What is antifa? Trump calls movement terrorists, blaming it for violence at protests
Ever since national protests against racism and police brutality have gripped the country after George Floyd, a black man, died in police custody, President Trump and other members of his administration have blamed antifa for violence at demonstrations.
Trump said on Saturday that the “violence and vandalism” at protests “is being led by antifa and other radical left-wing groups who are terrorizing the innocent, destroying jobs, hurting businesses, and burning down buildings,” according to CNN.
The violence and looting is being done by much smaller groups at mostly peaceful gatherings, authorities say. The vast majority of the protesters across the nation have been “peaceful demonstrators calling for change,” law enforcement officials told ABC News.
Trump tweeted on Sunday that the U.S. will be “designating antifa as a terrorist organization.”
Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer shown on video kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than 8 minutes before he died, was arrested Friday, according to the Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner.
Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter, said John Harrington, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.
While many in the Trump administration blame antifa for the violence, other officials have suggested white supremacists have infiltrated the protests to cause chaos, as reported by The New York Times. A Twitter account posing as an “antifa” organization has been connected to the white national group Identity Evropa, a Twitter spokesperson told NBC News.
The Twitter account @ANTIFA_US tweeted on Sunday night, “Tonight’s the night, Comrades,” with a raised fist emoji and “Tonight we say ‘F--- The City’ and we move into the residential areas... the white hoods.... and we take what’s ours …,” according to NBC.
The spokesperson told NBC that the Twitter account violated the manipulation and spam policy of the company and has been suspended.
What is antifa?
Antifa stands for “anti-fascists” and isn’t a singular group or organization, according to The Associated Press. It’s a movement of far-left activists that resist white supremacists and neo-Nazis at protests.
According to Mark Bray, historian at Rutgers University and author of “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” there isn’t a “hierarchical structure to antifa or universal set of tactics.” Antifa members tend to use similar strategies as anarchist groups, wear all black and masks, and criticize systems of authority, including the police, Bray said, according to The AP.
“The argument is that militant anti-fascism is inherently self-defense because of the historically documented violence that fascists pose, especially to marginalized people,” Bray told The New York Times.
Antifa organizers believe violence is justified, because they say if fascist groups are allowed to proliferate, “it will inevitably result in violence against marginalized communities,” Bray told The New York Times.
“(Antifa) ideology is rooted in the assumption that the Nazi party would never have been able to come to power in Germany if people had more aggressively fought them in the streets in the 1920s and 30s,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. “ ... The antifa movement began in the 1960s in Europe, and had reached the US by the end of the 1970s” before gaining prominence in the 2017 Charlottesville unrest.
Can Trump designate antifa a terrorist organization?
Some experts say no.
There isn’t a domestic terrorism law and imposing sanctions on terrorist groups is limited to foreign entities, The New York Times reported.
“There is no authority under law to do that — and if such a statute were passed, it would face serious First Amendment challenges,” said Mary B. McCord, former head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “But right now, the only terrorist authority is for foreign terrorist organizations.”
The First Amendment protects the rights of “hateful speech” and “assembling with others who share the same hateful views,” so “unless an organization engages solely in unprotected activity, such as committing crimes of violence, any designation of a (U.S.-based) organization as a terrorist organization … would likely run afoul of the First Amendment,” McCord told a House panel in January, according to ABC News.
Bradley Wiegmann, a top attorney in the Justice Department’s National Security Division, told the House Homeland Security Committee last year: “Designating domestic groups as ‘domestic terrorist organization’ and picking out particular groups that you say disagree with their views and so forth is going to be highly problematic, in a way that’s not when you’re designating al-Qaida or ISIS or an international terrorist organization,” ABC News reported.
Has antifa been at protests?
Attorney General William Barr has blamed antifa for violence at protests.
“The violence instigated and carried out by antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly,” Barr said in a release on Sunday.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said on Monday that antifa is a “big element of this protest,” but when asked about how to identify members of antifa, deferred to the Department of Justice.
Bray said it’s unclear how involved antifa is in the protests, because there isn’t a membership uniform and the movement doesn’t have enough people to “mobilize nationwide in such a dramatic, forceful way,” according to The Associated Press.
“The radical left is much bigger than antifa, much, much bigger, and the number of people who are participating in the property destruction are much, much bigger than the radical left,” Bray said.
This story was originally published June 2, 2020 at 10:27 AM with the headline "What is antifa? Trump calls movement terrorists, blaming it for violence at protests."