All during the first Trump administration and amid the backlash to the violent “protests” we periodically saw, including the 2020 Antifa/BLM-led George Floyd riots that destroyed entire (blue) city blocks, Democrats and their media allies tried multiple tactics to downplay what was actually happening.
In the view of The Usual Suspects at the time, Antifa were either 1) modern-day versions of the WWII Normandy beach heroes and saving America from the so-called alt-right, 2) a fringe group supposedly joining up with white supremacist agitators to disrupt peaceful protests in the aftermath of Floyd’s death, or 3) something that didn’t really exist.
For instance, here was then-House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) in June 2020, proclaiming on the House floor that Antifa was an “imaginary thing”:
When later confronted on his comments by an independent journalist, Nadler persisted, saying Antifa was a “myth”:
Here we are now in President Trump’s second term, and as he targets Antifa in part by pushing for National Guard presence in overrun Democrat-controlled cities like Portland, the “Antifa doesn’t exist” narrative is once again being revived:
The latest example is late-night “comedian” Jimmy Kimmel, who, on his sparsely-watched program, proclaimed, “There’s no Antifa. This is an entirely imaginary organization. There is no Antifa:”
Jimmy Kimmel poked fun at President Donald Trump’s antifa roundtable. During that event Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that the girlfriend of one of the founders of antifa recently had been arrested in Portland.
“You understand, there’s no antifa,” Kimmel said in his monologue. “This is an entirely imaginary organization. There’s not an antifa. This is no different than if they announced they rounded up a dozen Decepticons.”
[…]“I don’t know what’s scarier, the idea that he’s making this all up or that he actually might believe this stuff,” Kimmel said. “There are no stores in Portland? It’s as if he’s getting his intelligence briefings from reruns of ‘The Walking Dead.’”
Naturally, there has been pushback:
In this video, it’s pointed out that there are news stories of Antifa activity on the website of the network that employs Kimmel (ABC), and also that there are many photos, videos, and other websites that prove Antifa’s existence:
As one might expect, claims that Antifa doesn’t exist don’t sit well with journalists like Post Millennial senior editor Andy Ngo, who literally has the battle scars to prove they do indeed exist:
Something that perhaps is even more infuriating about media coverage is that even when they do acknowledge Antifa’s existence, it’s to portray them as the good guys, as Seattle NBC News affiliate KING5 did here:
Short for “anti-fascists,” antifa is not a single organization but an umbrella term for far-left militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations. In September, Trump signed an order designating the decentralized movement as a domestic terrorist organization, though whether he has the authority to do so remains unclear.
Just to show how pervasive the “Antifa doesn’t exist” gaslighting is, check out this compilation video:
It’s almost like there’s some media/Democrat collusion going on here. Who’da thought?
– Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via X. –
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