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The assassination of Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10 upended American politics. The public killing of the country’s most prominent young conservative activist was a game-changing event for the country, the effects of which will reverberate for years.
President Donald Trump and his administration have promised to confront the left-wing ideology and infrastructure that motivated Kirk’s suspected killer, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson. Contrary to liberal deflection, it’s evident that Robinson rejected the religious conservatism of his upbringing, embracing radical leftism. His beliefs, nurtured online, appear to be a witch’s brew of neocommunism, transgender activism (including fringe fetishes), and gun rights, which led Robinson to allegedly kill Kirk, whom he hated for his critiques of the transgender movement.
Much of this ideology falls under the rubric of antifa (for “anti-fascism”), a loose anticapitalist movement possessing cells across the West that agitates for “Woke Bolshevism,” while its increasing amalgamation with extremist LGBT activists can be termed “Trantifa.” The White House has already promised to ban antifa as a terrorist organization, with the president castigating it as a “terrorist group.”
Executing a ban presents legal challenges. Although the government has banned certain foreign terrorist organizations since 1997, including al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah, the challenge is that, as the name implies, foreign terrorist organizations must be foreign. At present, there exists no mechanism to ban domestic groups that embrace violence to further their political aims.
But what if antifa is a foreign terrorist organization? There’s solid evidence for that assertion. Born in 1930s Germany, on the orders of Josef Stalin, under the leadership of the German Communist Party, antifa, in its DNA, is a violent revolutionary organization. With good reason, Berlin today deems antifa an extremist threat to democracy. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency recently noted a sharp rise in antifa-related violence, observing that “the potential threat posed by violent left-wing extremism remains high.”
American liberals, including top Democrats, habitually pretend that antifa is a myth, cooked up by overheated Republican imaginations: Berlin, where antifa was born, isn’t so easily fooled. There are demonstrable connections between antifa cells in the United States and in many Western countries. Democrats have pooh-poohed Trump’s push against antifa as political theater, but multiple NATO partners agree with the White House. Hungary and the Netherlands are following Trump’s lead, and other U.S. allies are expected to do the same. Antifa is a transnational extremist group that endorses terrorism, and it’s time we confronted it.
The financial dimension is key. However much antifa activists hate capitalism, the revolution requires money. Trump has promised to pursue left-wing donors, including famous ones such as George and Alex Soros, even with criminal charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which is employed by the FBI against gangsters, terrorists, and money-launderers. RICO is indeed a powerful tool for the Justice Department, but the dragnet must be extended beyond the Soros clan.
Take the notorious case of Neville Singham, a wealthy IT businessman who was born in Chicago but currently lives in Shanghai. A superfan of the Chinese Communist Party, Singham funds a wide array of left-wing activism in America, including transgender causes. Singham endorses the full catalogue of “Woke Left” causes, from support for Islamist terrorism to pro-migrant agitation to transgender radicalism. This summer, House Republicans indicated they were investigating Singham and his CCP ties, which is a start.
There’s also convincing evidence that Cuban intelligence is materially supporting “Trantifa” radicalism in the U.S. This is not surprising since Havana essentially created the Black Lives Matter movement a decade ago. One Utah “Trantifa” extremist group, Armed Queers Salt Lake City, which scrubbed its social media after the Kirk assassination, was openly affiliated with the Cuban regime, including its enthusiastic participation in Havana-led activities known to be controlled by Cuban intelligence.
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It’s best to think of antifa as the armed wing of the Democratic Socialists of America, the left-wing group that’s successfully taken over much of the Democratic Party. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the most famous DSA member in Congress, is shaping up as a top contender for the White House in 2028. To employ a historical analogy, during Northern Ireland’s three decades of “Troubles” starting in the late 1960s, the Provisional Irish Republican Army was the terrorist group, while Sinn Féin was the legitimate political wing of the same movement. Today, antifa is the PIRA, while the DSA is Sinn Féin.
The time to confront this difficult reality is now. The Trump administration must declare antifa a foreign terrorist organization, cutting off its funds at home and abroad via sanctions, before this crisis gets worse.
John R. Schindler served with the National Security Agency as a senior intelligence analyst and counterintelligence officer.
