At a White House policy meeting, the homeland security secretary this week compared antifa to the notorious gang, Hamas, Hezbollah and ISIS, describing the loosely affiliated protesters “equally threatening” as designated terrorist organizations.
“They operate with the same complexity as Mara Salvatrucha, as TDA [Tren de Aragua], as the Islamic State, as Hezbollah, as Hamas, as all of them, they are just as dangerous,” the secretary stated. “They have an agenda to destroy us, just like the other terrorists we’ve dealt with for decades.”
The roundtable included rightwing social media journalists including Andy Ngo, Nick Sortor, Katie Daviscourt and others who report on antifa protests.
Several organizations mentioned by the secretary – Hamas, Hezbollah and Isis – are formally designated terrorist organizations that hold land, operate military wings, maintain command structures and have carried out large-scale assaults such as bombings, abductions and targeted killings.
Specialists in radical movements have frequently characterized the anti-fascist movement, in comparison, as lacking a central command, formal membership or structured hierarchy, and it has generally been described by national authorities as a decentralized movement of campaigners who participate in demonstrations, portions of which involve damage to belongings and street violence.
The roundtable follows a presidential directive signed last month classifying anti-fascist activists as a “domestic terrorist organization”.
Days before the announcement, Joe Biggs who was convicted and then pardoned for his role on January 6 posted on X: “Who’s ready to go ANTIFA hunting? Since I am acquainted with several individuals.”
