Stop calling them antifascists
Members of Portland anarchist group Rose City Antifa march in 2017.
A shell casing found with the rifle of the 22-year-old man accused of murdering conservative advocate and organizer Charlie Kirk in Utah was inscribed with, “Hey, fascist! Catch!” according to Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R). The inscription has been widely described by law enforcement, media and elected officials as an “antifascist” message. The Wall Street Journal called the message an expression of “antifascist ideology.” We need to stop calling people who act like fascists antifascist.
Here in Oregon, we’re as familiar as anyone with antifascists or “Antifa” for short, that motley mob of ne’er-do-wells who have commandeered city intersections, vandalized, assaulted, burned, occupied and generally tried, with considerable success, to mess up Portland for years.
OregonLive.com, the online home of The Oregonian, has 34 stories on offer that use the term “antifascist.” One story, from August 14, begins,
An independent journalist with admitted antifascist sympathies was found guilty Wednesday of riot and second-degree disorderly conduct for her involvement in a chaotic clash in an Oregon City park three years ago.
(Emphasis added).
That phrase, “with admitted antifascist sympathies,” sounds absurd, and is, because basically everyone would proudly declare that they not only sympathize with antifascism but are antifascist. Even neo-fascist groups on the outer fringes of American political life eschew the fascist label.
“Fascist” is a political epithet today because the most infamous fascist, Adolph Hitler, was sewage in human form. Fascism, especially in its Nazism iteration, along with its totalitarian companion communism, wrecked the 20th Century for giant swaths of the planet. It’s also, as the quality of its historical adherants indicate, an extremely stupid and harmful ideology that in the American context would require lighting the Constitution and our founding political ethos ablaze.
For my money, the most fascistic president in American history was Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat and a progressive one at that. Wilson’s crackdown on free speech with actual laws punishing people for what they say and re-segregation by race of the armed forces might even make today’s antifascist progressives blush.
Against this backdrop, it was a smart marketing move for anarchists to begin identifying as antifascists. Everyone identifies with people who oppose fascism. Anyone who disagrees with people called antifascists is, by inference, a fascist. Anyone people called antifascists don’t like is probably a fascist. Antifascists have such a keen nose for fascists, anyone antifascists say is a fascist is definitely a fascist. The mistaken moniker is a little trap that ensnares those most sensitive to being thought of, or called, a fascist.
Historically, fascists seized or retained power by extra-legal means, and they have left their dictatorial positions dead at the hands of their internal or external enemies. That was the fate of Hitler (suicide before capture) and Italy’s Benito Mussolini (hanging by domestic opponents). Of the terrible trifecta of 20th Century fascist rulers, only Spain’s Francisco Franco died of natural causes in office after a long reign. All relinquished power - and the power to terrorize their people and the world - only when dead.
Much American blood and treasure was spent trying to kill 20th Century fascists. I recently rewatched the movie “Inglorious Basterds,” in which a band of American soldiers gleefully slaughter German fascists. It’s a great movie. I wonder what the Antifa types - no friends of Israel - would think about the Jewish vengeance angle.
To call someone a fascist is to call for his removal from politics, by killing or otherwise. To call people and their ideology antifascist by association endorses their view of who deserves to die.
Charlie Kirk was not a fascist. To call the sick messages that attended his killing “antifascist” justifies his murder, and invites more.