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Roger W. Bowen is a former college president. He served as director of the Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellows and taught courses about fascism at Colby College. He lives in Prospect Harbor.
I am antifa, I am “anti-fascist.” Most Americans, I suspect, share the sentiment if they know something about Adolf Hitler and Nazism. In America today the antifa movement is also anti-racist. How can anyone be against these two moral beliefs (excepting young Republicans unmasked by Politico recently)?
Antifa takes its name from a similarly named prewar German group ( antifaschistisch) dedicated to toppling its elected chancellor, Adolf Hitler, and his Nazi regime. Unsuccessful in battling Hitler’s police state, but nonetheless principled, Antifa has left a legacy for all people everywhere who prefer living in a nation where the rights and freedoms of a democratic constitutional republic are enumerated and guaranteed and kept safe by an impartial judiciary.
Why, then, has the Republican Party and its leader, Donald Trump, gotten away with tar-and- feathering the American movement against fascism? Is Trump himself a fascist? He doesn’t hesitate to deploy policing forces in Democratic cities where many black and brown people dwell. Is he creating a police state, a hallmark of fascism, to prove he is “strong”?
He demonizes the American antifa as the “radical left.” You may recall that Trump announced an executive order in September declaring antifa to be a “domestic terrorist organization.” It is difficult to believe a person who told 30,573 lies during his first term.
In several U.S. cities in recent years, antifa demonstrated peacefully while some of its members, likely the anarchists, sometimes used violent tactics. The Biden administration Justice Department called on experts in the field of political violence to undertake an exhaustive study about the sorts of groups involved. The 2024 study showed that violence by far-right extremist groups far outpaced the leftist sort. Trump’s DOJ removed the report from its website. Why?
On his first day in office this year, Trump used his authority as president to pardon those extreme right-wing characters who besieged the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. And then a couple days ago, Trump granted clemency to a convicted felon, former U.S. House member George Santos. Trump himself, of course, is a convicted felon, for 34 counts related to falsifying business records.
Antifa’s existence speaks to the troubled times under President Trump’s power grab. I believe America needs political groups and a media that will honestly claim that the “king” is wearing no clothes, that his intentions to startle, confound, and obscure are behavioral attributes of fascists. So it seems Trump and his minions lie incessantly knowing that his power base is all too often willing to accept Trump’s lies. Hitler and Benito Mussolini used similar propaganda techniques to keep their base ignorant of democratic truths. Trump too seemingly trump wants to keep his supporters in the dark and attract new supporters, hence he tramples on democratic norms of governing, on the First Amendment (which cannot abide the dark), on voting rights, on the major media, and colleges and universities.
Comparison with old style fascist leaders reveals that Trump is somewhat different in his approach to attracting supporters. Trump is less likely to look outside the United States for democratic allies, so he cozies up to Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un, and other leaders of autocratic or dictatorial regimes for succor or reassurances, and denigrates any leader of a democratic state who is not “strong.” Of the latter, many leaders have learned that in order to keep the awesome power of America friendly, they have to bend the knee to Trump or, if they are lucky, merely pump up Trump’s ego by offering praise.
Americans are paying a high price to keep democracy at home alive and well. As yet we live in a civil society where straight talk occurs both on camera and on the air, protesting against Trump’s power-hungry deeds. “No Kings” demonstrations earlier this month involving nearly 7 million people in every state in the union occurred in over 2,500 cities, including Bangor and Ellsworth. Antifa has a role to play in such events (nonviolent, please!).
I am antifa because Trumpian fascism in our great nation is the major enemy of an aging democracy that our founders originated and that for nearly 250 years our elected leaders have embraced.
