Jimmy Kimmel once joked that if misinformation fueled fires, the U.S. would be “one giant Olympic torch.” He cited a woman on TikTok who claimed that “Diddy,” who was incarcerated at the time, started the devastating Los Angeles fires in January of this year. The smug comedian presents himself as a truth-teller, but what he said on his show last week was about as credible as the Diddy story. Referencing media reports of arrests of antifa members in Portland, Kimmel said, “There is not an antifa. This is an entirely imaginary organization. This is no different than if they announced they rounded up a dozen Decepticons.” That's reminiscent of when FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover declared, “There is no organized crime in America.”
Kimmel’s bit got laughs because his audience believed what he said, but it's impossible to build a joke on a false premise. The comedian’s either lying, or he's parroting propagandistic talking points spread by Democrats. There's plenty of video footage of violent mobs dressed in black hoodies with their faces covered by bandanas and balaclavas. They’re not “imaginary.”
The Democrats, in an attempt to distance themselves from the mob brutality antifa often resorts to, has decided on the strategy of denying that antifa exists. If it doesn't exist, then they won't have to be put on the spot about its thuggery.
Joe Biden, in his 2020 debate with Donald Trump, told Trump that Trump’s “own FBI director said... antifa is an idea, not an organization.” He was referring to Christopher Wray, who said, playing with semantics during a congressional hearing, “It’s not a group or an organization. It’s a movement or an ideology.” Biden wasn’t the first Democrat to offer this incorrect opinion that antifa’s just an idea, but he was the most influential person to do so. It still lingers in the minds of Democrats, aided by the MSM’s persistence in downplaying antifa violence in an attempt to prove that MAGA violence is much worse than left-wing violence.
At that time, neither Biden, who'd been in politics his entire adult lifetime, nor the FBI director were aware of the Rose City Antifa, an “antifascist” group founded in 2007 in Portland, Oregon. There are photos of masked antifa members parading in the streets of Portland while holding up the black and red Rose City Antifa banner. “Ideas” don't get their own specially-designed logos alongside the nickname for a particular city. On its website, Rose City Antifa states, “Rose City Antifa opposes fascist organizing through direct action, education, and through solidarity with leftist spaces, activists, and organizations.” “Ideas” don't take direct action.
Rose City Antifa is a “structured organization” at the local level in cities around the country. Berkeley Antifa has its own website, as do Atlanta Antifascists, New York City Antifa, Philly Antifa, Emerald City Antifa (Seattle), Antifa Sacramento, and NC Antifa (North Carolina).
After Biden denied the existence of an existing group, the media reflexively defended him. CNN ran this headline: “Fact check: Quote attributed to Joe Biden about antifa is missing context.” This is meant to imply that Biden didn't really mean that antifa is just an idea, but the piece fails to convince. The only context CNN provided was that Biden was quoting Wray, not using his own words. CNN, which only fact checks Republicans, provided the “context,” but didn't even attempt to explain how the context changed the intent of Biden’s statement.
The reason the Democrats think they can get away with the strategy of denying antifa’s existence is because, unlike other political groups such as the Proud Boys, it doesn't have a centralized structure and a leadership hierarchy. There are no headquarters for meetings. Antifa relies heavily on digital and informal networks for coordination. They use social media platforms for recruitment, propaganda, event announcements, and doxxing enemies. Encrypted messaging apps like Signal and Telegram allow them to coordinate actions, sharing tactics, and real-time updates. Roving paramilitary-style teams use walkie-talkies for patrols. That's a pretty sophisticated communications structure for a non-entity.
The stated mission of the antifa movement is to fight fascism. The term comes from “Antifaschistische Aktion,” a German anti-fascist organization formed in 1932 to resist the rising Nazi Party in Germany through both political organizing and street-level activism and combat. Anti-fascism as a movement combines ideology with direct action, including protests, strikes, and street fighting against fascist paramilitaries. It's always been a loosely-organized, decentralized movement sometimes affiliated with socialist, communist, or anarchist ideologies. In the 1980s and 1990s, European punk and anarchist culture influenced American activist groups like the Anti-Racist Action (ARA), which adopted the anti-fascist philosophy and tactics. Immigrant communities, activist networks, and music subcultures helped spread the concept across cities.
When reporters asked Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, what he thought of antifa violence in Portland, he said it was a “myth that was being spread only in Washington DC,” even though there are videos of it all over the internet. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), once posted online a challenge to “name one member of Antifa.”
The reason that antifa members wear hoodies and masks is to preserve their anonymity, but some of them can be identified. In 2020, Michael Reinoehl, a self-identified antifa supporter, shot and killed Aaron "Jay" Danielson, who was participating in a Portland protest organized by Patriot Prayer, a group which antifa consider “fascist.” Nicole Armbruster, longtime antifa activist has multiple arrests—spanning from Washington, DC to Arizona, Virginia, Minnesota and Florida—on charges like assault and unlawful assembly occurring during clashes with far-right groups. In 2021, Alexander Akridge-Jacobs was sentenced to two years in prison in San Diego for assaulting Trump supporters during a “Patriot March. He was one of eight convicted in a group tied to antifa.
Early in September, independent journalist Nick Sortor was filming antifa soldiers in the streets of Portland. Antifa members don't like being filmed, and often react with violence. A small mob attacked him, punching him, breaking his camera, and knocking him down. When he went to the police, they arrested him.
Sortor said that it took them over an hour to decide what the charge was, which supports the belief many have that the Portland Police protect antifa. Sortor said he was held overnight in an empty jail. The bogus charges were quickly dismissed.
Conservative, independent journalist Any Ngo has released a video of an antifa mob beating him on a Portland street. Yet the media still coddles antifa. When Rutgers professor Mark Bray, pro-antifa author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, appeared on MSNBC, his interviewer, referencing criticism levelled at antifa, asked him silly questions like, “Why is it bad to be anti-fascist? Don't we all want to be opposed to fascism?”
Some other media quotes regarding antifa: Chuck Todd: ”I don't even know what antifa is. There's no group.” Whoopi Goldberg: “Things like antifa are things that are thought up.” David Axelrod: ”It isn't an organization. In many ways it's a mythology.”