Antifa: terrorists, domestic and foreign
The administration has decided that Antifa is a terrorist group, the better to move against it. Here’s the declaration about Antifa in the US:
Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law. It uses illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide to accomplish these goals. …
Because of the aforementioned pattern of political violence designed to suppress lawful political activity and obstruct the rule of law, I hereby designate Antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization.” All relevant executive departments and agencies shall utilize all applicable authorities to investigate, disrupt, and dismantle any and all illegal operations — especially those involving terrorist actions — conducted by Antifa or any person claiming to act on behalf of Antifa, or for which Antifa or any person claiming to act on behalf of Antifa provided material support, including necessary investigatory and prosecutorial actions against those who fund such operations.
And this order does something similar regarding Antifa abroad:
Today, building on President Trump’s historic commitment to confront Antifa’s campaign of political violence, the Department of State is designating German-based Antifa Ost, along with three other violent Antifa groups in Italy and Greece, as Specially Designated Global Terrorists and intends to designate all four groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, effective November 20, 2025. The designation of Antifa Ost and other violent Antifa groups supports President Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, an initiative to disrupt self-described “anti-fascism” networks, entities, and organizations that use political violence and terroristic acts to undermine democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and fundamental liberties. Groups affiliated with this movement ascribe to revolutionary anarchist or Marxist ideologies, including anti-Americanism, “anti-capitalism,” and anti-Christianity, using these to incite and justify violent assaults domestically and overseas.
When the Democrats were in power, they mostly looked away or actively encouraged Antifa – or denied its existence except as some sort of idea. That approach has ended – for the moment, anyway.
It will be interesting to see what practical effect this new policy will have on the movement. Antifa’s adherents seem mostly to be those disaffected young men everyone seems to be talking about these days, whether on left or right or the fringes where left and right seem to resemble each other in chaos, rage, and rebellion.
I agree that Antifa is an anti-American organization, likely funded largely from abroad.
But this designation will very possibly make them appear as martyrs and the victims of officials who don’t respect the First Amendment. Which is probably what they hoped for.
I don’t remember what happened to Occupy Wall Street, who I think were Antifa’s predecessors, but somehow an end was put to them. Possibly this incarnation will reach a similar end. But I’m worried about how this might turn out.
My preference would have been for the Congress to step up and make this designation. But fully half of them want Trump to fail and the American press largely supports that half of the Congress.
It looks to me as if Antifa has figured this out pretty well.
Antifa are Anarchists at best, Marxists allies.
Hopefully this will get government bureaus to look into financing and communications
Not long after Trump declared Antifa in America a terrorist organization, an organization which acted as a funding source for Antifa left the US for more compatible climes.
“Antifa’s adherents seem mostly to be those disaffected young men everyone seems to be talking about these days…”– Neo
Having watched many reports/citizen journalists from Portland during the summer of discontent, I noticed an unusual proportion seemed to be lesbian.
According to Grok, “research and self-reported characteristics indicate that Antifa activists are disproportionately LGBTQ+, including a notable presence of lesbians, due to the movement’s alignment with anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, and pro-LGBTQ+ ideologies.”
Brian E:
Lesbians may be disproportionately represented, but from everything I’ve read it’s young men in the main.
@F
I think it will initially help them and make them look like martyrs, but that will pass. ANTIFA started in Europe before going global and a host of European countries have a long track record of dealing with their terrorism and cracking down, particularly in their native Germany. Some countries like the current Spanish government are different, but still there is a lot of legal precedence. And being able to publicly track their activities and tie them to murders and terrorism over there will I think help pierce the obfuscation and denials to show them what they really are. Ditto with the crackdowns of them domestically.
Mostly young men from well off families. Now it’s finally come. Who will succeed? The Administration is taking a huge gamble to do this. If it goes wrong the bad guys will temporarily win or disappear.
If the bad guys lose they will disappear.
“It will be interesting to see what practical effect this new policy will have on the movement.”
That will be determined by the degree of enforcement and by how severe are the consequences imposed for participation in a “domestic terrorist organization.”.
The leadership and direction is old old-guard Marxism, mainly of the Anarchist (circle A logo) bent. Of course they will don new sheep’s clothing. Of course they will employ disaffected young men as their sacrificial foot soldiers.
F wrote, re Antifa:
“I don’t remember what happened to Occupy Wall Street, who I think were Antifa’s predecessors, but somehow an end was put to them. Possibly this incarnation will reach a similar end. But I’m worried about how this might turn out.”
. . .
Me: I don’t think the “occupy” people were antifa predecessors. They were nearly never violent,from my recall. And they were entrenched for several months at Austin’s capitol.
I was disgusted — including due to the costs incurred by taxpayers, to clean up their crap, and to protect them.
But I had no idea how much worse things were going to get.
Re Occupy, I’d say some of them were Antifa precursors. A bunch of them did get violent but that was never their main issue, though squatting often was. Onerous and often criminal but not necessarily terrorists. AntifA proper though well predated them, with roots back to the 1930s as a Communist Party paramilitary, but the brand was mostly rediscovered and popularized by German Maoists in the 1960s. They tend to be far nastier than the Occupy clown shows were, and they can get worse.
Antifawatch:
https://antifawatch.net/
there is no doubt that ANTIFA is being funded by somebody.
Would be real interested in learning who that is.
@ Selfy > thanks for the link. For interested others:
“Documenting Antifa and the Extremist left since 2020.
AntifaWatch was launched in May of 2020 in response to the nationwide riots that left 20+ people dead and $2 billion in damage. This project exists to document and track Antifa and the Extremist Left through a variety of methods. Antifa is a loosely organized group of anarchists and communists that was Identified by the DoJ as involved in domestic terrorism. They are dedicated to the destruction of the American nation through violence.
Originally our goal was to track arrests and court cases, however we’ve expanded to tracking groups, archiving data, social media analysis, and news reporting. To do this tracking this website uses public photos, social media, arrest records, court documents and other legal means. We exist as an Extremist tracking and anti-violence resource. “