Trump's Antifa Fearmongering Looks Like Pure Fantasy

[babylonsister]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/trumps-antifa-fearmongering-looks-like-pure-fantasy


Trump’s Antifa Fearmongering Looks Like Pure Fantasy
As the president and his attorney general blame anti-fascist activists for violence at some protests, none of the DOJ’s cases so far have links to the movement.
By Eric Lutz
June 10, 2020


Donald Trump has attempted to stoke fears among his base—and perhaps to undermine the protests for racial justice that have erupted in the wake of George Floyd’s killing—by suggesting that dangerous antifa operatives have hijacked demonstrations across the country to wreak havoc in American cities. Without evidence, he accused antifa of looting and rioting in Minneapolis. He has suggested that the media is coddling the group, which is “very bad for our country,” and vowed to designate the loose collective, with no apparent structure, a terrorist organization. And, on Tuesday, he promoted an outrageous and baseless conspiracy theory that the 75-year-old man knocked down and injured by police in Buffalo during a protest may have been an “ANTIFA provocateur.”

To hear Trump and his allies tell it, the Black Lives Matter protests across the country are an utter hotbed of subversive antifa activity. There’s just one problem: Though Trump and Attorney General William Barr have blamed antifa for the violence that has sprung up at some of the demonstrations, none of the cases the Department of Justice has brought so far amid the tumult have links to the movement. According to NPR, which reviewed the federal cases that have been brought so far, none of the 51 people who have been rung up on federal charges as of Tuesday had antifa connections. In fact, the only people arrested on federal charges to have a connection to an extremist group were not part of the left, but members of the right-wing Boogaloo movement; three men associated with the group trying to instigate a second Civil War were charged with plotting violence in Las Vegas.

snip//

The president’s fixation with antifa’s supposed involvement in the protests has been grating, but reached a particularly gross level Tuesday when he baselessly suggested Martin Gugino — the elderly cancer patient injured by police in Buffalo and briefly left bleeding from his head on the ground—may have been a member of the group attempting to somehow “black out” police communications equipment and perhaps faked his injuries. “Could be a set up?” Trump wrote.

It was yet another low for the president, but most Republicans once again pretended not to have been aware of his ugly conspiracy theorizing, and his staff brushed it off. “I learned a long time ago not to comment on tweets,” Mark Meadows told reporters Tuesday, “and I’m not going to break that.” A smirking Jared Kushner, walking alongside the chief of staff, did not respond at all. Appearing on Fox & Friends Wednesday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany went even further, defending Trump for attacking a hospitalized 75-year-old man. “The president was raising questions based on a report he saw, and they’re questions that need to be asked,” she said, referring to the anonymous blog post promoted by far-right One America News Network where the theory originated. “This individual had some very questionable tweets,” she continued. “Some profanity-laden tweets.” And what would Trump know about any of that?

[scarletwoman]

1. "Looks like pure fantasy" - weasel words, screw that!

It is nothing less than pure bullshit!