further coalesced into large-scale anti-fascist movements in the 1930s, many in the Basque Country, before and during the Spanish Civil War. The republican government and army, the Antifascist Worker and Peasant Militias (MAOC) linked to the Communist Party (PCE),[37] the International Brigades, the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), Spanish anarchist militias, such as the Iron Column and the autonomous governments of Catalonia and the Basque Country, fought the rise of Francisco Franco with military force.

The Friends of Durruti, associated with the Federacin Anarquista Ibrica (FAI), were a particularly militant group. Thousands of people from many countries went to Spain in support of the anti-fascist cause, joining units such as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the British Battalion, the Dabrowski Battalion, the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, the Naftali Botwin Company and the Thlmann Battalion, including Winston Churchill's nephew, Esmond Romilly.[38] Notable anti-fascists who worked internationally against Franco included: George Orwell (who fought in the POUM militia and wrote Homage to Catalonia about his experience), Ernest Hemingway (a supporter of the International Brigades who wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls about his experience), and the radical journalist Martha Gellhorn.

The Spanish anarchist guerrilla Francesc Sabat Llopart fought against Franco's regime until the 1960s, from a base in France. The Spanish Maquis, linked to the PCE, also fought the Franco regime long after the Spanish Civil war had ended.[39]

In the 1920s and 1930s in the French Third Republic, anti-fascists confronted aggressive far-right groups such as the Action Franaise movement in France, which dominated the Latin Quarter students' neighborhood.[citation needed] After fascism triumphed via invasion, the French Resistance (French: La Rsistance franaise) or, more accurately, resistance movements fought against the Nazi German occupation and against the collaborationist Vichy rgime. Resistance cells were small groups of armed men and women (called the maquis in rural areas), who, in addition to their guerrilla warfare activities, were also publishers of underground newspapers and magazines such as Arbeiter und Soldat (Worker and Soldier) during World War Two, providers of first-hand intelligence information, and maintainers of escape networks.[citation needed]

The rise of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF) in the 1930s was challenged by the Communist Party of Great Britain, socialists in the Labour Party and Independent Labour Party, anarchists, Irish Catholic dockmen and working class Jews in London's East End. A high point in the struggle was the Battle of Cable Street, when thousands of eastenders and others turned out to stop the BUF from marching. Initially, the national Communist Party leadership wanted a mass demonstration at Hyde Park in solidarity with Republican Spain, instead of a mobilization against the BUF, but local party activists argued against this. Activists rallied support with the slogan They shall not pass, adopted from Republican Spain.

There were debates within the anti-fascist movement over tactics. While many East End ex-servicemen participated in violence against fascists,[40] Communist Party leader Phil Piratin denounced these tactics and instead called for large demonstrations.[41] In addition to the militant anti-fascist movement, there was a smaller current of liberal anti-fascism in Britain; Sir Ernest Barker, for example, was a notable English liberal anti-fascist in the 1930s.[42]

There were fascist elements in the United States in the 1930s such as the Friends of New Germany, the German American Bund, the Ku Klux Klan, and Charles Coughlin.[43][44][45] During the Second Red Scare which occurred in the United States in the years that immediately followed the end of World War II, the term "premature anti-fascist" came into currency and it was used to describe Americans who had strongly agitated or worked against fascism, such as Americans who had fought for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, before fascism was seen as a proximate and existential threat to the United States (which only occurred generally after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and only occurred universally after the attack on Pearl Harbor). The implication was that such persons were either Communists or Communist sympathizers whose loyalty to the United States was suspect.[46][47][48] However, the historians John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr have written that no documentary evidence has been found of the US government referring to American members of the International Brigades as "premature antifascists": the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Office of Strategic Services, and United States Army records used terms such as "Communist", "Red", "subversive", and "radical" instead. Indeed, Haynes and Klehr indicate that they have found many examples of members of the XV International Brigade and their supporters referring to themselves sardonically as "premature antifascists".[49]

Anti-fascist Italian expatriates in the United States founded the Mazzini Society in Northampton, Massachusetts in September 1939 to work toward ending Fascist rule in Italy. As political refugees from Mussolini's regime, they disagreed among themselves whether to ally with Communists and anarchists or to exclude them. The Mazzini Society joined together with other anti-Fascist Italian expatriates in the Americas at a conference in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1942. They unsuccessfully promoted one of their members, Carlo Sforza, to become the post-Fascist leader of a republican Italy. The Mazzini Society dispersed after the overthrow of Mussolini as most of its members returned to Italy.[50][51]

The Anti-Fascist Organisation (AFO) was a resistance movement against the Japanese occupation of Burma and independence of Burma during World War II. It was the forerunner of the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League. The AFO was formed at a meeting in Pegu in August 1944 held by the leaders of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), the Burma National Army (BNA) led by General Aung San, and the People's Revolutionary Party (PRP), later renamed the Burma Socialist Party.[52][53] Whilst in Insein prison in July 1941, CPB leaders Thakin Than Tun and Thakin Soe had co-authored the Insein Manifesto, which, against the prevailing opinion in the Burmese nationalist movement led by the Dobama Asiayone, identified world fascism as the main enemy in the coming war and called for temporary cooperation with the British in a broad allied coalition that included the Soviet Union. Soe had already gone underground to organise resistance against the Japanese occupation, and Than Tun as Minister of Land and Agriculture was able to pass on Japanese intelligence to Soe, while other Communist leaders Thakin Thein Pe and Thakin Tin Shwe made contact with the exiled colonial government in Simla, India. Aung San was War Minister in the puppet administration set up on 1 August 1943 which also included the Socialist leaders Thakin Nu and Thakin Mya.[52][53] At a meeting held between 1 and 3 March 1945, the AFO was reorganised as a multi-party front named the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League.[54]

The Anti-Fascist Bloc was an organization of Polish Jews formed in the March 1942 in the Warsaw Ghetto. It was created after an alliance between leftist-Zionist, communist and socialist Jewish parties was agreed upon. The initiators of the bloc were Mordechai Anielewicz, Jzef Lewartowski (Aron Finkelstein) from the Polish Workers' Party, Josef Kaplan from Hashomer Hatzair, Szachno Sagan from Poale Zion-Left, Jozef Sak as a representative of socialist-Zionists and Izaak Cukierman with his wife Cywia Lubetkin from Dror. The Jewish Bund did not join the bloc though they were represented at its first conference by Abraham Blum and Maurycy Orzech.[55][56][57][58]

The anti-fascist movements which emerged during the period of classical fascism, both liberal and militant, continued to operate after the defeat of the Axis powers in response to the resilience and mutation of fascism both in Europe and elsewhere. In Germany, as Nazi rule crumbled in 1944, veterans of the 1930s anti-fascist struggles formed Antifaschistische Ausschsse, Antifaschistische Kommittees, or Antifaschistische Aktion groups, all typically abbreviated to "antifa".[59] A The socialist government of East Germany built the Berlin Wall in 1961, and the Eastern Bloc referred to it officially as the "Anti-fascist Protection Rampart". Resistance to fascists dictatorships in Spain and Portugal continued, including the activities of the Spanish Maquis and others, leading up to the Spanish transition to democracy and the Carnation Revolution, respectively, as well as to similar dictatorships in Chile and elsewhere. Other notable anti-fascist mobilisations in the first decades of the post-war period include the 43 Group in Britain.[60]

With the start of the Cold War between the former World War II allies of the United States and the Soviet Union, the concept of totalitarianism became prominent in Western anti-communist political discourse as a tool to convert pre-war anti-fascism into post-war anti-communism.[61][62][63][64][65]

Modern antifa politics can be traced to opposition to the infiltration of Britain's punk scene by white power skinheads in the 1970s and 1980s, and the emergence of neo-Nazism in Germany following the fall of the Berlin Wall. In Germany, young leftists, including anarchists and punk fans, renewed the practice of street-level anti-fascism. Columnist Peter Beinart writes that "in the late '80s, left-wing punk fans in the United States began following suit, though they initially called their groups Anti-Racist Action (ARA) on the theory that Americans would be more familiar with fighting racism than they would be with fighting fascism".[66]

The contemporary antifa movement in Germany comprises different anti-fascist groups which usually use the abbreviation antifa and regard the historical Antifaschistische Aktion (Antifa) of the early 1930s as an inspiration, drawing on the historic group for its aesthetics and some of its tactics, in addition to the name. Many new antifa groups formed from the late 1980s onward. According to Loren Balhorn, contemporary antifa in Germany "has no practical historical connection to the movement from which it takes its name but is instead a product of West Germany's squatter scene and autonomist movement in the 1980s".[67]

One of the biggest antifascist campaigns in Germany in recent years was the ultimately successful effort to block the annual Nazi-rallies in the east German city of Dresden in Saxony which had grown into "Europe's biggest gathering of Nazis".[68] Unlike the original Antifa which had links to the Communist Party of Germany and which was concerned with industrial working-class politics, the late 1980s and early 1990s, autonomists were independent anti-authoritarian libertarian Marxists and anarcho-communists not associated with any particular party. The publication Antifaschistisches Infoblatt, in operation since 1987, sought to expose radical nationalists publicly.[69]

German government institutions such as the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Federal Agency for Civic Education describe the contemporary antifa movement as part of the extreme left and as partially violent. Antifa groups are monitored by the federal office in the context of its legal mandate to combat extremism.[70][71][72][73] The federal office states that the underlying goal of the antifa movement is "the struggle against the liberal democratic basic order" and capitalism.[71][72] In the 1980s, the movement was accused by German authorities of engaging in terrorist acts of violence.[74]

Dartmouth College historian Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, credits the ARA as the precursor of modern antifa groups in the United States. In the late 1980s and 1990s, ARA activists toured with popular punk rock and skinhead bands in order to prevent Klansmen, neo-Nazis and other assorted white supremacists from recruiting.[75][76] Their motto was "We go where they go" by which they meant that they would confront far-right activists in concerts and actively remove their materials from public places.[77] In 2002, the ARA disrupted a speech in Pennsylvania by Matthew F. Hale, the head of the white supremacist group World Church of the Creator, resulting in a fight and twenty-five arrests. In 2007, Rose City Antifa, likely the first group to utilize the name antifa, was formed in Portland, Oregon.[78][79][80] Other antifa groups in the United States have other genealogies. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, a group called the Baldies was formed in 1987 with the intent to fight neo-Nazi groups directly. In 2013, the "most radical" chapters of the ARA formed the Torch Antifa Network[81] which has chapters throughout the United States.[82] Other antifa groups are a part of different associations such as NYC Antifa or operate independently.[83]

Modern antifa in the United States is a highly decentralized movement. Antifa political activists are anti-racists who engage in protest tactics, seeking to combat fascists and racists such as neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other far-right extremists.[84] This may involve digital activism, harassment, physical violence, and property damage[85] against those whom they identify as belonging to the far-right.[86][87] Much antifa activism is nonviolent, involving poster and flyer campaigns, delivering speeches, marching in protest, and community organizing on behalf of anti-racist and anti-white nationalist causes.[88][79]

There have been multiple efforts to discredit antifa groups via hoaxes on social media, many of them false flag attacks originating from alt-right and 4chan users posing as antifa backers on Twitter.[89] Some hoaxes have been picked up and reported as fact by right-leaning media.[90][91] During the George Floyd protests in May and June 2020, the Trump administration blamed antifa for orchestrating the mass protests. Analysis of federal arrests did not find links to antifa.[92] There have been repeated calls by the Trump administration to designate antifa as a terrorist organization,[93] a move that academics, legal experts and others argue would both exceed the authority of the presidency and violate the First Amendment.[94][95][96] Several analyses, reports and studies concluded that antifa is not a domestic or major terrorism risk and ranked far-right extremism and white supremacy as the top risk.[97][98][99] A June 2020 study[100] of 893 terrorism incidents in the United States since 1994 found no murder that was specifically attributed to anti-fascists or antifa while 329 deaths were attributed to right-wing perpetrators.[97][101]

Some post-war anti-fascist action took place in Romania under the Anti-Fascist Committee of German Workers in Romania.[102] A Swedish group, Antifascistisk Aktion, was formed in 1993.[103]

The Christian Democratic Union of Germany politician Tim Peters notes that the term is one of the most controversial terms in political discourse.[104] Michael Richter, a researcher at the Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism, highlights the ideological use of the term in the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc, in which the term fascism was applied to Eastern bloc dissidents regardless of any connection to historical fascism, and where the term anti-fascism served to legitimize the ruling government.[105]

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Anti-fascism - Wikipedia

"The View" co-host Joy Behar declared the far-left groupAntifa is a "fictitious idea" and "not a real thing" on Monday despite itswell-documented history of violence.

The hosts reactedto Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., saying he would have been concerned if the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was filled with members of Antifa and Black Lives Matter, instead of Donald Trump supporters.

"If I was surrounded by people carrying weapons, people erecting nooses, screaming hang Mike Pence, bludgeoning a police officer to death, I might be a little scared," Behar said. "But Ron? No, hes not scared of those people, hes scared of this fictitious idea of Antifa. A thing that doesnt even exist."

ABC News "The View" co-host Joy Behar declared Antifa is a "fictitious idea."

MAKE ANTIFA A DOMESTIC TERROR GROUP, MONTANA GOP STATE LAWMAKER, 20, SAYS

Conservative co-host Meghan McCain later said the idea Antifa doesnt exist is "factually inaccurate and a lie," but the fiery Behar didnt appreciate the retort.

"I just want to clarify that Christopher Wray who was the FBI director says that Antifa is an ideology, not an organization. There is no sign that they were involved in the Capitol siege, lets be clear," Behar said.

McCain shot back, "Im not saying they were involved in the Capitol siege, Im saying they exist."

"Thats all, Im done," Behar said.

"You said it was a fantasy. You said Antifa doesnt exist and its a fantasy," McCain said.

"Its an idea, its not a real thing," Behar said as the show cut to a commercial break.

Antifa has played a prominent role in violence and chaotic protests which occur mostly in Democratic-run cities such as Portland.

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Last month, ayoung state lawmaker in Montana introduced a resolution calling forAntifato be designated a terrorist organization. Republican state Rep. Braxton Mitchell, age 20, said during his teen years and into adulthood, he has watched Antifa -- short for anti-fascist -- expand and gain a stronger presence, often using violent tactics.

"I just dont want to go into a future where [political violence] becomes the norm, and I hope as a country, we can start moving away from political violence on both sides," Mitchell told Fox News.

Mitchell said he hopes the joint resolution will not only serve as an Antifa deterrent in his home state but will encourage President Biden and Congress to consider designating ita domestic terrorist group.

Fox News Caitlin McFall contributed to this report.

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The View's Joy Behar: Violent left-wing group Antifa is fictitious idea, not 'a real thing - Fox News

Federal law enforcement officers stand guard outside the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, U.S., July 29, 2020. (Caitlin Ochs/Reuters)

Police clashed with rioters in Seattle and Los Angeles on Saturday night during demonstrations marking the one-year anniversary of the death of Breonna Taylor, an African-American resident of Louisville, Ky., in a police shooting.

Seattle police made a number of arrests during the clashes, as seen in footage captured by the Daily Caller. The police said 13 people were arrested on Saturday.

Rioters also vandalized businesses including a Starbucks, smashing the stores windows.

Rioters also clashed with police in Los Angeles. Two rioters jumped on to a police car, with one remaining on the hood as the car drove off, in footage shared by journalist Andy Ngo.

Los Angeles rioters also vandalized businesses overnight. The riot was backed in part by the Youth Liberation Front, a group that expressed support for riots in the summer of 2020 via its social media posts, Ngo claimed.

Meanwhile in Portland, Ore., some demonstrators attempted to tear down plywood boards erected outside the federal courthouse in the city. However, some protesters at the vigil for Taylor condemned violent conduct and called on rioters to go home, the local CBS affiliate reported.

Demonstrations marking the anniversary of Taylors death occurred in other cities without reports of violence. Taylor, an emergency-room technician, was shot by Louisville police officers at her apartment during a botched drug raid.

Police said that they identified themselves before entering the apartment, however Taylors boyfriend Kenneth Walker claimed that he didnt hear the police before they knocked down the apartment door. Believing there was an intruder, Walker, a licensed gun owner, opened fire on police, who returned fire and shot Taylor.

Taylors mother and other family members participated in a march in Louisville on Saturday commemorating her death. The march was peaceful.

Breonna Taylors death was a tragedy, a blow to her family, her community, and America, President Biden wrote on Twitter on Saturday. As we continue to mourn her, we must press ahead to pass meaningful police reform in Congress. I remain committed to signing a landmark reform bill into law.

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Police, Rioters Clash in West Coast Cities on Anniversary of Breonna Taylors Death - National Review

One of Britains most senior officers called for greater clarity about how police forces should deal with protests during the pandemic.

National Police Chiefs' Council chairman Martin Hewitt said balancing rights to protest with legal health regulations was complex and extremely challenging.

We want clarity so commanders on the ground can make those decisions in what are always very challenging circumstances," he said.

A senior police source said: There is a strong feeling in policing that the Government is throwing us under the bus. There was a strong view on Friday saying the vigil should not happen. Now they are stepping back and saying the scenes are awful.

We need a bit more clarity on what is okay and not okay. If you want us doing that at some protests but you don't want us doing it at other protests, are you looking for police to decide what is an acceptable protest and what is not? That's the mess we have been in.

However, a Government source countered that it was the ministers' role to set the laws, but it was for the police to determine how those rules should be applied.

Its not the Government's job to tell the police how to police protests. The exercise of police powers is a matter for the police force. Its up to the police to how they enforce the law, its not for Government to tell them, said the source.

Dame Cressida met members of the Reclaim these Streets campaign on Monday, who originally proposed the vigil, and refused their appeals to waive the fines of the women arrested on Saturday night.

I asked about waiving the fines for the women that were arrested on Saturday night, and her answer was 'absolutely not', said Jamie Klingler, one of the organisers.

"We feel that there's institutional misogyny and racism within the police and criminal justice system in the UK. Cressida Dick has lost our confidence and the confidence of women in the capital. There are no solutions forthcoming."

The Prime Minister confirmed his full confidence in Dame Cressida but described events at the vigil as "very distressing".

"The police do have a very, very difficult job. But there's no question the scenes that we saw were very distressing and so it is right that Tom Winsor, the inspector of constabulary, should do a full report into it. People have got to have confidence in the police and Tom's going to look at that."

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Rank and file officers claim Sarah Everard vigil infiltrated by members of XR and Antifa - Telegraph.co.uk

One of this weeks most intriguing new comic releases, Karmen, features at least one of those images, and its been long enough since I was numbed to the trope that I found myself unexpectedly affected by the sight of a gruesome, blood-spattered bathroom.

My eye was caught in general by some particularly dark titles this week. These are books that present tragedy and troubles in a way that feels far more genuine and mournful than 19-year-old Tarantino imitators whose greatest troubles in life are figuring out how to load celluloid into Bolex cameras.

Why does the sight of a body in a bathtub work in Karmen? Why do the dismemberments in Proctor Valley Road evoke real terror? Why did similar images fall so flat when repeated ad nauseam in film classes? I think its because these images are, fundamentally, troubling not gleeful or fun, as edgy indie projects from the late '90s presented them.

KARMEN

PROCTOR VALLEY ROAD

AND ALSO: SEX ED, NAUGHTY X-TEENS, AND COVID CHRONICLES

One of the most attractive new releases this week is Lets Talk About It, the latest invaluable sexy resource from Portlands Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan. If sex ed was actually good is how the book was described to me. Its a super-comprehensive sex-positive guide to questions likely on the minds of young adults and teens. Children of the Atom will be required reading for X-Men fans keeping up-to-date with that whole twisted family; and the anthology Batman Urban Legends will be required reading for fans of the growling billionaire who stalks the night. And if youre ready to reflect on the last year that weve lived through (Im personally still trying to avoid thinking about it), consider Covid Chronicles, an anthology of stories about people affected by the pandemic. (Not to be confused with another anthology with the same name; that one was more big-picture than this more intimate book.)

But wait, there's more! Thor and Loki: Double Trouble is a fabulous and fun story that positions the two characters where they work best, as bickering mismatched brothers. Also great is the second installment of the Aster series an action-adventure fantasy for young readers that is completely adorable on absolutely every page. And check out The Thud, an amazing and empathetic graphic novel based on a real-life town designed for people with developmental disabilities.

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This Week's Comics: America's Most Haunted Road, Therapy for the Dead, and Antifa Supersoldiers - The Portland Mercury

Axios

New conspiracy charges have been filed against five people associated with the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, over their alleged involvement in the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol siege, according to the Justice Department. Why it matters: The arrests are the latest move against the Proud Boys, who have a history of violence. Authorities have focused their attention on the group as they investigate the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Trump.Get market news worthy of your time with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free.More than a dozen people affiliated with the group have already been charged in connection to the Capitol riots, per the Washington Post.Details: William Chrestman, Christopher Kuehne, Louis Enrique Colon, Felicia Konold and Cory Konold have been charged with conspiracy, civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding, among other charges, according to criminal complaints unsealed Thursday after the individuals were taken into custody. Kuehne, Colon and the Konolds have been charged in joint conspiracy filing, while Chrestman was charged in a separate filing. According an FBI affidavit, the five individuals were repeatedly observed with the Proud Boys group who were seen outside, and later inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. The SUBJECTS not only moved closely to each other in proximity, but also appeared to gesture and communicate to one another both before and while inside the Capitol in an apparent effort to coordinate their efforts, an FBI agent said in the affidavit. Most wore tactical-style gear, including helmets and gloves, and Chrestman carried a wooden club or axe handle disguised as a flag, according to the FBI agent. "Your affiant believes that there may be more persons involved in this particular conspiracy than the persons described throughout this affidavit, and the investigation is ongoing," a footnote in the affidavit noted. The big picture: During Trump's impeachment trial this week, House managers have pointed to the Proud Boys' involvement in the Capitol riot.The managers have also tied the Proud Boys to Trump, who refused to condemn the extremist group during the 2020 campaign.More from Axios: Sign up to get the latest market trends with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free

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Antifa uses Twitter to threaten me and the media: Seattle radio host - Yahoo News

Oregon U.S. Attorney Billy Williams, a Trump-appointee who prosecuted more Antifa suspects than any other, is among many federal prosecutors who will resign from their positions at the behest of the Biden administration.

Williams, 64, was officially appointed to the job by former President Donald Trump in 2017 after holding it in an acting and interim capacity since 2015, when he replaced former U.S. Attorney Amanda Marshall, who resigned during a sexual harassment investigation.

Last week, he reported that Portlands summer of rioting had caused at least $2.3 million to a handful of federal buildings in the city alone.

Billy Williams the United States Attorney for the District of Oregon speaks during a press conference January 27, 2016 at the Harney County Chamber of Commercein Burns, Oregon. (ROB KERR/AFP via Getty Images) (Getty Images)

PORTLAND RIOTS CAUSED AT LEAST $2.3M IN DAMAGE TO FEDERAL BUILDINGS, US ATTORNEY SAYS

Williams office had filed the most domestic terrorism cases out of any U.S. attorneys office in the country in 2020, the Oregonian reported. Most of them were in connection with more than two months of protests outside the citys Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse.

The nightly standoffs with police involved graffiti, broken windows and firecrackers, as well as Molotov cocktails.

Although the riots stemmed out of protests against the Trump administration, police brutality and racial injustice, they continued even after President Biden took office on Jan. 20. Antifa marchers blasted the new president and new anti-Biden graffiti emerged.

Other recent cases led by his office included the prosecution of a man who sent threatening cards and white powder to former co-workers and a fraud case against a former Nike marketing manager.

Hes not the only Trump-appointed federal prosecutor that the Biden administration has asked to step down, although a bipartisan group of senators had initially supported Williams for the job.

The Justice Department on Tuesday asked most U.S. attorneys appointed by Trump to resign although the prosecutor overseeing a federal tax probe involving the presidents son, Hunter Biden, will remain on the job at the request of acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson.

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U.S. Attorney John Durham, who former Attorney General Bill Barr appointed to investigate the Trump-Russia probe in October, will also stay on in that capacity while being asked to step down from his role as U.S. attorney in Connecticut.

Historically, its not unusual for federal prosecutors to leave their positions when a new president takes office.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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US Attorney who prosecuted Antifa suspects will resign at request of Biden admin - Fox News