Throwing the dart at the ever-spinning Trump Wheel of Outrage, the topic we come up with is his tweet yesterday about declaring “ANTIFA,” as he put it, a terrorist organization. Oh, where to start? Okay, a good starting point is that Antifa is not even an organization, but rather a movement. Trump's posturing action is like declaring “environmentalists” or “Hippies” a terrorist organization. Furthermore, the Antifa movement is against fascism (that's what "Antifa" stands for, anti-fascist) – what I would love is for a reporter to ask him or his crackerjack press secretary if this means he is declaring anyone who is against fascists to be terrorists? If so, well…I guess that wouldn't be so surprising and be as Trump a thing as there could be. And none of this even takes into consideration that the United States can't even do what Trump said he is doing -- it can only declare a foreign group a terrorist organization, not domestic. I liked the response to this from New York Times writer Charlie Savage who quoted Trump’s tweet and replied – “Waste no brain cells on this. Antifa is a vaguely defined movement of people who like direct-action protest tactics, not an actual organization. Even if it were a real group, the law that lets the government deem entities as terrorists only applies to foreign orgs." It should be noted, as well, that we have absolutely no idea even if there are Antifa supporters involved with any of the violence in the protesting. All that we have is the Trump administration insistence this is. I would suggest that their credibility on such things, if not all this, ceased to exist long ago. Especially since they were silent when right-wing protesters brought rifles into state houses, and administration officials were silent at best, and supportive at worst. What’s become fascinating watching the news these past few days amid Trump's latest meltdown of fascist tweets promoting his own brand of violence is that for a short while there was outrage at people looting and setting fires. But the bizarre, at times thuggery response from some of the police has seemed to turn the outrage towards them. This is a great ad from a group called MeidasTouch. It's the kind that only uses audio and video of Trump speaking, but it's it’s edited with video running underneath that's done with deep effectiveness..
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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