Trump’s Meeting With Far-Right Agitators & Social Media Hacks.
On the 9th Oct, President Donald Trump hosted administration officials and conservative influencers for a roundtable, highlighting the efforts to crack down on left-wing groups, specifically the anti-fascist movement known as Antifa.
At the roundtable, Trump accused Antifa — short for ‘Anti-Fascist’ of laying siege to federal buildings and attacking ICE agents, National Guards, and other officials charged with enforcing federal law. Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, was also present at the meeting. She said Antifa’s agenda was to “destroy the American people.”
Recently, Rutgers University professor Mark Bray, who taught a course on anti-fascism, left the US, a day after he was blocked from boarding a flight to Spain, following the White House event. The historian, who has taught courses on anti-fascism at New Jersey University, was attempting to board a plane at Newark airport late on Wednesday when he was informed at the boarding gate that his and his family's reservations had been cancelled.
After Charlie Kirk’s assassination on September 10th, the rightwing influencer Jack Posobiec called Bray a “domestic terrorist professor” on X. The Rutgers chapter of Turning Point USA then circulated a petition that accused the professor of being an “outspoken, well-known antifa member” and called for his dismissal.
This attempt to demonise groups that are challenging the increasingly authoritarian actions against immigrants and other marginal groups is part of an incremental phase of clampdowns on freedom of assembly and protest. As tensions increase, the need to isolate specific groups as terrorist organisations is an apparent attempt to shut down the right to hold the government to account in a failing democracy.https://medium.com/media/4ea8fd00d0669798159f4dc544d9c55c/href
This official White House video shows the invited attendees, including Nick Sortor, Cam Higby, Jonathan Choe, Andy Ngo, Katie Daviscourt, James Klug, Savanah Hernandez, Nick Shirley, Brandi Kruse, and Julio Rojas.
Brandi Kruse, a Seattle-based conservative influencer, called Antifa a “paid anarchist group,” despite Reuters and ACLED describing it as a decentralised organisation that is not unified. She claimed she had Trump Derangement Syndrome, but she “recovered” from it.
“Some of us have been covering Antifa for 15 years and have never had anyone in a position of authority even acknowledge their existence,” she said, praising Trump.
Andy Ngo, a conservative influencer and street agitator, has often gone viral for his confrontations with Antifa members. He recalled an incident when members of the Antifa group allegedly assaulted him in 2019. “I was ambushed in a mob beating… The punches came from everywhere — on my head and my face, and I was bleeding out of my eyes and ears,” he said.
Trump also joined in, seemingly supporting Andy Ngo’s narrative. “Antifa thugs have repeatedly beaten Andy Ngo,” Trump said, adding, “Andy is a very serious person too. Been watching him for a long time.”
I had met Ngo in London last October when he avoided my questions and hid behind his phone with the flashlight on.
Nick Sortor, another conservative influencer, recently claimed he was arrested in Portland for allegedly trying to cover the law-and-order situation in the city amid Trump’s push to deploy the National Guard. “Frankly, the cities and police departments are COOPERATING with Antifa, such as Portland!” he claimed.
Trump, meanwhile, called for the prosecution of those involved in the arrest of the Sortor, including one individual Sortor claimed he saw was burning the US flag.
The connecting thread between these people is that they are directly connected to the Turning Point organisation, who believe someone from the Anfita groups murdered Charlie Kirk, but the evidence so far shows this connection to be false.
It would be a violation of the First Amendment to prosecute all those who subscribed to anti-fascist ideology. While it is illegal to provide “material support” to groups designated by the government as foreign terrorist organisations, there is no analogous law for domestic groups, but it is hoped that new laws could be passed to give police new powers to arrest anyone associated with a proscribed group.
Antifa, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem added, is “just as sophisticated as MS-13, as TDA (Tren de Aragua), as ISIS, as Hezbollah, as Hamas — as all of them — they are just as dangerous.”
Trump closed the event with one final ding at reporters in the room before departing, he said, to address ongoing efforts to secure a Middle East peace deal.
“I think you could stay a little longer, but, you know, the problem is, although you have some very honest journalists in here, you also have some mostly dishonest journalists, like MS-DNC and CNN — I think they’re very dishonest, unbelievably, like a waste of time even talking to them,” he said. “But I have to go now to try and solve some problems in the Middle East.”
British investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr has repeatedly warned that Donald Trump’s actions and policies pose a direct threat to the independent media and journalists. Her concerns connect Trump’s behaviour with the broader influence of big tech and disinformation, which she describes as the “broligarchy”.
Trump has assembled the social media influencers who most support him and never criticise him. Anything Trump sees as criticism is “fake news” and will be attacked or censored by limiting its reach. This puts Trump in a very weak position in the longer term. Good leaders don’t need to be sung lullabies that help them get a good night’s sleep.
