President Trump signed an executive order Monday designating the anti-fascism activism group known as Antifa a “domestic terrorist organization.”
In 2020, the US Library of Congress detailed the Rose City Antifa group, though other cells related to Antifa (short for Antifascism) exist throughout the US and the world:
“Founded in 2007, The Rose City Antifa in Portland, OR, is the oldest U.S. group to use ‘antifa’ in its moniker. Antifa groups in the United States gained prominence following violent clashes between white supremacists and their opponents, including antifa supporters, in Charlottesville, VA, on August 12, 2017.”
The White House further describes Antifa as “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.”
On the other hand, critics claim the designation is aimed not at an organization, but at a broad anti-fascist ideology that cannot be pinpointed.
Chris Cameron, reporter with the New York Times, wrote, “Antifa is a diffuse and sometimes violent protest culture of left-wing activists who want to stop the far right. The group takes its name and iconography from the antifascist movement that opposed the Nazi Party and other far-right political parties in the 1920s and 30s.”
The executive order states otherwise.
“Antifa recruits, trains, and radicalizes young Americans to engage in this violence and suppression of political activity, then employs elaborate means and mechanisms to shield the identities of its operatives, conceal its funding sources and operations in an effort to frustrate law enforcement, and recruit additional members… This organized effort designed to achieve policy objectives by coercion and intimidation is domestic terrorism.”
Additionally, journalist Andy Ngo posted on X the existence of a group of Antifa cells in the US known as the Torch Antifa Network (of which Rose City is part).
The US government will involve “coordinated efforts to obstruct enforcement of Federal laws through armed standoffs with law enforcement, organized riots, violent assaults on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement officers, and routine doxing of and other threats against political figures and activists.”
Early into his term, President Trump declared eight South American gangs foreign terrorist organizations. With Monday’s executive order, this is his first time designating a terrorist organization domestically.
