Trump Finds Time To Imagine European Antifa Terrorist Threat
Newsweek highlighted Trump's reported designation of four unspecified European 'Antifa groups' as terrorist organizations, framing it as a noteworthy policy move. The piece manages to entertain the notion of a foreign Antifa threat without once mentioning that the US government has no legal mechanism to designate domestic organizations, let alone vague, decentralized movements, as terrorist
entities. It also ignores the documented rise of far-right, white supremacist violence within the US, which the FBI called the 'most persistent and pervasive threat' in 2019. This diversion by the former administration—and the media’s willingness to echo it—served to shift focus away from actual, escalating domestic terror threats from white identitarian groups that Trump demonstrably tolerated.
One might wonder if designating loosely defined, anti-fascist collectives as 'terrorists' was less about security and more about political convenience, creating a boogeyman out of those opposing the very fascism that sometimes marched with his supporters.