Antifa: Myth vs. Reality

Fear thrives when labels replace facts—so we pulled the receipts. We dig into how “Antifa” turned from a historical stance against fascism into a modern political boogeyman, and we test that narrative against hard data from ACLED, CSIS, the ADL, and public law‑enforcement findings. The picture that emerges is clearer than the headlines: most 2020 protests were peaceful, incidents of violence were limited and often context‑driven, and the dominant share of ideologically motivated killings in recent years has come from the far right, not from a shadowy left‑wing army.

We walk through the George Floyd protests with nuance—what sparked them, why they spread, and how escalation often followed aggressive crowd control or opportunistic actors. Then we zoom out to examine how a decentralized idea like anti‑fascism gets mislabeled as a covert national network, and why the absence of evidence isn’t evidence of superior stealth. Along the way, we contrast decentralized activism with actual hallmarks of organized extremism: funding streams, recruitment, weapons stockpiles, encrypted coordination, and ideological indoctrination. That lens also reframes January 6, 2021—not as a protest gone wrong, but as a violent attempt to overturn a certified election, with ongoing efforts to sanitize it through promised pardons and revisionist storytelling.

We also clarify the ideological map. The Democratic Party sits within a center‑left, constitutional framework, while MAGA aligns with right‑wing populism and increasingly flirts with radical‑right rhetoric. Calling mainstream liberals “far left” and branding a label like Antifa as terrorism isn’t analysis—it’s projection that justifies crackdowns and distracts from verified threats. If we want a safer, saner politics, we have to separate behavior from branding, prosecute crimes based on evidence, and protect peaceful dissent.

If this conversation gave you clarity—or challenged your assumptions—subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review with the one statistic that surprised you most. Your voice helps keep facts louder than fear.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Record Straight
• 0:53 Media Myths And FBI Findings
• 1:34 George Floyd Protests Context
• 2:04 Peaceful Majority, Police Escalation
• 3:48 Data On Violence And Deaths
• 7:24 Right-Wing Extremism By The Numbers
• 10:44 Why The Antifa Myth Persists
• 14:47 2025 Incidents And Decentralization
• 19:06 Antifa’s Origins And Meaning
• 22:33 Is MAGA Far Right?
• 27:40 Democrats Are Center-Left
• 31:48 January 6 And Accountability
• 36:00 Projection, Propaganda, And Democracy
• 37:51 Final Takeaways And Callouts

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome back to Fitz Capades. My name is Michelle. So if um you've been hanging around on social media lately, you've heard the same word a thousand times by now, and that's Antifa. For some it's a shadowy army of far left terrorists banning cities. For others, it's a political equivalent of Bilgsfoot. Talked about but never actually seen in any organized terms. But here's the truth the Antifa threat is a myth manufactured and amplified by Trump era propaganda to demonize the entire political left and distract from where the real violence has always come from. The far right. Within hours, Trump and his allies were blaming Antifa. But when journalists and FBIS investigators and state police looked into it, they found no evidence of an organized Antifa network. No secret funding, no hierarchy, no Nash nationwide movement plotting attacks. What they found were local activists, spontaneous protesters and a handful of anarchists but no central organisations. Now this is also typical out of the playbook, or typical narcissist playbook, which is where the victim gets made to look like the um perpetrator, I guess, in a way. Um and it's yeah, typical narcissist sort of playbook stuff. So let's not forget that the George F George Floyd protests of 2020 were in reaction to police brutality and the unjust killing of an innocent black um man. You know, that's what it was all about. People were upset and in arms. The black people were feeling persecuted by police, you know, um, and they were protesting, taking a stance. And that, my friends, is legal. You are allowed to peacefully protest. Um so, yeah, so Pete George Floyd was murdered on May the 25th, 2020. He was a 46-year-old black man. He was murdered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and when the police officer Derek Chauvin uh knelt on his neck for over nine minutes, Floyd's repeated, please, I can't breathe. The video filmed by a bystander went viral worldwide. Within days, millions of people across the US and around the world took to the streets demanding justice for Floyd and systemic reform. And it became the part of the broader Black Lives Matter movement that had existed since 2013. In the US, protests erupted in all 50 states, from major cities to small towns. Worldwide demonstrations were held in Australia, the UK, France, Germany, Brazil, and Japan. These protests called not only for justice for George Floyd, but also accountability in other police killings or for deep reform for policing practices. Studies from the Accléd project found that over 93% of the demonstrations were peaceful, and that is legal. Protesters marched, held vigils, knelt in silence, and carried signs reading no justice, no peace, defend the defund the police. And remaining protests, a small minority, saw rioting, looting, and clashes with police, often triggered by aggressive crowd control tactics, curfews, or opportunistic actors. So it's interesting to note that, you know, that the most of the violence uh came when the police were being too heavy-handed and not respecting their right to peacefully protest. I mean, I'm sure there was fault on both sides. National Guards were activated in several states. Police used tear gases, rubber bullets, and mass arrests in multiple cities. Federal authorities sometimes labelled the unrest as domestic terrorism, and even though the majority of the protest activities was peaceful. So Derek Chauvin was charged, tried, and convicted of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and manslaughter in April 2021. Uh the police, the protests uh led to policy changes. Movements also sparked global conversation about colonialism and systemic racism. So there was very few protests that were violent. Uh, no one died in these protests. The vast majority of them were peaceful. Uh and and these were people protesting about an injustice. So let's look like fast forward to today and see how much the flip the script has flipped. You know, like now the George Floyd protests are uh referred to only in a negative light. Like people are actually forgetting a couple of things. That is uh there was an injustice done to the black community, they were protesting mostly illegally, and that's their legal right to do so. And there was only a small number of uh protests where things get went really pear-shaped, I guess. So just to give you a scope of the of the of the issue, so between May and August 2020, there are over 10,600 demonstrations across the United States. Um, and according to independent research for the armed conflict relocation and event data project uh at and Princeton University, 93 to 96% of all protests were peaceful, meaning no injuries, property damage, or clashes. But about 5 to 7% involved, uh only about 5-7% involved any form of violence, vandalism, or aggressive policing. Um, that's a far lower rate of violence than most historical protest waves. Where the violence occurred was the most intense violence in Minneapolis, Portland, Kenosha, and parts of Seattle, particularly during the first two weeks after Floyd's killing. Causes varied, so police escalation, tear gas, rubber bullets, mass arrests sometimes triggered chaos. Opportunistic looting occurred in some cities, often by non-protesters, and a handful of extremists, both far left and far right agitators, were later arrested using the protesters' cover for property destruction or provocation. Data compiled by the Washington Post, The Guardian, and the armed conflict location and event data project found that at least 9 into 25 people died nationwide during or directly related to the unrest from late May to early July 2020. The deaths included protesters, bystanders, and police officers. Some causes ranged from shootings, sometimes between civilians, sometimes police, car attacks and police actions. Some of the victims were killed trying to protect businesses or property, while others were killed in crowd chaos or retaliatory incidences. For perspective, out of more than 10,000 protests involving millions of people, fewer than 30 deaths a riot occurred, which was tragic and definitely tragic, but statistically showing that the overwhelming majority were peaceful and non-lethal lethal. The 2020 protests were among the largest in US history, and while there were moments of chaos and loss, data shows the narrative of widespread violence doesn't match reality. Most protesters marched peacefully for justice, and in many cases, violence was the exception, not the rule. Now let's have a look at the data for right-wing extremism around about the same time. So the S the CSIS report, The Escalating Terrorism Problem in the United States, updated in 2011, found that right wing wing extremists were responsible for the vast majority of ideologically motivated killings in 2020. Around 66% of all domestic terror-related deaths for the year. During the specific protest period, May of August to 2020, at least five to seven deaths were linked to right wing or anti-government extremists acting during or around the protests. So five out of those 20 were actually right wing um uh associated caused by right-wing extremists. So it was a vehicle attack in Charlottesville style copycat incidents, the Boogaloo-linked shooting in California that killed Federal Protective Service officer and a sheriff deputy days later, the Portland Street shooting of the of a right-wing counter-protester in late August, part of the violent far-right Antifa clashes. Okay, so that was left. An overall 2020 saw roughly 17 ideologically motivated right wing killings in total. So if we look at the deaths that occurred in association with the Black Lives Matters um protests, uh hang on a minute, let's see. Um so there's about tr 20 roughly of those, only about three to five three to five, so 15 to 25 percent were actually caused by police gunfire, right? Which is for pretty bloody sad, especially since this is what these people were marching against. That there were like three to five deaths at the hands of police, and they were protesting about against excessive brutality from police. Um and so the yeah, that's kind of uh ironic or stupid in a way. Yeah. So if we look at other causes of deaths in those pro in those protests, ten to twelve were civilians shot by other civilians, so crossfire vigilantes or during looting incidents. So we've got the three to five law enforcement shootings of civilians, accidental, crowd-related, and vehicle attacks were four to six, so include like protesters being struck by cars or bystanders killed amid the chaos. Uh, and there were two law um uh officers killed as well. So uh yeah. Um the breakdown, and and of course, some of those deaths were not perpetrated by left wing, they were right wing, but it's bad enough because it was far left versus far right clashing. So I guess they're both as culpable as each other. But I guess here's the thing. So today, like Antifa has been born out of all of this, you know, this whole uh the the the Black Lives Matter, you know, protests were terrible, there was all these terrorists, you know, Antifa was responsible for it, you know, and the left are highly violent. When in fact that's not the case. These people were not all fairly left activists, some of them were just more racially um uh ra you know protesting because of racial reasons, not political reasons. Um there was no central organized, you know, sort of terrorist network, you know. These people were protesting about something that was an injustice done against their community, you know, it was fair enough for them to protest. The majority of those protests were were were peaceful. There was only a very small proportion that got out of hand when they they did get out of hand because allegedly some some of the cases, excessive police brutality sort of incited this violence, you know, and even despite that, the amount of right-wing um uh violent, you know, right wing violence uh resulted in more, you know, far more deaths than left-wing um violence in that year. And also not to forget too that out of those 20 deaths, uh not all of them were perpetrated by, you know, left wing or protesters, you know, like a good quarter of them were perpetrated by police. Um so yeah, like it I guess it it's just an example of how uh the picture is being distorted by the Trump sort of camp in order to vilify um his political opponent, which is yeah, really quite evil. So let's go back to um yeah, so so the um MAGA people are are claiming that um, you know, the the black George Floyd uh protests were evidence of a terrorist left, you know, far left terrorist Antifa activity. But even the FBI, under Trump's own appointees, publicly stated that Antifa is not designated a group and that far right extremist uh violence from white supremacist militants to accelerationist groups oppose the greatest domestic terror to the US. Um, so I mean look, listen, in this day and age, like if there was an Antifa like secret agency or central organisation, let me tell you, there would be digital put footprints, you know, like it they would not go undetected. That's just ridiculous sort of argument to propose that, you know, the f that that they are still managing to sort of exist covertly undetected. But that's again one of the arguments that's thrown up by the Trump people, and I will address that in a minute. So if FBI said that Antifa isn't a terrorist organization, why did the myths persist? Because it worked politically. It gave Trump a MAGA media a convenient villain, a boogeyman to unify their base, to justify crackdowns on protests, you know, take away people's free speech when they're pushing back, um, and flip the narrative away from documented rise of right-wing political violence. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, between 2015 and 2020, over 75% of political motivated murders in the US were carried out by far right extremists. The Anti-Defamation League reports similar numbers. The far right is responsible for overwhelm the overwhelming majority of extremist killings. And yet megapondits still point to Anti Tifa Tifa, a loose idea about anti-fascism as the country's greatest internal threat. Why? Because facts don't fuel fear, but myths do. So, I mean, this isn't about denying that left-wing protesters never use violence, it's about proportion and reality. Like Antifa, it's not an army, it's a label, a rhetoric weapon created to scare, distract, and divide. Meanwhile, the real danger is from the organized hate groups that do recruit, do stockpile weapons and do act under clear ideological banners. That was then, and this is now. So what about in 2025 when all this pandemonium about Antifa has been emerging? Has there actually been any violence from Antifa or um uh related events? There have been reported incidents in 2025 that are linked to violence or groups described as Antifa or anti-fascist activists, but it's key to stress these tend to be isolated clashes or arrests, not evidence of a coordinated nationwide insurrection. And that's the thing, that's the big difference. You know, what they're alleging is uh terrorism, which is different from a few isolated individuals who want to go out and protest or whatever and you know and call themselves Antifa. That's different from having an organized terrorist network. The broader patterns of violence still points overwhelmingly to the right-wing extremist actors. Here's some recent examples. So um a recent incident, so the Institute for Strategic Dialogue notes that individuals who promote Antifa ideology have sometimes participated in protests that escalated to violence, which was property damage and confrontations between June and September 2025. In Melbourne, there was a confrontation on September the 2nd between people identifying as anti-fascist protesters and a repatriates rally, which resulted in physical altercations. And in France, eight anti-fascist activists with the group uh June Guard were under investigation for assaulting a 15-year-old suspected of being affiliated with another group. But why these don't prove a large-scale Antifa threat are the decentralised nature of Antifa is more of a loosely defined ideology than a formal dog organization. There's no central leadership, command, or structure. Many people associated with it act independently or locally. There's a lack of large-scale standard sustained campaigns, and incidents are sporadic. They don't amount to an organized insurgency. No credible evidence of networked planning across the cities or states has been made public. And there's a diff disproportionate focus compared to right-wing violence, which has gone swept under the carpet. Multiple studies and law enforcement reports over years have shown that far-right extremist violence accounts for a significant higher share of political motivated eva attacks and murders and plots than left-wing or Antifa linked actors. Um yeah. So it's interesting, isn't it? So despite all of this being fairly well known, the the argument so the fact that they're the that the that Antifa is anti like not centralized, you know, um there's nothing much tangible out there can be used as an argument for its non-existence or an argument for its existence. Okay. Um so there's a lot of um punters out there saying, you know, well, uh yeah, they're so you know, Antifa's so secretive that they're managing to exist covertly, and you know, the fact that they have been detected yet, is it an argument against them? You know, that's the reason they're so they're they're so decentralized, is because, you know, like um they're they're trying to go under the radar, you know, it's purposeful to to remain like that. And the simple fact of that is that that's a conspiracy theory that collapses under scrutiny. Every major US intelligence agency, including the FBI and Department of Home Security, has repeatedly stated that Antifa is not an organized group, but a loosely defined movement of or ideology opposing fascism. There is no evidence of central funding, leadership, or coordinated national strategy. Absolutely none. The covert operation claim is just a rhetorical trick to make the absence of evidence look suspicious. The same way QAnon rationalizes every disproven claim. So law enforcement has arrested individuals who call themselves anti-fascists, but when they break laws, uh when they break laws, but there's never been a successful prosecution showing an organized Antifa network. Meanwhile, verifiable data from the ADL, FBI, and SCIS show that over 70 to 80% of extremist violence in recent years comes from far right-wing actors, in short, Antifa acts as a loose idea, not a secret army, and pretending otherwise is just a political myth, not a fact. Um if and Antifa Tifa were operating as a covert coordinated terrorist network, it would be virtually impossible for that to go undetected for years. Like intelligence agencies like the FBI, the NSA and the DHS, under both Republican and Democratic administrations have been have had every political incentive to expose such a network if it existed. Yet after years of investigation, no evidence of a central organization, funding, or command structure has ever surfaced. By contrast, when real extremist groups operate secretly, far right military militias or Islamist terror cell terrorists, terror cells or foreign disinformation operations, they always leave footprints in cryptid chats, financial transfers, arms stockpiling, recruitment trials or leaked communications. None of that has ever been linked to any Antifa organization. The only reason some people believe they could be undetected is because Antifa is an idea, not an entity, a banner used by loosely connected activists in local contexts. You can't dismantle it because it's not a coordinated structure, it's a label that anyone can claim. In short, it I guess if Antifa were a covert network, it would have shown patterns of communication, funding, and leadership long ago, and none exists. The undetected secret army theory just isn't realistic. It's a political fantasy designed to keep the fear alive. So let's go back to you know, like what is Antifa, I guess, or where did it originate from? So Antifa is short for anti-fascist, unlike you know, Trump, which is profa. Anyway, MAGA, which is proof. The term first appeared in Europe in the 1920s to 30s when left-leaning groups, so trade, unionists, anarchists, and social democrats, organised to resist the rise of Mussolini and Hitler's fascist movements. At its core, anti-fascism means opposing authoritarianism, racial supremacy, political violence, and the suppression of civil rights. Today, people who identify as Antifa see themselves as continuing on that tradition, standing against modern forms of fascism, white nationalism or political extremism. There's no single membership list or headquarters, it's an ideology and a set of tactics, not a unified organization. So let's just pause on that. Like, so Antifa is not like a at its at its purest, and when it first began, it was not a far-left ideology. It was merely a protest to what was a fairly bad regime or regimen rising in in Germany, which was you know that of authoritarianism. Um so I mean, anti-fascism is anti-fascism far left, not inherently. Anti-fascism itself isn't isn't is not an extremist ideology, it's a moral stance opposing fascism and defending democracy. However, some individuals who identify as Antifa use radical left-wing or anarchist methods, for example, direct confrontation or property damage. And this has led to critics, led critics to label the whole movement as far left. But at its heart, its very definition, it is not far left. In reality, many political traditions, liberals, centralists and even conservatives, reject fascism. Being anti-fascist doesn't automatically make someone far left any more than opposing communism makes someone far right. So Antifa historically and ideologically is about resisting authoritarian power and protecting democratic freedoms, which we can all agree is not a bad thing. Some activist extreme tactics can be criticized and often should be, but the principle of anti-fascism isn't radical. It's foundational to any free society. So the confusion comes when political opponents use Antifa as a casual insult for anyone who stands up to the far right. And let's be clear here the far right stands for far more dangerous things like racism, like um, you know, nationalism, um, anti-LBGTQ, um, you know, and violence against them. You know what I mean? So like um the thing is that the frustrating thing is that it this is a playbook of a typical projection, you know, uh everything that MAGA and the far right is, they're projecting it onto this image of Antifa and saying that's your boogeyman, you know, that's who they are. When you actually look with the magnifying glass, you can see that that the ideology behind Antifa is not bad. Um yeah, it's just that some people gotten violent, but the actual principles that they're looking to defend are not bad. Whereas MAGA's principles, one could argue, are questionable, you know. Let's look at this. Is MAGA ideology far right? And yes, most political scientists and commentators would classify MAGA as falling on the right, uh, often in or near the far right, right wing populists and right-wing nationalists zone. But the label is not entirely uncontroversial. Whether it is far right depends somewhat on how strict your definition is. Um far right generally means strongly nationalist, so even nativist, hostile or exclusionary towards immigrants or minorities, or authoritarian or favouring strong executive power, sometimes sceptical of liberal democracy or checks and balances. There you go, so that's definitely going on. Socially conservative, opposing progressive social change, so LBGT, rats, gender, race, and identity. Um populist in framing, so us versus them, elite versus common, and some hierarchical or exclusionary doctrines, so racial, ethnic, religious. Movements that don't meet all of these can be placed in a continuum towards the right. Um MAGA observing MAGA movement scholars note that its ideology often include popularism and anti-elite rhetoric. So MAGA frames itself as fighting against the corrupt elite, steep state, mainstream media, etc., fake news, nationalism in America First, emphasis on national identity, borders and sovereignty, so white supremacy, restriction on immigration, hostility to multiculturalism. So some supporters emphasise reducing immigration, enforcing stricter border control, and speaking negatively of cultural change, cultural conservatism and social traditionalism, emphasis on traditional values, criticism of progressive social issues, and challenging democratic norms. So some MAGA-aligned actors have questioned the legitimacy of elections, challenged institutions like the judiciary or media status grievances and identity threat framing. So some analyses interpret MAGA as a reaction to perceived loss of status by, especially white Christian groups, framing social change as a threat. This set of features overlaps strongly with what many scholars would categorize as right-wing populism or even elements of the radical left. Why some hesitate to call MAGA far right? There are several reasons why. Variation within MAGA. MAGA is not monolithic. Some supporters are moderate, conservatives who embrace parts of the movement, but not its more radical stances. So I guess there are some people like who are starting to wake up to the fact that MAGA's not, you know, the be all end all like Marjorie Taylor Greene, and there's some people who have not fully drunk the Kool-Aid. That's my cynical way of looking at it. They're going to be the people that get mucked over, I guess, when Trump prevails. Anyway. Spectrum and relative standards. So what constitutes far right in US politics might differ from Europe or other regions. In the US, many conservative positions are shifted rightward already. So something that's far right for a European context might be less extreme in the US discourse. Electoral and institutional participation. MAGA has been part of a mainstream political party and conducts much of its actions via elections, not purely fringe or extra legal activism. Some observers reserve far right for groups that explicitly reject democratic methods or support violence. Well, just watch this space, that's coming, I guess. Intentional ambiguity, dog whistles, some of the more extreme elements are implicit or symbolic rather than overt, and that ambiguity makes strict classification harder. So where most scholars place MAGA, given the evidence, most place MAGA under right-wing popularism or right-wing nationalism, and many see it as having elements of the far right, especially in its more radical fringes. Right wing populism is recognized category combining right of centre policies that populist with populist appeals, anti-elite identity, national sovereignty. Many scholars explicitly referred to MAGA as a kind of radical right, popularism or radical right that flirts with or occasionally crosses into far right territory depending on how extreme its rhetoric and actions become. MAGA has um you know been in the habit of always accusing the Democrats to be far left. So is the Democrat Party far left? No, it is not a far-left party, it is centre left. Um where the Democratic Party sits ideologically, mainstream Democrats, so like Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer um advocate a centralist to moderate social democratic platform, regulation within a capitalist economy, not a socialism, expansion of healthcare coverage, not full nationalism, moderate progressive taxation and social spending, support for all civil rights, climate action and liberal democracy. This puts them in the centre left. There is a progressive faction within the Democrats, like so Bernie Sanders, uh, and they believe in more socialist or progressive ideas such as Medicare for all, Green New Deal type climate action, tuition free public college, and wealth taxes on. Bel billionaires. These policies are further left, but this faction does not control the party. It still operates firmly within democratic constitutional frameworks. So while they represent a left-wing current, it's still within a liberal democratic tradition, not far left. In so what far left actually means, the term far left refers to anti-capitalist or revolutionary ideologies like Marxism, communism, or anarchism, rejection of market economics and liberal democracy, support for radical redistribution of power and wealth, often outside of electoral means, and none of this characterizes the modern Democratic Party. The Democrats often operate within a market-based democratic capitalist system. So let's just summarise here. Firstly, we have a far right wing party in the form of MAGA who is projecting onto their political opponents accusations of being far left when their ideology is not far left. Not even the far the leftist of left in the Democrats are far left. They're just not. MAGA as a group, collectively, is extreme right wing. So they're creating a boogeyman out of the left when they're the boogeyman. You know, this is the thing. It's crazy. And I just don't understand how people do not see through this. Not only that, but they are trying to create a boogeyman out of the George Floyd rights, which by the way, we're protesting an unjust event, an injustice done against the black people. They're flipping the script there to say that this was the most violent, awful thing. And no one's talking about the insurrection, by the way. Like that was incited by Trump and way more violent and disgusting as well. And it's just it's just amazing how much of a spin these guys have on media and brainwashing, you know. I mean, let's look back to January 6, 2021, a date that should never fade into political amnesia. That was the day of the peaceful transfer of power. The core of American democracy was nearly destroyed from within. It wasn't a protest and it wasn't a misunderstanding. It was an attack, a violent attempt to overturn a free and fair election because one man refused to accept that he'd lost. Because he's a huge man child. Let's start with actually what happened. Thousands gathered in Washington, DC after months of Donald Trump falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen. Those lies weren't casual, they were deliberate, repeated hundreds of times, even after his own officials, courts, and justice department told him there was no fraud. Then came the rally. Trump told the supporters to fight like hell. He directed them to march onto the Capitol while Congress was certifying Joe Biden's victory, knowing that the crowd was angry, knowing that many were armed, and knowing that his own price vice president was being targeted. As the mob stormed barricades, smashed windows, and hunted lawmakers shouting, hang Mike Pence. Trump watched on television for hours, ignoring pleas from Aides and family to call them off. He didn't protect the Constitution. He protected his ego. Five people died. 140 police officers were injured. The seat of American democracy was desecrated with a with Confederate flags and chaos. Now, years later, Trump is vowing to pardon these convicted of their roles in the attack. People who assaulted officers, destroyed property, and tried to overturn the will of 81 million voters. That's not mercy, that's not permission. It tells every extremist, if you fight for me, I'll protect you. It turns the rule of law into a loyalty test. A president promising pardons for those who attacked the government on his behalf is not showing compassion. He's admitting complicity. He's saying the insurrection wasn't a tragedy, it was a movement. When Trump minimizes January 6th, he's not just rewriting history. He's testing the boundaries of accountability. Every democracy depends on one simple idea that power changes hands peacefully. Once leaders start excusing violence as patriotism, democracy stops being a system of laws and becomes a cult of personality. We can't afford to forget what January 6th was. It was an attempted coup, one that failed only because exhausted police officers, terrified lawmakers, and a system that barely held. What we are seeing playing out here is a classical case of narcissistic projector projection. Everything that MAGA is, he is being thrown up at a fictitious label and um being accused of the left. This is what's happening. Antifa is not real. It is a creation out of the imaginations of MAGA and Trumpianism to try and demonize everyone on the left, to make them into a boogeyman, and to smear reputations. Time and time again, Donald Trump has changed history, changed the narrative to a version that suits himself and his vanity and his rise to power. And what we're seeing here are very dangerous times. In truth, the core foundation of Antifa being anti-fascist is not a bad thing. Unfortunately, a few Antifa protesters have crossed the lines and have not behaved uh not behaved, you know, um respectfully or, you know, within the realms of democracy. But at their heart there's no fire left ideology, it's all just be about opposing fascism, which at its heart is not a bad thing. The vilification of of the left being called far left, you know, antifa boogeyman through the George Floyd uh protests is an exaggeration of the truth, and that's to say the very least. Uh a lot of things have been forgotten in the narrative that's being portrayed now, which is the vast amount of these protests were peaceful. The people were protesting against something that was pretty awful, i.e., the death of an innocent black man, and part of the deaths that occurred or the violence that occurred was actually police like killing civilians, which is crazy, it's wild. So it just doesn't stack up to what the Trump people are trying to say, you know, this is just all insanity. Um MAGA is far right, Democrats are not far left, you know. Uh I think the thing is, I guess the lesson in all of this is if you're going to believe in an ideology or believe a narrative, then for God's sake, try and fact check some things. You know, don't surround yourself in an echo chamber. Um yeah, democracy is at threat. There's an authoritarian, um, you know, narcissistic megalomaniac in control in the States at the moment, and it is frightening. And I guess I just hope that he doesn't manage to play out the whole playbook to its full end, because I think there's a lot of MAGA people who would end up unhappy in that scenario as well. Thank you for listening, um and uh make sure you check out all my social media and stuff like that. Um, leave comments, join the um conversation, and I will yeah, be back with you next time.