What Liberals Get Wrong About Trump's Executive Order on Antifa

Donald Trump during an executive order signing in the White House in Washington on Sept Photo Yuri Gripas Abaca Bloomberg via Getty Images Last week President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week claiming to designate antifa as a domestic terror organization On Thursday he issued a directive for his establishment to pursue antifa Talk spread of another imminent order on dismantling left-wing groups It was the culmination of years of obsessing over antifa As someone publicly associated with anti-fascist organizing the proclamations weren t the greatest shock The repression is to be expected The reaction to Trump s nakedly illegal designation from progressives liberal media and left-leaning think tanks however has given me a sense of dread That s because opponents of MAGA have embraced a dangerous narrative The antifa designation is moot because there is exclusively nothing to designate Antifa in this telling will purely be used as a catchall to repress anyone opposed to Trump when in truth it s just an idea with no concrete grounding in the world Opponents of MAGA have embraced a dangerous narrative Trump will indeed label just about all his opponents antifa but the terms antifa and antifascist aren t hollow references to mere ideas Contrary to Republicans portrayals there is no overarching antifa organization or official system The terms antifa and antifascist though do reflect an authentically existing world of activists researchers thinkers and organizers at real danger of persecution and dedicated to a specific politics If left-wing organizing is to be defended against Trump s repression denying their existence will only do further harm What Liberals Get Wrong Anti-fascism was one of the bulk unifying and electrifying banners to organize under during Trump s first administration We may already be losing that framework as Trump certainly hopes to a deliberately nebulous sense of criminality associated with its language and symbols Instead of recognizing this corporate media mainstream commentators and liberal voices have largely dismissed antifa Consider how Luke Baumgartner a research fellow in the initiative on extremism at George Washington University responded while discussing antifa in a television interview on the heels of the latest designation Inquired if there was anything real for Trump to target Baumgartner reported There is no hierarchical organizational structure It is primarily a movement and an ideology And there are no leaders There are no assets There are no bank accounts or revenue streams to go after either The mainstream fact-checking site PolitiFact responded to the latest designation by citing past remarks from Michael German a fellow from the Brennan Center for Justice s liberty and national measure undertaking Comparing antifa s designation to that of foreign terror groups German stated Antifa isn t organized in that fashion in the first place as it has no leaders assets or infrastructure so banning material assistance to foreign anti-fascist groups would have little legitimate anti-terrorism effect here or abroad This take which is pervasive in mainstream and liberal circles gets right that antifascist movements do not operate according to a centralized hierarchy It is wrong however to dismiss the approaches in which Antifa is grounded firmly in reality You can take it from me I have organized and raised funds for the real-world structures that make up the anti-fascist movement Antifa in the Real World Dismissing antifa runs the danger of leaving the people in the movement to the wolves A casual observer of mainstream liberal or Democratic Party talking points might be left with the impression that a real organized large coordinated and uncompromising anti-fascist movement may in fact be worthy of being treated as a terrorist organization At the very least they might think that such a movement which is precisely what we need right now doesn t need a robust defense Why after all would you need to protect something that doesn t exist The truth is that antifa and anti-fascist groups have been responsible for a few of the most of prescient and impactful organizing countering the far-right during the last decade Related Trump s Idea of the Criminal Left Is a Fiction A Coordinated Defense Against His Fascism Shouldn t Be Until the latest empowerment of an unleashed Trump administration and the assistance of wealthy business interests the far right was languishing A great number of notorious far-right groups and personalities were bankrupt unemployable facing prosecution unable to attract audiences plagued by infighting harassed in masses under a constant microscope and generally rendered weak and inert It was the work of dedicated and organized anti-fascists that made this accomplishable And that work was I might hasten to add perfectly legal Groups that have considered themselves antifa or anti-fascist run the gamut of organizational possibilities They are formally and informally constituted with and without membership and range from publicly facing to entirely anonymous Their engagements include the publication of research on the far right producing cultural events staging self-defense trainings organizing de-platforming campaigns and mounting counter-demonstrations As for assets George Soros and liberal financiers certainly do not fund these exercises Activists themselves usually do All groups need various money and assets to carry out the preponderance basic work even if the sums are paltry I myself have fundraised for the basic infrastructure needed to do things like host meetings run online platforms call demonstrations and produce educational materials A Better Approach Instead of demeaning antifa by focusing on questions of organization or the technical feasibility of a domestic designation liberals should rally around it by putting the very values they espouse into action You don t need to consider yourself antifa to believe in defending protected political speech or the right of free association Anti-fascists tend to be more concerned with questions of morality than questions of legality If they want to foster a functional opposition liberals must say what they already know despite their discomfort and fight for these constitutional guarantees even for protected speech that advocates for self-defense and discusses the politics of violence Anti-fascists tend to be more concerned with questions of morality than questions of legality but liberals concerned about the rule of law ought to take succor in past precedents Direct action-focused groups in American history that moved to protect their communities like the Black Panthers or militant labor unions have shown that it cannot be made illegal to advocate for or practice population self-defense whether that means learning to use arms conducting boycotts and demonstrations or feeding and educating your constituencies Related The Persistent Push to Depict Luigi Mangione and His Supporters as Terrorists Considering the current administration s open assault on hostile communities and blue states and cities and the inability of courts and lawmakers to restrain its weaponization of the legal system military and law enforcement that direct action example is more pivotal than ever In the absence of fascist adversaries that are as concerned with free speech the rule of law or polite disagreement as their opponents are a politics of mutual aid and area self-defense remains our majority of powerful choice Anti-fascism and anti-fascists have demonstrated how we might walk this path toward a politics of empowerment in which we take direct responsibility for our own communities If we are going to foster a thriving powerful movement equal to this dangerous moment we must not surrender antifa to Trump s whims and the worst fantasies of our opponents The vitality and safety of our friends family and society may depend on it The post What Liberals Get Wrong About Trump s Executive Order on Antifa appeared first on The Intercept