On Monday, just one day after the Republican Party staged a Horst Wessel-style memorial for Charlie Kirk in Glendale, Arizona, President Donald Trump signed an executive order designating “antifa” a “domestic terrorist organization.”
The order claims that antifa is a “militarist, anarchist enterprise” that uses “illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide.”
Antifa, as even FBI Director Christopher Wray was forced to admit in a September 2020 congressional hearing, is not an organization but a broad current of opposition to fascism. “Antifa is an ideology, not an organization,” said Wray, who also testified that the bureau had no data showing any lethal violence committed by the organization.
Since antifa as a formal organization does not exist, Trump’s executive order amounts to a blanket authorization to brand political dissent and opposition to his fascist regime as “terrorism.”
The far right which has taken over ICE and the Federal government under Trump is terrorizing many, many people in this country. JD Vance, Noem, and Trump know it (the cruelty is the point) and yet all cast any criticism of this fact as “terrorist rhetoric.” That kind of table-turning projection is foundational in the authoritarian playbook.
But what I don’t understand is - why does the American public discourse seem to tolerate all these tactics?
Because most people aren’t very smart and will only care about something once it directly affects them, which is too late.
Which is why this is probably going to get a whole lot worse and everyone that is smart should be preparing themselves for that.
Because allowing these tactics let’s them “hurt the people he needs to be hurting.” They’re authoritarian themselves.