Far-left Antifa activists waiting to see Trump actions. How will anti-fascists respond?
In Philadelphia, anti-fascists are preparing for the day the leader of the local Proud Boys chapter gets out of prison, jailed for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection. Local Antifa are sure he will receive a presidential pardon, only to return to the City of Brotherly Love to relaunch his career of spreading hate and picking fights.
In Miami, self-professed members of Antifa, a political movement of far-left militants who oppose neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations and other events, say they are bracing for a coming immigration crackdown. They’re hoping President-elect Donald Trump’s harshest campaign promises don’t come to fruition. But they’re ready in case they see civil rights being violated and decide they have to act.
In Ohio, a hardened Antifa coalition also waits to see what happens. Anti-fascist organizers and volunteers say they’re gearing up in case America witnesses another “George Floyd moment” that galvanizes the far left and its black-clad militant wing into protests and action.
And it’s the same in California, where disparate groups of anti-fascists across the state are waiting and watching to see how a second Trump term pans out, and whether they need to don their signature all-black clothing and hit the streets.
“‘If sh-- gets bad enough’ − that’s the operating phrase right there − there’s always going to be a response,” said Daryle Lamont Jenkins, a self-proclaimed anti-fascist and executive director of the One People's Project. “As we say in the Black community: ‘Don't start nothing, won't be nothing.’”
Antifa is always a wild card.
Very few experts on domestic extremism truly understand the movement, which adherents call a political philosophy but opponents decry as everything from a thuggish menace to an evil army bent on destroying America.
During Trump’s first term, Antifa rose to new prominence fighting street brawls with far-right extremist groups emboldened by Trump’s election and rhetoric. Even after Trump lost in 2020, Antifa continued its growth, buttressing the Black Lives Matter movement and resorting to civil disobedience and property damage to protest law enforcement’s treatment of people of color.
Now, as Trump enters a second term, anti-fascist activists find themselves facing down a new paradigm, in which they say a leader they already opposed has shifted ever-further toward the far right.
To understand what anti-fascists have planned for the coming months and years under Trump, Paste BN interviewed more than a dozen self-proclaimed Antifa activists from across the country, in addition to experts and academics who study the movement.
What emerged was a picture of active resistance, simmering anger and readiness for battle, if and when the time comes. Anti-fascists universally despise Trump as a full-blown fascist, worrying he will enact draconian and authoritarian policies that trample on the rule of law and civil rights. If he does, they say, they’re ready to take action − whether with civil disobedience, protests, even violence.
Anti-fascists across America worry the Trump administration will almost immediately begin to implement policies targeting three groups: immigrants, the transgender community and women.
Trump communications director Steven Cheung cast scorn on antifascist activists who are criticizing the president-elect.
"These disturbed individuals clearly suffer from a debilitating and serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted their brains to the core, forcing them to live in an alternate reality devoid of truth or common sense," Cheung said. "President Trump won a historic election with a massive mandate because the American people clearly support his America First policies that will unite the country after the four years of disastrous and failed leadership from Democrats."
Anti-fascists and experts on extremism also foresee a new rise in America’s far-right extremist groups under Trump.
Buoyed by promised pardons of their brethren for their Jan. 6 crimes and by Trump’s embrace of popular extremist far-right figures, those groups will likely see a resurgence after January, experts said. Anti-fascists say if that happens they will protect their neighborhoods from their sworn enemies, fighting on the streets again if necessary.
What distinguishes the extreme far left from the far right, however, is an abhorrence for meaningless violence, death and terrorism − at least against people, anti-fascists and experts on the movement told Paste BN.
The Antifa activists who spoke with Paste BN all said they decry acts of terror like mass shootings or targeted attacks like the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last month. Acts of mass violence are the province of neo-Nazis, misogynists, incels and other far-right extremists, the activists said − not Antifa.
But several anti-fascists did not rule out acts of future violence by disenfranchised, politically disgruntled self-proclaimed Antifa acting as “lone wolves.”
“If Trump really aspires to the kind of authoritarianism that many people fear he would like to, historically, dictatorship and authoritarianism can push people into violent action,” said Mark Bray, a lecturer in history at Rutgers University and author of "Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook.” “That has happened in the past, and we are potentially moving into uncharted waters.”
Javed Ali, senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council in 2017 and 2018 during the first Trump administration, said he's also concerned about a possible rise in terrorism and violence from disgruntled actors on the far left. Antifa activists may claim to be nonviolent, but in times of political stress the movement has not shied away from violence, he said.
"I think we we're going to have to wait and see how it plays out − if these immigration enforcement operations truly are terrible and start to look like the Japanese internment camps of the 1940s," Ali said. "Will that provide the spark to someone who then springs into action? Maybe."
Antifa promises (mostly) peaceful resistance
Anti-fascists in America see themselves, and their allies, as under attack from Trump and his Make America Great Again movement.
From the looming specter of Project 2025 − a policy blueprint drafted in part by white supremacists that Antifa believe threatens vulnerable communities across the country − to Trump’s open embrace of conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement, anti-fascists said they’re desperately worried about where the country is headed.
But that doesn’t mean Antifa is about to storm the streets.
A recent article on the anti-fascist website It’s Going Down sums up what anti-fascists told Paste BN in interviews: “Don’t Panic, Organize: Meeting the Moment of Trump’s Second Term,” reads like a blueprint for Antifa organizing in the first months of the new Trump term.
“Bring the energy from the streets back home by getting organized and building power in everyday institutions of social life,” it reads. “This might mean organizing a union at work, a tenant union at your apartment complex, an assembly in your neighborhood, or a student organization at school.”
Though many people’s stereotype of Antifa is defined by violent black-clad protesters breaking windows and setting fire to police cruisers, the reality of the anti-fascist movement is far more mundane, said Stanislav Vysotsky, a professor of criminology and author of the book "American Antifa."
Antifa activists typically spend most of their time organizing, raising money and researching and exposing white supremacists and other far-right actors in their local area, Vysotsky said.
“The thing I'm hearing primarily from anarchist and anti-fascist voices is about working with communities, providing communities with support, building mutual-aid networks that they've been establishing for a while now, trying to use those as a base to weather the coming storm,” he said.
This sort of organizing and resistance goes only so far, however.
Anti-fascists told Paste BN they are willing to stay in their corner, helping the people around them, unless and until their friends and communities start to feel the federal government is directly targeting them.
Antifa will stand down − until it’s time to rise up
Building resistant communities and networks to support them is one aspect of anti-fascism. But another key element of the movement is not ignoring attacks on those communities.
What action Antifa takes when those policies go into place isn’t clear. Most of the Antifa activists interviewed for this story talked in terms of “lines being crossed” or gauntlets being thrown that could lead to protests and more. But those lines, and those gauntlets, differ depending on whom is asked.
History offers some guidance, however.
Anti-fascist activism is typically reactive, said Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. Rather than organizing large-scale protests against Trump − something Pitcavage said he doubts Antifa has the numbers to do − anti-fascists will likely hunker down unless they are provoked into action, he said.
"It's certainly possible that you can have pro-Trump groups of various kinds, holding events, holding public actions at colleges or other places, that Antifa would want to respond to and react and show up for," Pitcavage said. "If there are aggressive pro-Trump groups militarily holding parades or rallies or things like that, you could see Antifa easily responding to that."
The Black Lives Matter protests, launched after the murder of George Floyd, marked a rising up of the country’s far left that was unparalleled in modern times, Vysotsky and others said. Though the vast majority of those protesters weren’t active anti-fascists, the crowds were strengthened by Antifa organizers, cells and foot soldiers, he said.
An incident like Floyd’s murder could galvanize the far left into action again, Vysotsky said, but the ignition could also come from elsewhere.
“It's hard to predict − it's hard to be aware of what the outrage might be, in terms of what might spark mass demonstrations around the country,” Vysotsky said. “Probably my best prediction would be a coordinated attempt at mass deportation − because that's going to mobilize people, both to protest and to some form of direct-action attempts to try to stop the deportations.”
Anti-fascists agreed.
A highly visible campaign of deportations − particularly one that makes proactive incursions into communities that have given refuge to migrants lacking permanent legal status − could spark mass protests and more, Jenkins and other Antifa activists told Paste BN.
“There is only so much that people will take − they're not going to have their lives uprooted in the name of politics,” Jenkins said. “It’s the kids in cages talk − we all know that phrase ‘Putting kids in cages,’ but when it’s your kid they’re coming for and they’re coming into your neighborhood, that’s when things change.”
Antifa worries about investigation, prosecution
Trump has said on numerous occasions that he believes Antifa is a terrorist organization and should be designated as such.
Legally, that’s tricky.
The United States doesn’t have a domestic terrorism law under which Antifa could be designated. But anti-fascists are aware of the president-elect’s animosity toward them, and they are concerned Trump will try to use the full power of federal law enforcement agencies against them.
“Laws will have to be adhered to, and if they're not adhered to, then we're just going to have to figure out what to do after that,” Jenkins said. “Because if they aren't adhered to, then that means we have just entered into another chapter in this country's life − in this country's history.”
Antifa has also come under significant fire from state prosecutors in recent years. A groundbreaking case in San Diego last year saw two defendants found guilty of charges of conspiracy to riot stemming from their activities as part of an anti-fascist coalition that squared off against Trump supporters at a 2021 rally.
Anti-fascists across the country told Paste BN they’re concerned federal and state prosecutors will target the movement. That means they have to be careful about organizing, engaging in what Antifa calls “OpSec,” or operations security.
But experts in domestic terrorism, and anti-fascists themselves, are less worried about the threat from organized Antifa than they are about loose cannons or “lone wolves” within their own ranks.
Could Antifa launch terror attacks?
Since 1990, the biggest threat to American lives from domestic terrorism has come from the far right, according to a study last year by the National Institutes of Justice.
White supremacists and neo-Nazis have killed dozens of people in mass shootings, bombings and assassinations. But as the national political power structure shifts sharply to the right, experts in terrorism have begun to worry about a new threat: disgruntled anti-fascists who decide to take matters into their own hands.
“I do think there is a strong possibility of a resurgence,“ said Ali, the former Trump administration counterterrorism official. “It wouldn't surprise me that there are people that are going to be angry at Trump, that are going to be angry at the policies, and beyond being angry − a smaller set may go out actually trying to engage in violent action.”
Anti-fascists stressed that random, or even targeted, acts of violence − especially mass violence − simply aren’t in the tactics used by their movement. Mass shootings and bombings are the province of the far right, several Antifa activists told Paste BN, and they don’t foresee leftist terrorists committing such acts.
“The violence from the radical left has been, you know, punches to the face for the most part,” Bray said. “So I don't really see it happening.”