Against Fascism Part Two: Antifa, Opposing Fascism

I have to admit to feeling a distinct sense of relief now that last month’s inauguration has gone off without more violence (so far). President Biden may be far from an inspiring figure but his first few weeks seem to have begun on several positive notes. It’s not much, but it is a start. It’s too easy for those of us in the privileged population to just give a relieved sigh and hope the tensions still rampant through US society will loosen. To go “back to brunch,” as it were. These are frightening times.

So I definitely can’t blame anyone for feeling a weight off their minds with the beginnings of the Biden Administration. I, for one, have noticed how nice it is not to hear about Trump every day, fretting about what he’s gonna do next. However, all those tensions he took advantage of are all still there, and while a few would-be insurrectionists (more than 200) have been arrested for their part in the Capitol Riot on January 6th, things have not changed among the far right still hoping to enforce their wills upon those they see as destroying their place in the country’s hierarchy. A strong stance against the continued existence of American fascism as a political influence among the Republican party and those further right is something we should not relax as we go into the next four years. As can be seen by the political activities coming to light from some of the participants of the Capitol Riot, which include deeply disturbing and explicitly fascist beliefs, the fascist strain of American thought is still active, and looking for growth opportunities.

Throughout my life, even if I perhaps would not have stated it in quite the same way, some form of antifascism would be very important to me, stemming from long standing beliefs in pacifism and equality. My grandfather was nearly killed at the Battle of the Bulge and I was very affected by my visit to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC on a high school trip, so I had reason to consider the darkness possible in human society early in my life. Of course, it was hard to think of fascism as something relevant, it was all too easy to dismiss it as a horror of the past, aside from a few of the most depraved criminals and losers of the lunatic fringe. I never thought I’d be reading books on fascism to better understand current events.

Ending my discussion in the last entry with Talia Lavin’s discussion on antifascism and “Antifa’’ in the conclusion of her book Culture Warlords, I mentioned the importance of resisting fascist ideology during a historical moment when it appears that the United States is once again facing a dire, existential threat from the forces of inequality. I left open the question of how one best might accomplish this opposition, which is what I will be focusing on in this entry.

Taking all of the works I read for part one, fascism is a complicated, contradictory political designation that has proven adept at changing its form, cloaking its ideals, making itself seem reasonable despite its abhorrent core beliefs. Appealing to those who feel threatened by shifts in society, as economic inequality grows and struggles for social and racial equality against the ongoing white supremacy of our nation continues, those spreading messages of antiegalitarianism thrive. Even after a lackluster, uninspiring Democratic candidate scraped a tepid victory out of the election of 2020 (with the largest voter turnout in US history, mind, in contrast to his opponent’s only third-largest voter turnout), this threat will remain. How can we counter it?

These contradictions can make rallying to oppose the inroads of fascist thought difficult. As discussed in volume one of this entry, the laudable commitment of the United States to freedom of speech can be weaponized to allow the insidious inroads of fascist thoughts among those vulnerable to its call. Lavin and Stanley both make particularly strong arguments describing how cynical claims of “free speech” can lead to growth in fascist influence.

I have heard this described as the Paradox of Tolerance, a term coined by philosopher Karl Popper in 1945. In short, if society tolerates intolerant speech, the intolerant speech inevitably pushes out tolerance itself. This is, of course, a simplification.

But I keep thinking back to a conversation I overheard in the aftermath of the horrifying Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville back in 2017. I was working in downtown Minneapolis at the time, walking back to work from lunch in the Skyway when I found myself walking alongside a group of white, middle-aged besuited businessmen also on their way to or from lunch in the downtown maze. As we walked, I couldn’t help overhearing their conversation, listening in on their upraised, aggrieved voices as they discussed the ongoing tensions in Charlottesville among themselves. They were echoing the common complaints of “both sides” being violent and radical but seemed to focus on the importance of the “free speech” rights that the Nazis, white nationalists, and other bigots on the march those hot summer days in Virginia were being deprived of by the “alt-left.”

One griped about how his daughter, a “radical leftist,” opposed their right to march and the group went into a rant about how the “alt-left” was itching for a fight, excited to deny white voices their right to scream out their racist beliefs. “They (the left) are not actually for equality,” the man said, “but want to single guys like us out for abuse, just ’cause we’re white men.”

What, I asked myself, makes these guys feel so singled out as they walk around, obvious wealthy elites in a city built by and for them? What made them sympathize with the guys shouting “blood and soil!” and “Jews will not replace us!” so cruelly opposed by people who would prefer they didn’t shout that in public, and were maybe willing to physically prevent them from doing so.

At the time, I felt dread in the pit of my stomach, reasoning that this was exactly how Fascism rose in Germany, with “normal, every day” Germans seeing no difference between the Nazi party and their leftist (“Communist”) opponents and thought the German government would sort it out in any case.

I, of course, hadn’t seen anything yet.

The marchers in Charlottesville were rallying for inequality, rallying to act, not just on “controversial” or “debatable” political ideas like the separation of church and state or abortion or even the environment or something, but on the practical and enthusiastic removal of the rights and lives of others, especially on racial and religious lines.

These guys don’t give two shits about “free speech,” except as it helps them spread their message of death and destruction. They are explicitly patterning themselves on the two of the greatest enemies the United States ever faced, one from the 19th and one from the 20th centuries. The rebellion of the slavery-dependent Confederacy on our own shores, and the menace of an absolutist and expansionist genocidal regime in Europe.

The legacy of slavery and genocide, the exploitation and murder of non-white people for the benefit of whites, taint every state in the Union. That is not a controversial statement but the simple truth, and it is one that many white Americans, from all political backgrounds, would prefer not to ever acknowledge.

The fact that Nazis and white supremacists are odious and wretched is no surprise. The most horrifying thing is mainstream Americans equating them with their left-wing opponents as equally hateful, equally destructive. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” the old cliche goes, misattributed to Voltaire among others. A noble sentiment but one that does not recognize the reality of what we are facing in the US when we believe that defending the rights of those who wish to deny us and those more vulnerable than us those very rights, to say nothing of our lives.

Reading these books on the history and ideologies of antifascism gave me much food for thought and context to the ideas I had been ruminating on above.

Historian Mark Bray’s Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook is probably the most informative and authoritative work on the topic available currently, and does a great job delving deeply into the background of the opposition to the growth of fascism in Europe as far back as the birth of the movement in Italy after WWI.

Less a “handbook” than an in-depth analysis of the resistance to the far-right from a variety of backgrounds, the book serves as a comprehensive history of antifascist activism throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. From democratic socialists, communists, and anarchists opposing their fascist opponents in 1920s and ’30s Italy, Germany, and Spain, to groups like the 43 Group, Jewish WWII veterans rallying to disrupt the activities of the British Union of Fascists.

I was particularly interested in the descriptions of the Anti-Racist Action groups founded in Minneapolis during the 1980s to combat the growing presence of white supremacist skinheads in the local punk scene, before spreading across North America to challenge the presence of racists in the music scenes of various cities, making punk venues across the country safer for vulnerable groups. It is also interesting seeing the diversity of tactics and motives used by these varied groups across the world and across the decades, especially with the rise of the “pin-stripe Nazis” of the alt-right and their “veneer of respectability” allowing their infiltration of mainstream politics.

I found the later chapters analyzing the motivations and ideas of antifascism as a whole to the most important parts, specifically the lessons that contemporary antifascists activists take from that century of previous struggle, both successful and horribly ineffectual. Some members state that they will engage in violence if need be, in defense of others or to prevent further violence, in some cases arguing that they focus the attention of fascist agitators, preventing them from venting their rage on more vulnerable targets in the vicinity. In any case, “no-platforming” fascist speech remains among the most important messages of antifascism. In allowing fascists like, say, the Proud Boys, to organize without opposition, sends the message that what they are arguing is just another political belief. The sections of “everyday antifascism” concluding the book is a great way to think about what can be done on an individual and social level to stand against fascist ideologies, even if you are not ready to stand in between fascists and their targets yourself.

Comprehensively cited and with an extensive collection of other sources, Antifa is a great resource for further research.

Written and illustrated by Gord Hill, an indigenous Kwakwak’wakw cartoonist, and activist, The Antifa Comic Book: 100 Years of Fascism and Antifa Movements is a more compact resource featuring much of the same background as The Antifa Handbook. Featuring Hill’s vivid artwork almost reminiscent of a wood print, this graphic history introduces the complex origins of fascism and its opposition and their evolution from the 1910s to the 2010s, and the network of formal and informal groups active over the century among both, including the French and Polish partisans active against Nazi Germany during the height of WWII.

Vibrant and readable, I’d recommend it as a good place to start learning about the history of anti-fascist resistance from every background. Of course, the lessons it tells are, for the most part, bleak. Opponents of fascism in Italy, Germany, and Spain were unable to turn the tide, many dying horribly in the process, distracted by internecine disagreements. One can only hope that we can reflect on this knowledge to better effect this time around.

Current statements from people on both sides of the aisle striving for some sort of “unity” and to avoid any serious analysis of the events of January 6th in an attempt to “let bygones be bygones,” for instance, is not very inspiring to antifascist activists. Like so much of current government policy (or lack thereof), it encourages a belief that you or your community is on their own in standing up to fascist violence and intimidation. With a nascent fascist insurrection, a putsch if you will, filled with members of the nation’s police forces, owners of business and real estate, it can be all too easy to think it’s all just happening again, and maybe this time we just need to push harder.

This is a good way to begin a discussion of the last work on antifascism I read, English journalist Natasha Lennard’s collection of essays Being Numerous: Essays on Non-Fascist Life. Lennard’s work, written from a philosophically anarchist frame of reference, is an interesting piece to end this discussion on antifascism. Provocative, unsettling, and yet encouraging, Lennard calls into question so much that I, as a perhaps more or less typical American progressive, take for granted, giving me a lot to think about.

Lennard provides some additional context to the confusing, at times opaque ideas of leftist thought, while also providing some interesting thoughts on such topics as ghosts, sex, and death. Writing in an informal but intense voice, her arguments challenge the role of much of contemporary Western society in the continued presence and allure of fascism throughout the world but arising in particular in the United States of this time.

Her first essay, “We, Antifascists,” is the most pertinent to this discussion. Here, Lennard provides important contemporary context to the common arguments against Antifa. From the punch that knocked white nationalist figurehead Richard Spencer down a few pegs, many in the press seemed just as upset at this display of civic impropriety than the odious ideals being peddled by Spencer, ideals that the open “ethnonationalist” felt Trump himself championed.

As Lennard mentions, since 1990 there have been 450 deaths attributable to the far-right, and only one to the far-left (though the book was released April 2019, so these numbers are a little out of date now, we have quite a few more murders from the far-right, maybe one more from the far-left). In light of this disparity of violence, why is the “both sides” false equivalency argument so prevalent throughout the mainstream? In this, Lennard argues antifascism is by definition illiberal in that the common agreements of liberal society, so-called liberals and conservatives alike, are not equipped to deal with fascism, as its appeals stem from the very nature of society, “not a perversion of societies business as usual but an outgrowth.”

In looking back at the failures of the past, it seems difficult to argue against Lennard’s summary of the “great liberal tradition to stand on the wrong side of history until it is comfortably in the past.” That to the mainstream “it is only in the past or other countries that violent militancy against white supremacy is legitimate resistance.”

Being a 30-something citizen of the United States, more or less comfortable with being called a “liberal” even if I never had much time for the moderate Democrat establishment, it can be a bit disconcerting to see people on the left, like Lennard, refer to liberalism so harshly. This is a definite tension that I could sense even as I stood with anarchists and socialists in opposing the Proud Boys, a tension that I’m only engaging in the superficial show of defiance against the most open statements of hatred while ignoring the less obvious culprits.

In among the most interesting portions, Lennard writes of everyday fascisms, or “micro-fascisms” that every one of us is subject to, a “desire to oppress and live in an oppressive world.” Thus, militant opposition to fascist organizing is only a tiny part of the struggle to prevent a resurgence of fascist violence and oppression. There are other effective ways to create consequences for those who give in to these habits and desires, including preventing fascists from easy platforms to spread their hate or even reporting their beliefs to their schools or employers. This provides clear downsides to engaging in hate speech without having to punch anyone. It is also integral to question your own beliefs for hierarchical thinking as well.

Lennard continues to wrestle with these themes throughout the rest of the essays in the collection, from discussing the concepts of human “rights” stemming from an unaccountable state, to the personal concept of suicide. As a skeptic who nonetheless finds the idea of hauntings and the supernatural to be fascinating explorations of the world, her exploration of hauntology and “webs of belief” were particularly fascinating.

In any case, I feel these essays provide a great window into how leftist and anarchist thought has expanded and coalesced during the strange years since Occupy Wallstreet in 2011, how in the last decade, the cracks within contemporary capitalist society began to become more evident to more people. Which is the opposite of what I will discuss in the next section of my discussion.

To conclude my exploration of antifascism, these works gave me valuable context for the activities I participated in to stand against the Proud Boys at the Governor’s Residence late last year as they joined with more mainstream MAGA groups to oppose the validity of the 2020 election as part of the “Stop the Steal” movement. I feel that it is important that I, as someone living in the neighborhood, stand in opposition to fascist organizing, along with a diverse group of local people from various ideological backgrounds. While I may not condone every action or belief of this large group, (as much schadenfreude as can be gleaned from watching some angry white people lose their shit at the police for not stepping in to prevent vandalism to their cars despite being right there), minor vandalism is nothing compared to what the likes of the Proud Boys would be capable of given the chance. As we saw just a month later on January 6th, standing up against fascism can be dangerous.

This, I feel, is the most important takeaway. As we look back on the Fascist regimes of the 20th century and wonder what could have been done to prevent the murderous extremes these ideologies drove their countries into, leading to some of the most devastating wars in human history, the same question has to be asked of ourselves today. We just don’t have the hindsight to know that there are those active in the United States government today who are advocating policies that may lead to similarly murderous outcomes, continuations of policies long part of the white supremacist nature of US history. Why do we have to wait until they achieve what they want to achieve before we say that they should be nipped in the bud?

While the fascist regimes of Europe in the 20th century arose in times of great economic and social upheaval that I don’t think Europe or North America can hold a candle to today, we are undoubtedly in a time of our own social upheaval as the reality of climate change continues to hit the world. Keeping in opposition to reactionary impulses and the slide to fascism must continue to be a priority for everyone hoping for a stable and peaceful world.

This entry’s thematic musical companion is “Bloodless,” by Andrew Bird, from his 2019 album My Finest Work Yet.