Two ways to read the “antifa” executive order
Plus, three lessons from Jimmy Kimmel’s reinstatement
This week is a key inflection point for our democracy. The administration is moving quickly on censorship and retaliatory crackdowns in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, threatening nonprofits, funders, and other opposition actors with investigations and prosecutions.
“With God as my witness,” said Stephen Miller, “we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people. It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name.”
Read more: Violence is toxic to democracy.
Here are two Protect Democracy experts on how to interpret some of the most important stories.
Two ways to read the “antifa” executive order
By Genevieve Nadeau
Last night, Donald Trump declared “antifa” a “domestic terrorist organization.”
Technically speaking, neither of these things exists. Antifa, which is an abbreviation of “anti-fascist,” is not an organization — it’s more of a loose collection of “left-wing” political ideologies and subcultures. And the United States does not have a legal framework for designating domestic terrorist groups. Federal law only empowers the federal government to designate foreign terrorist organizations.
To put it another way, legally speaking, this carries the same weight as if the president had declared the “illuminati” to be “official persona non grata.”
There are two different ways to read this executive order.
One: This is absurd. It’s meaningless messaging bait. The White House felt it had to do something, anything to crack down on the president’s perceived enemies in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, otherwise his supporters would revolt. Moreover, this is just a distraction from a wide range of genuine free speech and law enforcement abuses, such as the FCC’s unconstitutional jawboning aimed at Jimmy Kimmel, the apparent ousting of a U.S. attorney for not manufacturing a fraudulent case against a political enemy, and the possible cover-up of Tom Homan allegedly accepting a $50,000 bribe from an undercover FBI agent.
Look! Antifa!
The best response: Ignore it.
Two: This is serious and dangerous. The White House is deliberately ignoring legal constraints and laying the groundwork for wide-scale investigations and prosecutions of political enemies under the broad label of “domestic terrorism.” It’s right out of the authoritarian playbook. Precisely because neither of these terms are real, that makes them dangerous. (Listen, for example, to everything the White House press secretary considers to be “antifa”.)
The president will seek to apply both labels at will to any group he views as crossing him or standing in his way — and use them as pretext for widespread abuse of DOJ, IRS, and other authorities.
The best response: full-throated dissent and a robust defense.
Maybe it’s both?
One way or another, this administration is not done trying to close civic space and squeeze civil society (more on why and how here). In fact, we can expect the threats to civil society, including nonprofits and charities, to escalate. Normalizing power grabs like this executive order — absurd as it may seem — poses its own danger that helps pave the way for future abuses.
We shouldn’t let it. We don’t need to charge at everything the administration waves in front of us. But neither should we ignore dangers just barely under the surface.
Plus, this executive order isn’t just a sign of an increasing appetite for weaponizing the federal government against civil society. It’s also an attempt to turn different parts of civil society against each other.
While there has been growing cross-ideological concern about Jimmy Kimmel and the FCC, the administration is betting it will be harder to unite to defend targets accused of being “antifa.”
That label has long been leveraged as a political bogeyman, and the administration knows that when fear spreads, people tend to retreat to their own corners (or worse). If the White House succeeds in dividing and conquering civil society, that would be a dangerous win for the authoritarian movement.
Read more: Nonprofit Toolkit: Resources for organizations facing government investigations
Three lessons from Jimmy Kimmel’s reinstatement
By Jessica Marsden
Pushback works.
Yesterday, ABC announced that it would not bow to the Federal Communications Commission’s attempted censorship. Jimmy Kimmel will return to the air tonight.
Three lessons we can take from this victory:
One, mass organizing works. Make no mistake, this happened because of the legions of (rightfully) angry Disney and ABC customers and viewers. Enough Americans expressed outrage at the companies bowing to an autocratic censorship campaign that corporate leaders felt compelled to stand up. This campaign came together quickly, with grassroots groups organizing pop-up protests and boycott efforts to harness the outrage sparked by Disney’s decision.
Two, a simple message can help unify elite and grassroots audiences. While most pressure came from the bottom up — from Disney and ABC customers — it was joined in key moments by elite actors amplifying and reinforcing the same message. And it wasn’t just politicians like Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama speaking out. For instance, 450 artists joined 40,000 ACLU members in a joint statement to defend free speech and expression.
Simple, unifying messages in support of democracy and constitutional rights are a winning formula.
Three, autocracy is unpopular. A new poll from YouGov finds that Americans significantly opposed Kimmel’s firing — with 68 percent believing it is “unacceptable for the government to pressure broadcasters to remove shows that include speech it disagrees with” and only 13 percent seeing it as acceptable.
By far, the strongest bulwark against authoritarianism in the United States has always been a broad public distaste for the sort of censorship and repression that will be necessary to consolidate power. The Trump administration is already historically unpopular, and that discontent is likely to grow as the power grabs become more blatant.
Kimmel’s reinstatement is a significant win for democracy. But the administration itself hasn’t backtracked — Kimmel will still be blacked out on the 20 percent of ABC affiliates owned by Sinclair and Nexstar, both of whom have pending business before the FCC. But Disney’s decision to put Kimmel back on the air shows we have power when we push back together.
Read more: Why collective action is the only way.
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CENSORSHIP W/O CENSORING
Drumpf fanboys - Zuck, Musk, & now Ellison - use their secret FB, X, TikTok ALGORITHMS to boost Drumpfaganda & to shadow-ban critics. Same goal as Murdoch & Sinclair programming: Groom the uninformed & radicalize MAGA!
What I find sort of comical and very telling about the whole anti-"antifa" movement is that since, as you say, "antifa" is a shortened version of anti-fascist, then anyone who's anti-antifa is in favor of fascism. Which the current regime most certainly is. They just don't want to admit it.