President Donald Trump signaled a desire on Monday to have his administration designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization. The liberal media appears keen to use a misleading narrative to shield anarcho-communist militants from a possible crackdown.
Various outlets and publications have suggested that Antifa cannot be designated as a single terrorist group because “Antifa” is supposedly a catch-all term for a motley patchwork of radical leftist groups that just happen to dress the same, use the same slogans, target the same kinds of people, engage in the same kinds of violence, share the same base ideology, and share the same origin.
CNN, for instance, rushed this week to assert, “It wasn’t clear who or what exactly Trump would designate; Antifa is a loosely organized movement without a distinct leader, membership lists, or structure.”
Asad Hashim, a D.C.-based Agence France-Presse news editor, noted in a Monday piece that has been circulated by various liberal papers, “Antifa — short for ‘anti-fascist’ — is an umbrella term for diffuse far-left groups, and is often mentioned in right-wing talking points around violence at protests.”
The liberal media and their friends in the field adopted this same framing when Trump labeled Antifa a terrorist organization in 2020, only to find himself undermined by then-FBI Director Christopher Wray, who told Congress that “it’s not a group or an organization. It’s a movement or an ideology.”
Politico, for instance, suggested in June 2020:
Antifa doesn’t appear to have any organizing structure and is connected only by an amorphous political ideology. There’s not much more than anecdotal evidence and blurry Twitter assertions that organized antifa groups showed up at the recent protests, executing any sort of “well-trained” tactics.
The current framing of Antifa is also reminiscent of the descriptions used by so-called experts and media types in reference to another outfit easily recognizable to most Americans as a terrorist organization: al-Qaeda.
The Justice Department’s abstract for terrorism expert Yonah Alexander’s book “Usama bin Laden’s al-Qaida: Profile of a Terrorist Network,” — published just months ahead of the September 11, 2001, attacks — describes al-Qaeda as a “loosely knit network” “comprised of various terrorist organizations, such as the Egyptian al-Jihad and dozens of others” that was heavily funded by Osama bin Laden and served “as an informal organizational structure for extremist Arab-Afghans, along with thousands of new recruits and supporters in some 55 countries.”
‘It is polymorphous, deliberately shifting its shape and style to suit changing circumstances, including the addition of new, semi-autonomous affiliates to the broader network.’
In the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks, PBS’ “Frontline” amplified the suggestion by Saudi dissident Saad Al-Fagih that contrary to the description given by American law enforcement of a well-organized cell organization, al-Qaeda was less an organization and more a “phenomena” [sic].
When reporting on the manufacture and use of the deadly substance ricin in 2004, NBC News noted that following America’s invasion of Afghanistan, “al Qaeda has become more diffuse, transforming itself into a loose-knit collection of underground cells.”
While some in the media appear to have used such descriptions to question action or continued action against the terrorist group, others proved willing to admit that these characteristics were strategic on the part of the terrorists.
A 2005 article published in the First Monday journal noted that “according to the latest thinking, Al Qaeda is now more important as an ideology than an organization, a network than a hierarchy, and a movement than a group. It is increasingly amorphous, though initially it seemed tightly formed.”
The author, researcher David Ronfeldt, noted further that “while Al Qaeda may look amorphous (i.e., shapeless), the deeper reality may be that it is polymorphous, deliberately shifting its shape and style to suit changing circumstances, including the addition of new, semi-autonomous affiliates to the broader network.”
‘Some Antifa leaders have been active for more than 40 years and may hold high-ranking positions in unions or nonprofits.’
“Today, now that Al Qaeda has more affiliates, the network and franchise concepts remain in play, but the emphasis is on Al Qaeda’s evolution into a decentralized, amorphous ideological movement for global jihad,” added Ronfeldt.
Kyle Shideler, a senior analyst at the Center for Security Policy, told Blaze News, “The categorization you see in much of the mainstream media is deliberately misleading. It is true that Antifa is organized along decentralized, non-hierarchical lines, in keeping with their ideology as anarchists and autonomous Marxists. But it is also true that they think and write extensively, almost obsessively, about that organization and structure.”
Years ago, “a ‘Forming an Antifa Group’ manual was published which described specific steps to create your own Antifa group and then how it is networked into larger groups. So in this sense it [is] absolutely false to say they don’t have structure,” continued Shideler. “They have precisely the structure they want, which is designed to make them challenging for law enforcement to confront, and which is based on over 100 years of anarchist and Marxist organizing theory.”
It’s also not true to say that Antifa is devoid of leaders.
Shideler noted that in the leftist group, “leaders are determined not by titles but by force of personality, capability, training, or experience. Some Antifa leaders have been active for more than 40 years and may hold high-ranking positions in unions or nonprofits.”
Shideler indicated that when briefing law enforcement officials, he often likens Antifa to an outlaw motorcycle club or to street gangs.
“Gangs are made up of smaller clubs or cliques which are networked together by a shared brand, imagery, or iconography,” he said. “As the Antifa manual says, adopting the name Antifa comes with ‘certain obligations.'”
‘The Trump administration will get to the bottom of this vast network inciting violence in American communities.’
Contrary to the suggestion by some liberal media personalities, Antifa’s characteristics, real or imagined, don’t preclude officials from applying the terrorist label.
Shideler noted that the actual statute that controls the definition of terrorist and terrorist activity for the purposes of foreign terror designation — under the Immigration and Naturalization Act — “is fairly loose.”
A group “of two or more people … can be designated if it, or any subgroup connected to it, engages in terrorist activities. Those connections do not have to be financial, although they are often the easiest to prove,” said Shideler.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement to Blaze News, “Left-wing organizations have fueled violent riots, organized attacks against law enforcement officers, coordinated illegal doxxing campaigns, arranged drop points for weapons and riot materials, and more.”
“The Trump administration will get to the bottom of this vast network inciting violence in American communities,” continued Jackson. “This effort will target those committing criminal acts and hold them accountable.”
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Antifa, Terrorist, Terrorism, Al qaeda, Media, Propaganda, Leftism, Terror, Gang, Fto, State department, Politics
