Antifa

Logo.

Antifa (short for anti-fascist) is a decentralized anti-fascist and anti-racist movement. Contemporary Antifa does not possess a national leader, headquarters, formal membership system or unified command structure. It is better understood as a movement, political tradition and method of antifascist organizing than as a single organization.

At the 2017 Unite the Right rally, Antifa fought against alt-right protestors. In 2020, U.S. president Donald Trump attempted to classify Antifa as a terrorist organization.

History

Antifaschistische Aktion

A historical predecessor of contemporary Antifa was Antifaschistische Aktion, established in Weimar Germany in 1932 by the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) during the struggle against the rapidly growing Nazi movement. The KPD announced the initiative in May 1932 and organized its first major rally in Berlin that July. Its two-flag symbol subsequently became one of the most recognizable visual traditions of militant antifascism.

Antifaschistische Aktion was is largely unconnected to modern Antifa rather than a single organization that survived continuously from 1932 into the present. It emerged in the specific political circumstances of the Weimar Republic and was closely tied to the KPD. Nevertheless, its name, symbolism and militant working-class antifascism became important reference points for later antifascist movements.

Postwar antifascist movements

Militant antifascist organizing continued after the defeat of the Axis powers. In different countries, postwar antifascists confronted surviving fascist organizations, neo-Nazi networks, racist street movements and far-right organizations. During the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, militant antifascist activity became particularly associated with parts of the punk scene, immigrant communities, anarchist groups, communist organizations and anti-racist networks.

In the United States and Canada, Anti-Racist Action became an important predecessor to contemporary Antifa organizing during the late twentieth century. Historian Mark Bray has described modern Antifa as emerging from a broader international tradition of militant antifascism rather than from one continuous organization or centralized network.

Contemporary Antifa

Contemporary Antifa consists primarily of autonomous organizations, informal networks and activists who identify with militant antifascist politics. Groups may cooperate across regions, but there is no national authority capable of issuing orders to everyone using the Antifa name or symbolism.

Antifa gained renewed public attention in the United States during the 2010s as far-right organizations, white supremacists and neo-Nazis became increasingly visible. Antifascist counter-protesters were among those who confronted the white-supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017.

Terrorism designation

Donald Trump's 2020 proposal

During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests following the police murder of George Floyd, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would designate Antifa as a terrorist organization. At the time, legal analysts noted that United States law contained no equivalent to the foreign-terrorist-organization process for purely domestic political movements, while Antifa's decentralized structure created an additional problem for such a designation.

Claims that Antifa centrally organized the unrest following Floyd's death were frequently made by right-wing politicians and social media accounts, but available government and media evidence did not establish the existence of a unified Antifa command directing the nationwide protests.

2025 executive order

On 22 September 2025, during his second presidency, Trump issued an executive order formally describing and designating Antifa as a "domestic terrorist organization". The order directed federal agencies to investigate and disrupt illegal activity attributed to Antifa or persons claiming to act on its behalf.

The designation did not create the same statutory legal regime that applies to foreign terrorist organizations. Legal analysts continued to note that federal law provides no general statutory process for designating purely domestic political movements as terrorist organizations, creating substantial questions concerning the order's practical and constitutional scope.