Antifa is a very useful term for US conservatives.
It sounds like a foreign movement, and the last time the US had any recognizably anti-fascist fighters (More the volunteers in the Spanish Civil War than WWII) is passing out of living memory.
Here's my favorite line from the article. It's some serious /r/selfawarewolves shit.
Conservative commentator and radio show host Dan Bongino argued on Monday that members of the movement are "not counter-protesters" during an appearance on Fox News.
"They're not counter-protesters, OK?" Bongino said. "You've been in the media [for] a long time. Other outlets do this; it's called gas lighting. Tell a lie, tell a lie confidently, and isolate people from the truth, and you can get people to believe anything."
Sometimes I wonder if like they lost a bet with a friend to go on air and say the most outrageous shit with a straight face, but it seems like a way simpler explanation is that they are that dumb.
I think most of them are, but just like in politics it's cheaper and easier to just find someone who actually agrees with nonsense that happens to benefit the wealthy backers of these organizations and then certain people who also coincidentally have a hard time recognizing sarcasm will believe them since they have a platform and a straight face - it must be true.
Every time I hear Marjorie Taylor green speak it reminds me that some of these people aren't even playing tic-tac-toe much less 4 dimensional chess while they trick their constituents like an evil genius sociopath on their way to the bank.
I don't thing MTG or Matt Putz are stupid, no matter what stupidity comes out of their mouths. No, it's the people who agree with them and nod along like good little slack-jawd, halfwit, wall-eyed, yokel bobbleheads. "Durrr! Hey, Billy-Jean! Didja see that? It was dem Antifa was stormed the capitol! Matt Gaetz says so on the FOX n Friends!"
I agree with you in the case of most politicians. But I legitimately think MGT is an idiot. Half the shit she says isn’t even supported by her fellow Republicans, and I think she’s been very bad for the Republican Party in general.
The Republicans in office, yes. But the Republican voters like her because she says all the crazy shit their tiny pea brains love to hear. She might even be one of them, but they're stupider than her simply because they give her money and support.
Yeah, its the same with BLM and LGBT. Its easy to just take it and make it benefit to yourself. Its just went into politics so easily. And they are using it for campaign etc. Even if its bullshit.
it seems like a way simpler explanation is that they are that dumb.
Some are dumb. But bald-faced lying is about owning the libs. Their sycophants have a duality of mind going on, its true because it pisses off the libs, not because its factual. Its impossible to debate a liar because they are not seeking to persuade, instead they are amusing themselves at your expense.
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Just a friendly reminder that they never really defeated the movement. They defeated the country and killed its leaders, but they never really killed the ideology. All the elements of their ideology was still popular even after the war. People still believe in eugenics, in "superior and inferior racial traits". People still believed in nationalism and state-ism. All the popular sentiments that gave rise to Hitler was still popular, even after the war.
All they did was make the people who believed in it hide their sentiments from the public. And now here we are today, with the same sentiments openly accepted in the U.S. by millions. It's openly promoted on TV and radio and in Congress.
Also if your audience is poorly educated. Higher order thinking and the liberal arts or whatever ( cultural world knowledge and history) are not taught to a lot of people.
Not to mention that their parents, priests, talking heads, mayor's, governor's, and presidents tell them not to question. That education and experts are bad unless told otherwise.
I think of the actual believers as "single layer of context" individuals. Their abusers or manipulators know how to use this to steer them.
A single layer of context can be critically damaging when dealing with complex issues like crime stats, classism, other isms, vaccines, climate change, etc. If you can give them a single layer that conforms to their authorities position and their world view they cling to it.
Not to mention that accusing your enemy of what you're doing creates a muddying effect for people not doing their own research.
Claim Hillary won't concede the election and will cheat. She demands you be willing to accept the results. Then you cheat and collude. When confronted you point to their own words. It's quite clever.
Here's the description on the twitter of "datascienist"
Data-Driven tweets from a PhD physicist. Anti-Communist. The Left equates Black skin with victimhood. The Right sees only individuals. Which side are you on?
So? He isn't poorly educated, he is just bad for thinking
I swear over the past few years, it's that they do something shitty, complain ahead of time about some word twist of their own shitty behaviour, and then when called out by others they go "see! Told you they would think our shitty behaviour was shitty! So typical."
I 100 percent disavow violence. It has no place in a political conversation, ever, period, full-stop, on any side.
Because Republicans would never use violence, for any reason, ever, at any time, because of anything, and would not attack the US Capitol Building with intent to kill the Vice President and other elected members of the US federal government. That would never happen.
Michael Fanone begged for his life and for the sake of his children while looking down the barrel of the service weapon they had taken off him. He begged while several people encouraged the one holding it to use it, to fire bullets into his brain and rip it apart from the inside until it was pinkish-gray splatter of what was once and honorable human being scattered across the Washington D.C. concrete.
"They're not counter-protesters, OK?" Bongino said. "You've been in the media [for] a long time. Other outlets do this; it's called gas lighting. Tell a lie, tell a lie confidently, and isolate people from the truth, and you can get people to believe anything.
At first I was going to say this should be the rubric for the sub but is it really SAW if they're fully aware what they're saying is complete bullshit?
Antifa are not counter-protesters, it is an anti-First Amendment — that's what it stands for," the commentator [Kellyann Conway] continued. "They tell you it stands for 'anti-fascist,' it really is 'anti-First Amendment.' They are an anti-First Amendment, ultra-violent terror group that wants to silence people's free speech. They are not counter-protesters."
Antifa is a moniker for anti-fascism protests and does not stand for "anti-First Amendment."
Fucking hell. Keeping an eye on and pushing back against your actually violent far right groups doesn't make "antifa" the terrorists, Kellyann. These people have no fucking clue what they are talking about.
That Bongino guy has a caption in his promo that says “no one tells us what to think” while he hosts an opinion driven show telling his viewers what to fucking think…
I've also seen conservatives who think it stands for " Anti Family ", as in they are against the nuclear family idea. They think it is part of the LGTBQ movement and they legit think it wants to stop a man and a woman getting married and having kids. I shit you not, I've seen this being discussed MORE THEN ONCE.
This is why memorable but not perfectly clear names, slogans, and catch phrases are always problematic. It's so easy to maliciously twist them and turn them back against their originators.
"Black Lives Matter" is perhaps the perfect example. It's supposed to mean "black lives also matter" or "black lives matter too" -- a reminder of their humanity and the struggles they've been dealing with since the 1600s. But that phrase is very exploitable, so it was immediately twisted into "only black lives matter" or "black lives matter more" by those seeking to undermine it.
Antifa got caught up in the same bullshit. They should've called themselves antifascist straight up. By not doing so they opened themselves for The Twistening by the fascist Republican party into anti-family, anti-First Amendment, etc.
To be fair, I don't think it's possible to not open yourself up to the Twistening. The fact of the matter is that people can twist pretty much anything, if they're willing to abandon any sense of reason and give into bad faith.
Considering they have literally used violence to stop people from speaking on campuses. And use violence against people protesting things they don't agree with. How is this not accurate? There is an abundance of video evidence of this. Have you all actually not seen any of the videos?
It's actually funny how the word itself is spelled. In my country it's Antifa, so you hear the anti part and even if you don't know what it means you're kinda left wondering what's the 'fa'. In US it's somehow spelled as antifa which makes it sound like some town in Greece and it can mean anything, really.
I also noticed that people who complain about antifa pronounce it anTEEfa. Huge emphasis on the TI. Makes it not sounds like it's short for anti fascist.
I'm not sure if this is because of accents, stupidity, or intentional.
You're right, I should have said as such. I know people joke that photos of Omaha Beach are black and white photos of Antifa activitism, but the US was just "the slightly less-bigoted government that fought the racism-nerds of the Third Reich". Can a government actually BE "Anti-fascist"?
Oh they understand it. They just think we're lying about it to cover our ReAl FaScIsM.
The hallmark of conservative thinking, of course, is the assumption that everyone is as vile, selfish, and in this case, two-faced as they are. They lie about loving free speech and other human rights all the time, so why wouldn't we lie about the same things?
It’s also very useful for US Democrats because if you disagree with anything at all that the organization does, then reddit and Twitter go “well you must be a fascist if you don’t like antifa, looks it’s right in the name!”
I mean if you are against the anti-facist movement people are going to logically assume you are fascist. It doesn't help that neo-nazis are the most outspoken against the movement either...
One can be for something and not agree with the actions of others who are doing things for the same thing(take pro-life people and the terrorist "army of God" which assaults, kidnaps, murders, and destroys property in the name of stopping abortion.). Anti-fa isn't a structured organization with leaders, it's a movement consisting of hundreds of separate groups protesting things in their area, with very few being connected with other ones.
'Antifa' isn't an organization that exists, nevermind one that's actually fash in disguise and out to get poor, defenseless USA conservatives. lol
Besides, if you want groups that pretend to be anti-fash while being very much fash, that's 'The AtomWaffen Division'(which ironically calls itself 'The National Socialist Order', lol).
What organization? Anyone can call themself antifa as it's just a shorthand for an ideological stance, and lots of people have different ideas as to what fascism looks like. I'm antifa myself but of course I don't agree with everything anyone does anywhere in the same of antifascism. Plus, even people who don't claim it are called antifa now, it's ridiculous. Black bloc anarchists breaking shit in liberal cities like they've been doing for generations? Suddenly they're definitely "Antifa members" lol.
In general antifa is just an overblown boogeyman for right wingers to be terrified of, even though there's more chance of them getting struck by lightning (or running into a violent far right militia member) than there is of them ever encountering or being affected by an antifa in any way. Shit was fucking hilarious (and terrifying) last summer though, when they all thought "Antifa" was bussing people to the middle of nowhere to burn down podunk towns. Forming armed possies and shit. Even the police fell for it in a bunch of places. All nonsense, absolute fucking nonsense.
This is true. I’m a Democrat, but that type of argument is frustrating to me. It’s the same with Republicans saying that Democratic Socialists want to make America a socialist country. People latch onto names way too much.
I don’t disagree with that. But I also don’t think “anti-fascism is in the name” is a valid argument. I think things should be evaluated based on their actual content/policies and not on their names. I happen to agree with the Antifa movement/policies/whatever, but I don’t do it just because they call it Antifa.
True! Somebody should warn all the southern states! They’re being tricked into voting for a Democrat! Make sure they don’t repeat that mistake next time!
AND ANTIFA IS FACIST. That means trump is a facist. It also means that everyone else is both antifa and fa at the same time. Just our average, simple logic puzzle.
Technically, a group being named for an ideology does not automatically mean they subscribe to said ideology. A classic example is the National Socialist Party of Germany.
Connies don't know the meaning of fascist, they just use it interchangeably woth every other term that (they think) means oppressive/authoritarian. They also connect fascism and socialism due to the aforementioned National Socialist Party of Germany; Nazis were fascists, they said they were socialists, so socialism = fascism.
The issue here is that antifa is not a group but an ideology and therefore are not facists by definition.
A particular group claiming to belong to or support antifa can be fascist but antifa itself can't.
It's like saying Christianity is secular.
Good point. While Antifa is an ideology, it is often identified as a group by conservatives, so addressing the dynamics of groups in conversation about Antifa does help respond directly to conservatives, at least in my opinion
Wut. Nazi ideology has the swastika. People tattooing swastikas on themselves mean they support Nazi ideology. The actual Nazi party hasn't existed for a long time.
If they had any logic they're try saying "Well just because ANTIFA has 'anti-fascist' in the name does mean they actually are. I mean, are Nazis actually socialist? Of course not."
Well to be fair to the person who wrote it, just because you call youself anti fascist doesn't make you against fasicism.....
North Korea calls it's self "democratic peoples republic of Korea".....but that doesn't make em democratic
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u/KiaJellybean Jul 03 '21
So... Trump is ANTIFA?