“It says it right in the name: Antifa. Anti-fascism which is what they were fighting.”
That was CNN’s Don Lemon, who has been characterized by some (but certainly not this columnist, because I respect our esteemed media) as “the dumbest man on television,” describing the far-Left radicals who have been burning, looting, and otherwise terrorizing American cities for the past four years.
Donald Trump, they said, was a fascist. Thus, Antifa, the “anti-fascists,” were a necessary force. Just like your grandpa who stormed Normandy, they said, the black-clad, gender-bending goobers in Portland, Seattle, and even Chapel Hill, North Carolina were the brave heroes who protected America from the 21st century re-emergence of the Nazi movement. Order a cup of Starbucks coffee in the morning, burn down the Starbucks at night. That was their routine.
That “evil dictator” Donald Trump wanted to build a wall and stop illegal immigration, and that’s almost exactly the same thing as ethnic cleansing. Anybody who has taken Sociology 101 at Halfwit State University knows that! Thank goodness Antifa stopped him!
But less than a week into the Joe Biden presidency, I find myself confused.
Imagine my shock when I woke up on the Wednesday morning after the savior of Our Democracy™ had taken the reins and moved into the White House, having deposed Donald Trump at the ballot box, only to find that the anti-fascists had resumed their “mostly peaceful protesting” in the streets. I was befuddled. They toppled the Democratic Party of Oregon’s headquarters, and worse—they destroyed the original Starbucks—the crown jewel of their coffee shop revolution!
“I guess Joe Biden is a fascist, too,” I immediately thought to myself.
After all, Don Lemon explained that Antifa was fighting fascism. It says it right in the name.
But then I remembered something else Don Lemon said, while he celebrated Biden’s ascendancy to the Oval Office.
“I didn’t expect to be so overwhelmed by that,” he said of Biden’s victory. “I didn’t realize the PTSD that many marginalized people—that African Americans, women, Latinos, people of color, all kinds of white people—are feeling around this country, because we have had whiplash from someone who only cares about himself and not uniting people.”
Now I was really racking my noodle.
Antifa fights fascism, per Don Lemon. And Biden, according to Don Lemon, is here to heal Americans of their PTSD—Post Trump Stress Disorder—and unite us. He’s definitely not a fascist like Donald Trump. But Antifa was also fighting Biden. In fact, one of their signs even read, “We don’t want Biden, we want revenge.” What gives?
I pondered this conundrum for the rest of the week, trying to reconcile why the “antifascists” were fighting Joe Biden, who is not a fascist, after they just finished fighting Donald Trump, who is a fascist. I even consulted friends and family, but they couldn’t figure it out either.
Then, after several days of pacing back and forth in my office, and several sleepless nights wrestling with this seemingly inconceivable turn of events, I finally had a breakthrough—a true eureka moment.
Don Lemon had lied to me!
Now, stay with me here, because I know you’ve been told that the media, like the Pope, are infallible in all things. Both of those things, I’ve discovered, are untrue, and I’m sure you’re as shocked as I am to learn that.
It’s not that Donald Trump and Joe Biden are actually “fascists.”
As it turns out, Antifa was never really about fighting “fascism” at all. It was never about Donald Trump, or his policy proposals. It was never about saving American democracy from the man they called Hitler 2.0 or the people they called “neo-Nazis” who elected him to office in the first place.
If it was, the “anti-fascists” would have congratulated themselves on a job well done upon Joe Biden’s election, and gone home to their mothers’ basements to finish reading the first chapter of The Communist Manifesto and chat with their friends on Reddit.
Instead, it has always been about deeply ingrained hatred for the United States of America.
The people perpetrating violence in the streets have been taught—in defiance of reality—that America is an irredeemably “racist” nation built on a foundation of “white supremacy.” For them, hatred of America is a religion, except in this religion, there is no forgiveness for what they view as America’s original sin.
During the Trump era, this narrative put forth by the “anti-fascists” was helpful for people like Don Lemon and the rest of the mainstream press, who also wanted you to believe that Donald Trump was a “white supremacist,” or that he was perpetuating a system of “white supremacy.” That narrative forwarded the goal of their friends in the Democratic Party, which was to get rid of Donald Trump at all costs. To a large extent, it worked.
But poetically, the very “anti-fascists” who are still rioting during the Biden Administration against what they believe to be the exploitation of minorities by America’s founders, and the exploitation of workers through capitalism, were themselves exploited by Democrats for political control. Unfortunately for Antifa, those Democrats who exploited them no longer have use for them. Antifa has been moved from the asset column to the liability column. More riots will make Democrats look bad, and that’s bad for the Democrats’ political control.
During the era of Biden, a man who does not have to worry about being labeled a “fascist” or a “white supremacist,” you can expect a brutal beat down of the “antifascists,” the likes of which could never have been handed down by the Trump Administration without severe backlash from the media in conjunction with Trump’s political opponents.
Enjoy. It should be glorious to watch.