On Monday, just one day after the Republican Party staged a Horst Wessel-style memorial for Charlie Kirk in Glendale, Arizona, President Donald Trump signed an executive order designating “antifa” a “domestic terrorist organization.”

The order claims that antifa is a “militarist, anarchist enterprise” that uses “illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide.”

Antifa, as even FBI Director Christopher Wray was forced to admit in a September 2020 congressional hearing, is not an organization but a broad current of opposition to fascism. “Antifa is an ideology, not an organization,” said Wray, who also testified that the bureau had no data showing any lethal violence committed by the organization.

Since antifa as a formal organization does not exist, Trump’s executive order amounts to a blanket authorization to brand political dissent and opposition to his fascist regime as “terrorism.”

The order signed by Trump on Monday did not present any specific incidents or examples of alleged “antifa terror.” It claimed without evidence that antifa elements “coordinated efforts to obstruct enforcement of Federal laws through armed standoffs with law enforcement, organized riots, violent assaults on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement officers, and routine doxing [sic] of and other threats against political figures and activists.”

The executive order directs all agencies to “investigate, disrupt, and dismantle” the activities of anyone alleged to act on behalf of antifascism or to provide “material support.”

As of this writing, no evidence has been publicly presented that Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old alleged to have shot and killed Kirk on September 10, was part of any organized left-wing or anarchist group, including antifa.

In the last 30 years, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has documented only one killing committed by an alleged antifa supporter. On August 29, 2020, Michael Reinoehl shot and killed fascist Aaron “Jay” Danielson, a member of Patriot Prayer, during a protest in Portland, Oregon. On social media following the killing, Trump encouraged police forces to kill Reinoehl. “Do your job, and do it fast. Everybody knows who this thug is,” Trump said. Reinoehl was murdered by police and federal agents on September 3, 2020.

While there have been virtually no documented killings committed by alleged antifa members, there have been hundreds of murders and tens of thousands of assaults committed by self-declared fascists, antisemites, far-right militia elements and white supremacists over the last 30 years.

Some of these include:

• April 19, 1995: 168 people killed in the Oklahoma City bombing by far-right former US Army soldier Timothy McVeigh.
• June 17, 2015: nine black people were murdered in the Charleston church massacre by white supremacist Dylann Roof.

• August 12, 2017: Heather Heyer, an anti-racist activist, was killed by a neo-Nazi during the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. After Heyer’s death Trump praised the “fine people” on “both sides.”
• October 27, 2018: In the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history, 11 people were murdered at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, by Robert Bowers, who was motivated by the antisemitic and anti-immigrant “Great Replacement Theory,” also promoted by Kirk.
• March 15, 2019: 51 people killed and 89 injured in the Christchurch mosque massacre in New Zealand; August 3, 2019: 23 people killed and 22 injured in El Paso, Texas Walmart shooting. In both cases the shooters left behind manifestos expressing anti-immigrant rhetoric and the need to stop the “invasion” of non-European people.
• January 6, 2021: Several people died during and in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s failed coup, which was orchestrated from the White House but led on the ground by right-wing pro-Trump militia groups including the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
• March 14, 2022: An 18-year-old white supremacist murdered 10 black shoppers and workers at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. The killer posted an online manifesto based on the anti-semitic “Great Replacement Theory.”
• June 14, 2025: Posing as a police officer, Vance Boelter, a right-wing evangelical minister murdered two people including Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman (Democrat) and her husband Mark in their home. Boelter also shot and injured State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette at their residence. Inside his vehicle was a kill list of other Democratic Party officials and abortion-rights activists.

The largest purveyor of political violence both domestically and internationally is the US government, under the leadership of its two right-wing capitalist parties. From the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan to the “Global War on Terror” and the ongoing genocide in Gaza, both parties are dripping in blood.

The designation of antifa as a domestic terrorist group comes under conditions in which the Trump administration and the Republican Party at large, joined by the media, are waging a witch-hunt against workers, educators and students who have made critical comments about Kirk on social media.

Far from opposing this campaign, the Democrats have joined in the historical falsification. On September 14, the Senate voted unanimously for a resolution glorifying Kirk. More than ninety House Democrats joined Republicans to pass the companion resolution in the House.

As of this writing, neither Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders nor Democratic Socialists of America member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York) have released a statement in response to Trump’s order. Democratic Party votes sanctifying Kirk, alongside their silence on Trump’s order, give bipartisan legitimacy to the criminalization of dissent.

Hundreds of workers and students across the country have been investigated, suspended or fired for social media posts and public statements expressing opposition to Kirk’s politics and indignation over efforts to glorify the Turning Point USA founder. In response to right-wing outrage over accurate comments Jimmy Kimmel made last week during his Monday monologue late-night, ABC/Disney suspended the television host last Wednesday.

Less than a week after the suspension on Monday morning, no doubt in part due to global outrage over Disney’s capitulation to the Trump regime, the corporation announced Kimmel would be returning from his suspension Tuesday evening. It is unclear as of this writing if Kimmel has been forced to accept further restrictions on his political speech, which never strayed far from the official Democratic Party line, in order to secure his return to television.

Two major right-wing broadcasters, Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast, which own approximately 20 percent local television stations in the United States, announced on Tuesday they would not carry Jimmy Kimmel Live!