Last year, I testified in the Senate on Antifa and the growing anti-free speech movement in the United States. I specifically disagreed with the statement of House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler that Antifa (and its involvement in violent protests) is a “myth.” What was most striking about that hearing was the refusal of Democratic members to condemn Antifa’s activities or recognize the scope of anarchist violence even as riots raged in Portland, Oregon and other cities. Indeed, Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, famously walked out of that hearing after Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, challenged her to condemn Antifa and leftist violence.
Now, Portland, Mayor Ted Wheeler who previously blamed former President Donald Trump and the federal government for violence is calling on citizens to stand up to the “self-described anarchist mob.” I am not sure why Wheeler added “self-described” but his belated recognition of the threat is still welcomed. He notably did not specifically condemn Antifa, including the homegrown and notoriously violent Rose City Antifa (RCA).
Wheeler called for the city’s residents to assist authorities in their efforts to “unmask” members of the “self-described anarchist mob” who continue to riot and loot in the city. Portland is in a state of emergency and riots have continued for years. Indeed, Democratic leaders in the city appear to have finally worked through all of the “stages of grieving” identified by psychiatrist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They began with denial and transference in blaming federal authorities and Trump for the violence. They then joined protesters in angry denunciations of the federal government is seeking an alliance.
They then bargained with the groups. (They did not go as far as cities like Seattle in allowing actual “autonomous zones” last summer, but avoided confrontations and limited police responses). Wheeler himself was criticized for failing to act against the rioting but insisted that he was trying to find a middle road of “compromise” with the groups. The riots, of course, continued and intensified. After a period of depression when the rioting continued after the Biden election, they have finally made it to acceptance.
That progression however is not evident with other national and even state Democratic leaders. Democratic leaders continue to avoid criticizing Antifa and some like Nadler deny their very existence. This level of fear and denial is precisely what Antifa has struggled to create. As I have written, it has long been the “Keyser Söze” of the anti-free speech movement, a loosely aligned group that employs measures to avoid easy detection or association. Yet, FBI Director Chris Wray has repeatedly pushed back on the denials of Antifa’s work or violence. He told one committee last year Wray stated “And we have quite a number — and “Antifa is a real thing. It’s not a fiction.”
Some Democratic leaders not only recognize Antifa but support it. Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison, now the Minnesota attorney general, once said Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. This was after Antifa had been involved in numerous acts of violence and its website was banned in Germany. His son, Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, declared his allegiance to Antifa as riots raged in his city last summer.
Notably, one of the witnesses from the Senate hearing last year was conservative journalist Andy Ngô, who was previously attacked by Antifa members in Portland. He wrote a book about the group but stores like Portland’s famed shop Powell’s Books have banned it from its shelves. When musician Winston Marshall congratulated Ngô on his book, he was condemned and later issued a cringing public apology. Ngô recently had to leave the country due to the attacks and death threats from Antifa and other groups. One does not have to agree with Ngô to support his right to speak or oppose the efforts to block people from being able to buy or read his book. Yet, the “deplatforming” campaign against Ngô, his book, and anyone who praises him is a signature of Antifa.
Wheeler’s success in “getting to acceptance” was not easy. He was repeatedly targeted himself by protesters at home and at restaurants. Finally, as riots continue for a second year, Wheeler is willing to rally the public against “self-described anarchists” while avoiding the forbidden reference to the real “A word”: Antifa.
Wheeler’s fear of confronting the Rose City Antifa is rather conspicuous given the prominence of the group in Portland. As I noted in my Senate testimony, the RCA is arguably the oldest reference to “Antifa” in the United States. In 2013, various groups that were part of ARA, including RCA, formed a new coordinating organization referred to as the “Torch Network.” This lack of structure not only appealed to the anarchist elements in the movement but served the practical benefit of evading law enforcement and lawsuits.
The RCA and other aligned groups have little patience for free speech. It is at its base a movement at war with free speech, defining the right itself as a tool of oppression. That purpose is evident in what is called the “bible” of the Antifa movement: Rutgers Professor Mark Bray’s Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. Bray emphasizes the struggle of the movement against free speech: “At the heart of the anti-fascist outlook is a rejection of the classical liberal phrase that says, ‘I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’” Indeed, Bray admits that “most Americans in Antifa have been anarchists or antiauthoritarian communists… From that standpoint, ‘free speech’ as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.” It is an illusion designed to promote what Antifa is resisting “white supremacy, hetero-patriarchy, ultra-nationalism, authoritarianism, and genocide.” Thus, all of these opposing figures are deemed fascistic and thus unworthy of being heard.
The signature of the group is the same orthodoxy and militancy that characterizes groups that they oppose. Like its counterparts in right-wing groups like Proud Boys, Antifa has a long and well-documented history of such violence. Bray quotes one Antifa member as summing up their approach to free speech as a “nonargument . . . you have the right to speak but you also have the right to be shut up.”
Notably, when George Washington University student and self-professed Antifa member Jason Charter was charged as the alleged “ringleader” of efforts to take down statues in Washington, D.C., Charter declared the “movement is winning.” He is right. It is winning because politicians, the media, and academics have refused to recognize it for what it is: a violent, anti-free speech movement. Wheeler’s indirect criticism is tiny blip in a sea of indifference or denials from other leaders. That is all that Antifa needs to win. Silence.
Like most liberals/leftists/loonies, the Mayor has made his bed, but now he doesn’t want to sleep in it. Suck it up, Buttercup!
Do you have a link to Ngo’s book?
https://www.amazon.com/Unmasked-Antifas-Radical-Destroy-Democracy/dp/154605958X
“Ngô recently had to leave the country due to the attacks and death threats from Antifa and other groups.”
Fatwas in America, with the complicity of cultural leaders. Charming.
This publication explains exactly what the entire Leftist movement is doing and how they are doing. Wheeler and other so-called Democrat leaders have played their expected role. This is from page 11:
Strategy – Seduce, Scare, Subdue or Silence the Population
NAIS largely follows the communist revolutionary play-book of sedition, adapted for the modern era. This guide to revolutions was first develop by Marx, implemented by Lenin, and refined by Mao. Knowing that they do not have the strength or resources to directly confront the U.S. military, they must wage a people’s war. The primary NAIS target, and the decisive element in this war is to exert influence over the population.
Seduction of the population, especially the youth, leads to sympathy, then to recruitment and mobilization. A study of past revolutions informs us that the number of revolutionaries need not be large relative to the overall population. Only a small, committed, and active segment of the population is needed to force change or overthrow a government. This holds true for nearly all revolutions studied since Lenin took his train ride to Russia. For those they cannot seduce, which history tells us is normally the majority of the population, the resistance movement will marginalize. The NAIS will try to scare through acts of violence, intimidation, physical, and social media harassment. The next element is propaganda and the constant media narratives that support the insurgency and undermine the belief system of the majority. This mixture of fear and propaganda drives censorship, popularly known as “Cancel Culture.” All this is planned to demoralize and subdue those citizens that would normally get involved by voting, counter-protesting, contacting congress, helping neighbors etc. And finally, the strategy is to silence the majority and force them to conform.
https://unconstrainedanalytics.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Insurrection_and_Violence_Final.pdf
And finally, the strategy is to silence the majority and force them to conform.
Beyond the nightly riots, RCA has implemented for years, a daytime strategy to demonstrate that the Police are powerless and to force the majority to conform.
Specifically, a moderate sized RCA band will take to the streets in central Portland. The Police have orders to avoid confrontation, and RCA knows it. So for several hours, the local thugs block traffic, smash occupied car windows and demonstrate that they, not the Police own the streets of Portland. Then come back and do it the next day…
– Oregon citizen
Olly, that’s chilling.
I’ve tried so hard to explain why these trends in the Democrat Party are so scary, but never gotten anyone to listen. It’s a helpless feeling watching people blessed to live here throw their freedoms away with both hands.
I would suggest we stop feeling anything other than disgust for the useful idiots laughing at the results of their insurgency campaign. They’ve enjoyed relatively little opposition, primarily because they’ve controlled the narrative. Those days are coming to a close. The more we expose these Marxists, the sooner they become rebranded as domestic terrorists and of course enemies of the state.
Share that document and support their website.
Olly,
Very amusing! Thanks, I needed a good chuckle!
Since when was it bad to be anti-fascist?
Labelling one’s self anti-fascist means nothing; your actual politics need to be understood based on your actions.
Ever since your darlings used that description as a cover for their violent anarchism.
To be, or only claim to be?
Nothing wrong with being an anti-fascist, except if you are a fascist yourself. Antifa’s ideology and methods make Hitler’s Brown Shirts look like a bunch of amateurs.
Dirtydog,
Antifa is worse than the Brown Shirts? Honestly? I suppose then you recommend a “Night of the Long Knives” to decapitate the Antifa leaders?
Beware of causes that self-label “anti-X”. This prefix signals that negative emotions are being harnessed, while the “X” is not required to be defined, ceding themselves broad powers of case-by-case “discretion” in judging who is an ally and who is an enemy (the power to intimidate and control any source of dissent). It also sets the table for rolling grievances (moving the goalpost as soon as any concession is won). Arousal of negative emotions in supporters leads to a culture of distrust and alienation from those who don’t see things quite the same way.
All reformers should be able to express their cause in a positive voicing, stating what they are “for”. This indicates a willingness to define that which is sought, define a reasonable timeframe, and implies that grievance satisfaction will occur if the reform is successful. The movement is based on positive emotions, centered on improvements and how best to achieve them.
There is always a way to express a grievance in a positivist voicing.
To all of you replying: You do realize that I’m not actually reading your comments, right?
What a perfect reply from an Antifa thug. Words, persuasion, rational discourse are passé. We satisfy our urge to destroy via violence.
jpauline22 asked, “Since when was it bad to be anti-fascist?” Since Antifa falsely labeled capitalism and anyone who disagrees with the Democrat Party as fascist. Since Antifa behaves like Fascists themselves.
Conservatives believe in the Constitution, strong individual rights, and limited government. It is literally impossible for Fascism to rise in such an environment, yet Antifa calls them Fascist.
It is the Left, especially Antifa, who behave like Fascists – punishing dissent, trying to impoverish those who disagree with them, using violence to intimidate critics, opposing free speech, and working for a government that behaves in a totalitarian fashion towards conservatives.
Ironically, Antifa isworking to usher in Fascism, and conservatives fight against the rise of the Fascism of the Left.
If only Democrats understood this. They think they are avenging angles but they’re really the bullies.
Those national and state Democratic leaders who refuse to recognize and condemn Antifa are the same who have taxpayer-paid security themselves.
Why does the Portland Mayor. lead by example and take a hard stand against ANTIFA and the violence….say do something like ordering the Police to restore Law and Order…take the handcuffs off of the them and allow them to put the Cuffs on the ANTIFA Thugs?
That would be a simple and easy step to take that would immediately put down the violence. Show up in Black, wearing helmets and masks, carrying shields and weapons…..go straight to Jail…..arrest them on sight.
Issue the Cops old fashioned Hickory Riot Batons and tell them to use them as. needed…..and restore Order.
Mayor, mayor go away.
Don’t come again another day.
If I may and if I might…
I’ll pray to Trump yo put you in flight.
Mr. Wheeler is a politician, not a leader.
Amazingly, in the recent Mayor’s race, Wheeler was the Right Wing candidate. His opponent wore dresses with pictures of communists on them, and stated that she was Antifa