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On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump presided over a White House roundtable focused on one of his repeat targets: Antifa. Joining him were his top advisor Stephen Miller, FBI director Kash Patel, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and US Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Antifa is shorthand for antifascism, and the term refers to an ideology defined primarily by the belief in opposing fascism. Antifa is not an organization or a group, though many left-wing groups adhere to the principles of opposing fascism, and some have clashed with far-right groups during protests in the past.
But you wouldn’t get that impression from the president’s guests, a large group of right-wing influencers and self-described independent reporters. Several of them have spread conspiracy theories about the anti-fascist movement in the past — and they didn’t shy away from doing so again in the company of Trump and his top officials.
Many of those providing testimony claimed that the American left has long been responsible for the majority of political violence in the country, a frequent right-wing claim I wrote about here at Inkstick [ [link removed] ] last week — in short, even conservative data shows that the far right has been responsible for far more political violence than any other group across the last 30 years.
The roundtable comes on the heels of a recent executive order in which the president said his administration had designated Antifa a domestic terror organization, though there is currently no framework for such a designation. Many of the self-described journalists and influencers used the occasion to praise Trump for the executive order. At the same time, some encouraged him to take even harsher steps against the anti-fascist movement.
A handful took the opportunity to lambast the network journalists who were present to cover the event. Some accused the press, law enforcement, and local Democratic politicians of supposedly colluding with anti-fascists, whom Trump repeatedly described as “paid protestors.”
More alarming, though, were the comments that Trump officials made during the event — including expressing a willingness to designate Antifa a “foreign terrorist organization.” That was sadly not the only disturbing comment made by Trump officials.
US Attorney General Bondi likened the loose-knit anti-fascist movement to foreign drug cartels. “Fighting crime is more than just getting the bad guy off the streets,” she said. “It’s breaking down the organization brick by brick, just like we did with cartels. We’re going to take the same approach, President Trump, with Antifa, destroy the entire organization, from top to bottom. We’re going to take them apart.”
Homeland Security Secretary Noem claimed that Antifa is “just as sophisticated as MS-13, as TDA (Tren de Aragua), as ISIS, as Hezbollah, as Hamas — as all of them — they are just as dangerous.”
FBI chief Kash Patel said that the bureau is working with the Treasury Department “to map out these networks through their financial criminal activities, which has been going on for decades.”
Trump himself vowed his administration would “be very threatening to them [anti-fascists], far more threatening to them than they ever were with us.”
One of the advocacy group representatives providing testimony spoke of the supposed Antifa infiltration of the “homeless industrial complex,” while another made the bizarre claim that anti-fascists had teamed up with foreign drug cartels.
At the end, Trump promised to crack down on the anti-fascist movement and said he’d be open to designating Antifa a foreign terrorist organization.
An interesting approach to, well, something that is not an organization at all. On top of that fact, prosecuting people for adhering to an anti-fascist worldview would, of course, violate the First Amendment, but the only time the issue of free speech came up was when the president said it no longer existed.
Referring to a recent executive order that demands prosecution of those who burn or “desecrate” American flags — because doing so “may incite violence and riot” — Trump made a grave comment [ [link removed] ]:
“We took the freedom of speech away, because that’s been through the courts, and the courts said you have freedom of speech but what has happened is when they burn the flag it agitates and irritates crowds.”
It goes without saying that Supreme Court precedent holds that burning the American flag is a protected form of political speech.
Meanwhile, Trump’s push to deploy the military to cities around the country continues, and immigration raids are still sparking protests and pushback.
Here are a few recent headlines about the situation:
ICE in Your Pocket, Everywhere You Go?
At the New Republic, Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling recently reported [ [link removed] ] on documents obtained by 404 Media that detail a worrisome new purchase by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE): a surveillance tool that will enable the agency to track location data from hundreds of millions of phones. On top of that, the tool “also peels information from social media accounts.”
Will France Fall to the Far Right?
At Politico, Marion Solletty and Tim Ross took a hard look [ [link removed] ] at France’s ongoing political crisis and inability to form a coalition government — and how the country’s hardline far-right National Rally party is jockeying to take advantage of it. Such a scenario would have serious consequences for the European Union at large. As Solletty and Ross write, “If the National Rally accessed executive power in France, it would significantly add to the EU’s headaches, already personified around the Council table by Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, and likely soon to be joined by Andrej Babiš after his recent electoral triumph in the Czech Republic.”
Does Trump Have ‘Plenary Authority’? Yes, According to His Top Advisor
Stephen Miller, who recently called protestors “street terrorists,” this week made a claim [ [link removed] ] so stunning that it apparently led him to freeze on live national television. In his words, Trump has “plenary authority.” As soon as the words came out, though, Miller stopped speaking and just stood there blinking.
Pete Hegseth’s ‘Dark Satire’
At The Nation, Lyle Jeremy Rubin took a deeper look [ [link removed] ] at Secretary of War (Née: Secretary of Defense) Pete Hegseth’s recent address, alongside Trump, to hundreds of the nation’s top military generals at Quantico. During the address, Hegseth lambasted military officials over their weight and for being too “woke,” while Trump told them the armed forces would soon deploy within the US to fight “the invasion within.” As Rubin puts it, “Hegseth’s plea for discipline collapses into its opposite — a demand for wanton violence and mayhem.”
Mark Bray, Author of Book Titled Antifa, Leaves US Amid Death Threats
A new piece [ [link removed] ] at Wired also looks at a grim development. In the weeks after Charlie Kirk’s fatal shooting, a university chapter of the organization he cofounded, Turning Point USA, launched a petition to get Rutgers historian Mark Bray fired because he wrote a book titled Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook in 2017. It soon led to far-right calls for his prosecution and widespread death threats. Bray has now left the US for Spain.
Before You Go: Support Independent Journalism, Get Inkstick Merch
Democracy might be dying, but you can still support independent journalism. Inkstick now offers merch: hats, T-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, coffee mugs, and just about whatever else you’d want. Check it out here [ [link removed] ].
Dotted Line is a newsletter focused on global borders and the far right, written by Inkstick Media managing editor Patrick Strickland. If you have tips, email Patrick at pstrickland (at) inkstickmedia (dot) com.

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