President Donald Trump's recently declared war on "antifa," writes Michael Gould-Wartofsky in The New Republic, is a dubious one that's bound to fail.
Labeled a domestic terror organization, the non-existent group that stands for "anti-fascist" has attracted the ire of Trump's circle, which has "vowed to deploy the full force of the federal government against it—whatever it, in fact, is," Gould-Wartofsky writes.
Trump even "proffered the death penalty" when asked by a reporter last week what would happen if someone identified themselves as antifa, he says.
"Speaking of anti-fascists, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem assured us the government would 'root them out and eliminate them,' while likening the movement to MS-13, ISIS, Hezbollah, and Hamas," Gould-Wartofsky says.
This crusade, he writes, is just another of Trump's follies that is doomed to fail.
"It is likely that this war on anti-fascism will backfire, leading to a heightened profile for the movement and a deepening identification with its ideas and values among the broader populace. In the end, the White House’s strategy, even by its own logic, will prove to be pure folly," he writes.
But it's no laughing matter, he says, and "not to diminish the very real threat to democracy, human rights, and civil liberties that this latest war on 'terrorism' inevitably poses."
That threat "In the name of the war on antifa," includes political profiling that "will expand into every corner of everyday life, including the nonprofit sector, the public university, and private industry, among others," Gould-Wartofsky says. "All of this will unfold against the backdrop of ongoing military incursions, at the behest of the president."
These are dangerous times, he writes, and it is "entirely possible" in the days ahead that resistance movements will be muzzled, but "despite the perils of the political moment, the war on antifa is ultimately doomed to fail."
"For one thing, in branding the movement Public Enemy #1, and in tarring it as a terrorist entity, this administration has massively raised the profile of anti-fascist politics," he writes.
Trump, he says, is also giving the whole anti-fascist movement more exposure and as a result, it may have far reach.
"The Trump administration, in spite of itself, may be helping the words, the images, the ideas, and the values associated with anti-fascism reach millions more Americans than they otherwise would have reached," he writes.
Trump's obsession with antifa will only serve to raise its profile amongst Americans as a counterpunch to his power grabs.
"Over time, the ideas and values on which anti-fascism is predicated will likely prove more popular than an increasingly authoritarian presidency," Gould-Wartofsky argues.
Polls have shown that "public sympathy with the anti-fascist movement has only grown in recent years," and by 2024, support for the movement —or, rather, "a movement of movements" — has more than doubled according to a Harvard CAPS Harris poll.
"Antifa has become a sort of stand-in for resistance writ large. This is surely one of the reasons the movement has become a favorite bogeyman for the far right," he writes.
Because of that, "the politics of anti-fascism in America" could very well come to be identified, in the near future, "with a majoritarian movement against authoritarianism," he says, in which "antifa will be increasingly associated not with fringe groups of street-fighting 'Supersoldiers' but with a growing base of ordinary Americans who stand opposed to this administration’s all-out assault on their hard-won rights and freedoms."
Gould-Wartofsky says that we've seen this playbook before, from the Popular Front movement against fascism in the 30s and 40s and the civil rights coalition of Jim Crow to the 99 percent movement against economic inequality.
It's the people, not the president, who are actually in control, he argues.
"Which direction this country takes—toward democracy or autocracy, racial justice or white supremacy, gender justice or theocracy—will ultimately be decided not only by the orders of the imperial presidency, but also by the actions (or inaction) of ordinary people in the face of its ever more authoritarian onslaught," he says.
And based on what's been going on, Gould-Wartofsky says, this latest war of Trump's may be his biggest loss yet.
"If current trends are any indication, however, the Trump administration’s war on anti-fascism could prove to be its most unpopular war yet—one it has already lost before it has even begun," he says.