On Sept. 22, 2025, President Trump issued an official executive order titled “Designating Antifa a Domestic Terrorist Organization.” The order described antifa as a “militarist, anarchist enterprise” calling for the overthrow of the government. It also asserted that it “uses illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide” in order to realize its nefarious goals. Despite the obvious intention of the federal government to come down hard on anyone they might claim to be involved in this antifa outfit, there are multiple levels of absurdity here.
Firstly, as all but the most ill-informed know, the literal meaning of “antifa” is “anti-fascist” — that is, being “antifa” means opposed to and willing to stand up and fight fascism. One would have thought that this included virtually all patriotic citizens. After all, isn’t this what World War II was all about? The Allies were “antifa,” seeking to defeat the forces of fascism in Europe, especially Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
Secondly, a fundamental problem with designating antifa a domestic terrorist organization is that there is no organization, enterprise or entity named “antifa.” To claim there is reflects a basic ignorance, intentional or not, on the part of the Trump administration. Rather than a group or organization, antifa refers to a set of beliefs or even a political movement with a shared ideology, a militant attitude of opposition to the mounting threat of fascism in the U.S. and a willingness to take action against it. The antifa movement finds the growing danger of fascism in many areas. To take an obvious one: the kidnapping off the streets of our neighbors by masked and militarized agents of law enforcement, and the confinement of those nabbed in secretive, privately operated “detention centers” where they often lack access to the legal system and medical treatment and suffer various kinds of abuse. In short, unlike Fascist, which when capitalized refers to a member of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s political party, there is no antifa with a capital-A to which people might belong. It’s a chimera.
A third and final absurdity in declaring antifa a domestic terrorist organization is that as noted by the Harvard Law Review, the U.S. lacks criminal laws dealing with domestic terrorism. That is, domestic terrorism is, at present, not a chargeable federal offense. Those who commit violent crimes that we might wish to label domestic terrorism, can face charges — e.g. for murder, arson, assault, etc. — but there is no federal criminal provision outlawing domestic terrorism. While it is illegal to provide “material support” to groups the government has designated as foreign terrorist organizations, there is no analogous law for domestic groups. Political violence has been carried out in the U.S. by a number of groups over the years including right wing extremists claiming the mantle of patriotism such as the Ku Klux Klan, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and others. In response some politicians and law enforcement officials have lobbied for a federal domestic terrorist law but Congress has considered but never passed any such regulation.
On Oct. 8, 2025, the White House hosted a roundtable discussion on antifa, at which President Trump joined a group of right-wing influencers in recounting for the press, assembled for the occasion, various incidents of violence which the roundtable attributed to antifa. Trump blustered that antifa members “have been very threatening to people, but we’re going to be very threatening to them, far more threatening to them than they ever were with us.” Participants at the roundtable made the absurd claim, among other howlers, that Antifa went back 100 years, to Germany’s Weimar Republic. Trump said he was open to declaring antifa a “foreign terrorist organization,” although as CNN pointed out, a U.S. entity cannot be declared a foreign terrorist organization.
In sum, the roundtable did nothing to clarify the confusion in the administration’s position on antifa — other than to deepen the ominous suspicion that Trump plans on using the power of the federal government to go after people and groups of a leftist persuasion that exercise the right to protest his policies. Our civil and political rights remain under threat.
This is a contributed opinion column. Michael G. Baylor is a retired professor of history and a member of Democratic Socialists of America. The views expressed in this piece are those of its individual author, and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of this publication. Do you have a perspective to share? Learn more about how we handle guest opinion submissions at themorningcall.com/opinions.
https://www.mcall.com/2025/10/17/opinion-trump-administration-using-antifa-as-political-straw-man/
