Anti-fascism scholar flees the US because he fears for his family's safety

We speak with Rutgers University professor Mark Bray, who fled from the U.S. to Spain with his family after receiving death threats over his scholarship. He is the author of the 2017 book Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, which explores the history and tactics of anti-fascist movements in Europe, the United States and beyond. Turning Point USA, the conservative campus group founded by Charlie Kirk, had called for Bray’s firing and branded him “Dr. Antifa.” This comes as the Trump administration has dramatically escalated its war on dissent following Kirk’s assassination, using his death as pretext to launch an assault on activists, organizations and speech it disagrees with.

“What we’re seeing today in the U.S. is increasingly fascist. MAGA, I believe — and I study fascism, I don’t say this lightly — is a fascist movement,” says Bray, referring to Trump’s political movement.

President Trump signed an executive order designating antifa as a terrorist organization, but Bray stresses there is no such organization; anti-fascism is a loose political movement or ideology akin to feminism, but Trump is using the label to “demonize resistance” to his policies.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show with the war on antifa that the Trump administration has ratcheted up in the aftermath of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk being assassinated last month. Yesterday, President Trump posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Charlie Kirk at a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden.

Trump recently signed an executive order purporting to designate antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, even though it’s not really an organization. Antifa is actually a shortening of the term “anti-fascist” and is a term that arose in Europe for the movement against the Nazis, both before and after World War II. The decentralized movement in the U.S. today draws on this history.

Several high-level Republicans have accused this Saturday’s “No Kings Day” protests of being organized by antifa. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said last week the administration will take the, quote, “same approach” to antifa as it has to drug cartels it’s bombed in the Caribbean. This is Bondi on Fox News last night.

ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI: That’s one of the things about antifa. You’ve heard President Trump say multiple times they are organized, they are a criminal organization. And they’re very organized. You’re seeing people out there with thousands of signs that all match, pre-bought, pre-put together. They’re organized, and someone is funding it.

AMY GOODMAN: This comes as Los Angeles County officials voted Tuesday to declare a state of emergency over ongoing federal immigration raids they say have, quote, “caused widespread fear,” unquote.

Violent attacks by federal agents at protests against immigrant raids have also been documented in Chicago and Portland. On Tuesday, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson [was asked] if he would call for more oversight of federal agents. He responded by complaining about a naked bike ride protest against ICE in Portland, Oregon, which Trump has called a war zone.

SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON: To demand oversight on federal law enforcement? I’ve not seen them cross the line yet, and that we have committees of jurisdiction who have that responsibility, but it’s not risen to that level. What I’ve seen is the abuse of law enforcement by radical leftist activists. You know, most recently, the most threatening thing I’ve seen yet was the naked bicyclers in Portland who were protesting ICE down there. I mean, it’s getting really ugly.

AMY GOODMAN: Experts are increasingly raising concerns the Trump administration’s attacks on antifa are ungrounded in fact and law, and violate free speech rights.

For more, we’re joined by someone who knows a lot about all of this. Mark Bray is a Rutgers University history professor, author of the 2017 book, Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. Last week, he was forced to leave his home in New Jersey and move to Spain with his family after receiving death threats following Trump’s push to categorize the anti-fascist movement as a domestic terrorist organization. Charlie Kirk’s group, Turning Point USA, had also circulated a petition labeling him “Dr. Antifa” and calling for him to be fired.

In a remarkable development, Bray was at first blocked from flying out of the United States last week. He wrote on Bluesky, “Someone canceled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second. We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation 'disappeared.'” They later took another flight, and professor Mark Bray joins us now from Spain.

Thanks so much for being with us. I’m sorry you’ve gone through all this, Professor Bray. If you can start off by talking about why you left the country and what happened, as we try to follow what was happening to you at the airport?

MARK BRAY: Right. So, I published this book, Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, in 2017. I’m actually researching different historical topics now. But after Trump’s executive order, a series of far-right trolls, online influencers started attacking me. I received a number of death threats. Someone published my home address on X. So I started to fear for the safety of my family staying in our home. More and more death threats came in, and I knew I needed to get away. Getting to another country, getting across the ocean would make us feel much more comfortable.

As you said, our first flight was mysteriously canceled at the last moment. My two small children were sobbing. We had to regroup. The next day, as you said —

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask: When you —

MARK BRAY: — I told — yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: I just want to ask: When say your flight was canceled, you went to — what was it? Newark Airport? Or Kennedy?

MARK BRAY: Yes, Newark.

AMY GOODMAN: And you got — and you got your boarding passes, and you went through security. So you were all set. And you got —

MARK BRAY: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — to the gate. And what did they tell you?

MARK BRAY: Right. Well, there was an error. They had us step to the side to talk to the United worker at the desk. There were a series of phone calls and mumbling. And they basically said, at the last moment, someone had canceled our reservation — not the whole flight, just for the four of us, for me, my wife and our two small children. And this is around the same time that Andy Ngo and Jack Posobiec, two of the far-right provocateurs who had been harassing me online, were meeting in the White House with President Trump to discuss antifa. I just can’t believe it’s a coincidence.

AMY GOODMAN: And yet, you were able to rebook the next day, and you made it through security, and you actually made it onto the flight?

MARK BRAY: Well, this time, I was stopped, searched and interrogated by federal agents for an hour. And at one point, they took me into a side room, and my two kids saw what looked like very bad men taking me in another room, and they started sobbing. So, it was quite an ordeal even the next day. But I made it out. And frankly, I’m very fearful about the potential of returning, but hopefully, by next year, things will improve.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, this is astounding. You weren’t trying to come into the United States. You were trying to leave. And you are an American citizen — not that that should have mattered.

MARK BRAY: And I’m not being charged with any crimes. If anything, I’m the victim of crimes. I wrote a book eight years ago. I consider myself politically an anti-fascist — I detest fascism — but I’m not a member of any antifa group. I’m a professor. I’m a dad. I’m just trying to live my life here. But, of course, because the far right is trying to create a bogeyman term in “antifa” to equate protests with terrorism, I got caught up in the middle of this.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you are the author, Professor Bray, of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. If you can explain what antifa is and what it means for President Trump to have issued this executive order calling it a terrorist — domestic terrorist organization? Is it even an organization? Talk about antifa now and through history.

MARK BRAY: Right. So, as you said, it’s a term that is short for “anti-fascist” or “anti-fascism.” It’s originally German from the era of opposition to Hitler. After World War II, anti-fascism continued throughout the world, and the specific European tradition of what they called antifa spread to other countries around the world. For example, in the U.S., you had Anti-Racist Action in the ’80s and ’90s, which was a network of decentralized groups across the continent organizing against the far right.

The term “antifa” really kind of made its appearance in the U.S. in the late 2000s, but it’s not an organization. It’s more of a politics or a movement. I liken it to feminism. Sometimes there are feminist groups, but feminism itself is not a group. There are antifa groups, but antifa itself is not a group. It’s just sort of like more of a verb. It’s a thing you do to organize against the far right in decentralized groups.

Trump, of course, doesn’t care about any of that. It’s a useful bogeyman term to demonize protest, demonize resistance, equate it with terrorism. And it’s really, you know, an obvious page out of the textbooks about fascist and authoritarian leaders. It’s so — it’s such an obvious imitation of, you know, the kind of the Red Scare talk about communism, but applied to today.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s very interesting you’ve moved to Spain. I mean, for years we’ve covered the Abraham Lincoln Brigadistas, Brigade, those Americans who went to Spain, where you are now, to fight against the fascist Franco. Many of them died. Many of them came back. And this was just before World War II. They were the most experienced, presumably, in fighting. But when a number of them signed up to fight in World War II, to fight Hitler, they were labeled “premature anti-fascists.” Can you talk about that? And they were not allowed to fight in World War II.

MARK BRAY: Right. So, there were a lot of activists and leftists in the U.S. and around the world who realized the threat of Hitler well before mainstream society. And a number of them journeyed over to Spain to fight in the international brigades. A significant number of them lost their lives. Some of them returned. They were blacklisted in the U.S.

And it is also worth pointing out that a number of Spanish Civil War veterans from other countries who ended up going to France after the Spanish Civil War played important roles in the French underground. And there was a tank battalion of Spanish anarchists that were among the first to liberate Paris in 1945. It’s a fascinating history. It’s the one that I — I teach a course on the Spanish Civil War.

So, it is strange to sort of have these things twisted around. And I ended up going to Spain because I’m a historian of Spain. But I’ve received a lot of solidarity and support from the social movements here. And actually, there’s a general strike today in Spain for Palestine, as well — just to throw into your news report.

AMY GOODMAN: We had you on last in 2017 to discuss your book, Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, when it first came out. In the introduction, you wrote you hoped your work would promote organizing against fascism and white supremacy. Can you elaborate?

MARK BRAY: Right. So, anti-fascism has a broad history. In the U.S., certainly, there’s the European-inspired antifa tradition. There’s also a really good book called The Black Antifascist Tradition that talks about the role of anti-fascism in Black liberation struggles, Black Panthers and so forth, which I suggest people check out. So, it takes many different forms.

What it has in common is actually this impulse towards unity and putting aside the differences that often divide the left, in the interest of promoting the common struggle against fascism, against white supremacy. And what we’re seeing today in the U.S. is increasingly fascist. MAGA, I believe — and I study fascism, I don’t say this lightly — is a fascist movement. And if we don’t organize, if we don’t take action in the streets, we’re going to end up somewhere really bad.

And for me personally, I felt like my situation was such that I had to get my family out of harm’s way. But this story about me is about me, but it’s not really about me. It’s about attacks on academic freedom, free speech, the right to protest. We’re in a really dangerous situation. And so, everyone, in their own way, needs to take action to try and organize against this.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it’s interesting. You remind me of Timothy Snyder, as well as Jason Stanley, the two Yale professors, who also left the country. They’ve gone to Canada to teach, both having written books against fascism and tyranny. I wanted to ask you about U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s comments, saying the administration will take the, quote, “same approach” to antifa as it has to drug cartels it’s bombed in the Caribbean. The latest bombing, I think, took place yesterday, killing a number of people. Even Republican politicians, behind closed doors, are saying, “Where is the evidence?” for who these people are, who have been killed by the U.S. bombs. Mark Bray, your response to Pam Bondi?

MARK BRAY: Right. Well, the paradox of fascism is that while it’s trying to gain power, it talks about the need for law and order, and to the degree that it gains power, it tramples all over the law. It does not care about the law or legality, due process, civil liberties. And so, this kind of call to murder people in this country, without, of course, even having gone through any due process — not that I’m in favor of capital punishment anyway, but that’s another story — it is this kind of example of calling for the strongman, in Trump, to use deadly force, without any evidence, against people accused of made-up crimes that are being equated with — you know, at times, some of the Trump administration people have compared it to — ISIS to antifa, right? So, to me, it’s really this kind of fascist attack on civil liberties.

And if they’re equating protesters with antifa, and they’re saying that they’re going to use the methods used for the people in the boats in the Caribbean on antifa, the implication is they are ready to kill American protesters. And, you know, we know the history of Kent State — right? — where students were gunned down in the '60s. It could happen again if we're not careful. So we really need to be very vigilant about this.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think progressive groups, groups that care about democracy, free speech, across the political spectrum, are pushing back enough around the attack on anti-fascists?

MARK BRAY: Well, you know, I think there’s always room for more action. And I think that my main takeaway for viewers today is that whether or not you consider yourself an anti-fascist, anyone who has any critiques of Trump is potentially in the crosshairs here, because there’s a concerted project from the top to equate protest with terrorism and to say anyone who’s not a Trump supporter is basically the equivalent of ISIS. You can’t make this stuff up. It’s absolutely ridiculous. They don’t care at all about grounding in fact or information. It’s something that plays to their base and justifies attempts to step beyond due process to use, apparently, lethal force against dissidents. This is terrifying. And so, everyone really needs to do what they can to sound the alarm.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, I wanted to ask you about the Rutgers students calling for the university to support you, wanting Rutgers President William Tate to issue a statement, a, quote, “Resolution in Support of Professor Mark Bray’s Academic Freedom and Free Expression.” This apparently is slated for consideration and vote Friday by the Rutgers University Senate. Your response, Professor Bray?

MARK BRAY: Well, I’ve received a tremendous amount of support from the Rutgers faculty, from the student body and from the administration. I support that call. I hope it passes. I would very much appreciate a statement of direct support from President Tate. But, you know, to his credit, he did issue a statement in support of the free speech and academic freedom of all Rutgers faculty, which did not mention me directly, but I think, implicitly, supported my right to do my scholarship in accord with my job. But, you know, again, the Rutgers community has been fantastic, and especially given attacks on higher education across the country, the way that some subjects have been, basically, straight-up banned in states like Florida, I’m happy to be a professor at Rutgers.

AMY GOODMAN: Mark Bray, Rutgers University history professor, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. He’s just moved his family to Spain after receiving death threats following President Trump’s push to categorize the anti-fascist movement as a domestic terrorist organization.