While Trump blames antifa, a menacing far-right ‘boogaloo’ movement rises
In response to nationwide protests over the shameful killing of George Floyd, President Donald Trump promises to go after antifa — as soon as he figures out what it is.
No, that’s not exactly what the president announced. You have to read between the lines of his tweets, and not too deeply at that.
“The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization,” Trump tweeted May 31, as hundreds of protesters gathered outside the White House gates.
More such statements were made by the president and supported by Attorney General William Barr. “The violence instigated and carried out by antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism,” Barr said at the end of his statement on riots, “and will be treated accordingly.”
On Wednesday, Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton went a step further in a New York Times op-ed, calling for “an overwhelming show of force” to subdue looters, whom he identified as “cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa infiltrating protest marches.”
Curiously, that statement came as police in Washington and across the country were regaining control of their streets without further escalation in force. Furthermore, like Trump and Barr, Cotton makes no mention of any group, right- or left-wing, except antifa.
That’s a lot to load on an “organization” that’s not really an organization. Antifa, short for “anti-fascist,” is an ideology and movement that rose in prominence in response to Trump’s election.
Like Black Lives Matter, it’s intentionally unorganized in a “leaderless resistance” fashion, which leaves both organizations vulnerable to whatever charge people want to lay on them.
Unfortunately, that means Trump, pro-Trump media and other conservatives can use both of those organizations as scapegoats for their anti-terrorist efforts and take public focus away from mostly right-wing groups that really have been linked to real terrorism.
Fox News has mentioned antifa almost five times more often than CNN has since May 25 and three times as often as MSNBC, according to a Washington Post examination of internet archive data.
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