Last month, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order that sent shockwaves through the American political landscape: he formally designated "antifa" a domestic terrorist organization. This unprecedented move, which came in September 2025, was quickly followed by a high-profile "Antifa roundtable" at the White House. There, Trump gathered a cadre of right-wing media influencers—Andy Ngo, Jack Posobiec, Nick Sortor, and Brandi Kruse among them—to strategize in front of Fox News cameras on how to bring the full force of federal power down on antifa’s supposed network of agitators.
At the roundtable, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem thanked Trump for “focusing on Antifa and the terrorists that they are,” and warned, “These individuals do not just want to threaten our law enforcement officers, threaten our journalists and the citizens of this country, they want to kill them.” Kash Patel, a prominent Trump ally, doubled down, vowing “to bring down this network of organized criminal thugs, gangbangers and, yes, domestic terrorists because that’s what they are.” The rhetoric only escalated from there, with Trump’s cabinet and supporters amplifying the sense of imminent danger. Noem even compared antifa to international terrorist groups, saying, “This network of Antifa is just as sophisticated as MS-13, as TDA, as ISIS, as Hezbollah, as Hamas, as all of them. They are just as dangerous. They have an agenda to destroy us just like the other terrorists.”
But as the drama unfolded in Washington, a fierce debate was reignited nationwide: is antifa an organized threat, or a political construct? According to experts at PBS, the Associated Press, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and the Anti-Defamation League, antifa is not an organization at all. These analysts have repeatedly confirmed that antifa is a decentralized ideology rooted in anti-fascist principles—there are no headquarters, no membership lists, no dues, no formal leaders. As reported in Windy City Times, “There is no organization called ‘antifa.’ There are no headquarters, membership rosters, dues, press releases or rules. There is no leader, unless you count Aunt Tifa, who, in fairness to Trump, could be intimidating in her ‘Passion for knitting, cats, and taking down the patriarchy.’”
Despite this, the Trump administration has leaned heavily into the narrative that antifa is a clear and present danger. The administration’s supporters argue that the threat is very real—and now, they say, the evidence is mounting. On October 16, 2025, the Department of Justice unsealed indictments charging two alleged antifa members, Cameron Arnold and Zachary Evetts, with providing material support to terrorists, attempted murder of a police officer, and discharging a firearm in furtherance of a violent crime. The charges stem from a July 4 attack at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, where an antifa cell was reportedly “heavily armed with over 50 firearms,” used encrypted messaging, and had at least 11 operatives dressed in “black bloc.” During the attack, an Alvarado police officer was shot in the neck.
This marked the first time terrorism charges were filed against individuals associated with antifa, a development that was widely covered in the press. As reported by The Daily Signal, “Many news stories focused on the indictment’s status as the first-ever terrorism charges filed against individuals associated with Antifa. Not right-wing gun nuts.” Jonathan Choe, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute who has documented violent far-left activism, welcomed the move, saying, “As far as I’m concerned, this is a good, positive first step. So kudos to [FBI Director] Kash Patel.”
Choe dismissed the notion that antifa is not organized, arguing that experts who insist otherwise “haven’t been in the front lines or ‘on the receiving end of a punch from Antifa militants,’ as he has.” The indictment, Choe and others noted, specifically named two alleged members, countering claims like those of Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., who recently challenged critics to name one member of antifa as a way of downplaying its organizational structure.
The debate over antifa’s nature has become a political flashpoint. On one side, critics of Trump—including many in mainstream media and the liberal Brennan Center for Justice—argue that the administration’s campaign against antifa is a thinly veiled attempt to criminalize political opposition. The Brennan Center’s headline made their position clear: “Trump’s Orders Targeting Anti-Fascism Aim to Criminalize Opposition.” According to Windy City Times, “It should be clear by now that ‘antifa,’ to Trump, means anyone who opposes him politically.” The article goes further, recalling White House adviser Stephen Miller’s statement on Fox News that the Democratic Party is “an entity devoted exclusively to the defense of hardened criminals, gang-bangers, and illegal, alien killers and terrorists. The Democrat Party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization.”
Meanwhile, supporters of Trump’s crackdown point to a string of violent incidents they say are linked to far-left activism: the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September 2025, two failed assassination attempts on Trump in 2024, and the 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a New York City sidewalk. They also cite an “unprecedented explosion of attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents since Trump retook office.” For these advocates, the new indictments are overdue, and federal authorities should have acted years ago.
Yet the central question persists: what, exactly, is antifa? Is it an elusive, shadowy network bent on chaos, or a loosely affiliated movement of activists united by opposition to fascism? Steven McGuire of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni put it this way: “the anti-fascist mantle ‘implies the other side is fascist.’ And who wants to side with fascists?” It’s a rhetorical device as much as a political label.
History offers some perspective. As Windy City Times pointed out, every soldier who fought for the Allies in World War II, and every woman who worked in the munitions factories, was fighting to defeat fascism—in a sense, they were all ‘antifa.’ But today, the term has been weaponized in America’s culture wars, with each side accusing the other of dangerous extremism.
For now, the reality is that the Trump administration’s campaign against antifa has moved from rhetoric to legal action. With the first-ever terrorism charges filed against alleged antifa operatives, the debate over what antifa is—and what it represents—has become more urgent than ever. Whether the public sees these developments as a necessary defense against domestic terrorism or as an overreach targeting political dissent may well shape the nation’s political climate heading into the next election year.
In this charged atmosphere, one thing is certain: the battle over the meaning and menace of antifa is far from over.
