Never believe that {fascists} are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The {fascists} have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

— Jean-Paul Sartre

On Wednesday, October 8th, 2025, Donald Trump convened a roundtable not with journalists, but with propaganda assets posing as such. A ritual of ideological purification. The event was a meticulously staged gala for an ascendant fascism, a spectacle designed to transmute right-wing paranoia into the iron logic of state repression. Broadcast from the seat of executive power, this gathering marked a definitive escalation, representing the moment when the state’s repressive apparatus formally embraced the fabricated narratives of its most zealous foot soldiers. What we witnessed was the fusion of authoritarian statecraft with a volunteer corps of disinformation agents, united in their mission to criminalize dissent.

The thesis is simple and stark. Trump and his allies are constructing a legal and political infrastructure for crushing opposition, and this roundtable served as its public consecration. The so-called “independent journalists” were not there to report, but to perform. They functioned as a Greek chorus of curated grievance, lending the raw material of personal anecdote to a pre-written script of a fascist coup. Their role was to provide the human texture for a state-sanctioned lie, namely that a decentralized, anti-authoritarian political current constitutes a monolithic terrorist threat. This is not a debate over policy. It is the tactical groundwork for a war against any and all movements that challenge capital, the state, and the hierarchies they protect.

The roundtable did not occur in a vacuum. It was the political theater designed to accompany the recent executive order designating Antifa a domestic terrorist organization, thus justifying Trump’s coming declaration of martial law. In a nation whose laws provide no formal mechanism for such a designation, this act was pure invention, a decree conjured from the ether of executive will. The order itself is a legal fiction, but one with material teeth. As Testa’s history of Anti-Fascism makes clear, fascists have always relied on the complicity of the liberal state to wage war on their opponents. From the Italian Squadristi to the German Freikorps, extra-legal violence flourished precisely because the liberal state looked the other way or actively enabled it. This executive order serves the same function.

Into this newly cleared terrain of repression stepped Trump’s handpicked sycophants. The day before the roundtable, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem made a theatrical visit to Portland, a city long cast as the epicenter of “antifa terror.” She met with Oregon’s liberal governor and Portland’s mayor, only to immediately accuse them at the White House of “covering up the terrorism that is hitting their streets.” This is the textbook fascist strategy of deliberate conflation; the liberal opposition of city governance is painted as being in league with the designated terrorist enemy. Such fabrications are the foundational justifications for invoking the Insurrection Act, arguing that local authorities are complicit and cannot be trusted. The rhetoric of the roundtable was a masterclass in authoritarian messaging, built on four pillars of deceit.

First was the construction of antifa as a monolithic enemy. This is the classic fabrication of a “Red Peril,” a tactic used by Mussolini’s Blackshirts and Hitler’s Brownshirts to justify their war on the working class. Anti-fascism, a political tradition and a tactic, is deliberately misrepresented as a centrally commanded organization.

Second was the weaponization of selective anecdotes and fear framing. The “journalists” offered harrowing personal testimonies, presented as emblematic rather than anecdotal. This tactic bypasses rational analysis in favor of raw emotion. Trump then masterfully inverted the power dynamic, declaring, “we will be far more threatening to them,” casting the state as a beleaguered victim whose planned repression is merely self-defense.

Third was the strategic deployment of funding claims as a tool of collective punishment. With dark insinuations about “the people that fund them,” the state declared war on the entire infrastructure of dissent, from legal defense funds and non-profits to individual donors. This is the modern equivalent of smashing union headquarters.

Finally, they invoked the language of “order” to justify blatant repression. By condemning protected speech like flag burning as “incitement to violence,” they remade the law in their own authoritarian image. As Michael Parenti argued, the cry for “law and order” is rarely a call for justice; it is a call to reinforce existing class and property relations.

This spectacle was a collaborative performance. Trump served as the orchestrator, setting the tone of menace and granting permission for state violence. The “independent journalists” functioned as propaganda disease vectors, laundering far-right talking points into a format that mimics objective reporting. Finally, institutional enablers like Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem served as the transmission belt, translating raw demagoguery into the cold, administrative violence of the state. The legal threats are profound. The creation of an enemies list, the turn toward collective punishment, and the suggestion to suspend habeas corpus signal a willingness to discard constitutional order. Once the state normalizes the repression of a “bad” ideology, no ideology is safe.

«««< HEAD A threat of this magnitude cannot be met with appeals to civility, yet a profound confusion, particularly among liberals, hamstrings an effective response. This confusion manifests as a specific, repeated argument. ‘I had never even heard of Antifa until Trump,’ they say, framing personal unfamiliarity as historical fact. This leads to the ultimate strategic blunder, the plea to ‘stay disciplined and peaceful’ and to avoid ‘physical altercations’ at all costs. This is not a strategy for victory but a plea for respectable defeat. It is a politics of optics that fails to understand that fascism is not an argument to be won but a physical force to be stopped. This deep-seated faith in institutional processes and utter terror of physical confrontation is the autoimmune disorder of the liberal body politic.

Finally, they invoked the language of “order” to justify blatant repression. The roundtable participants repeatedly condemned acts like flag burning, a form of political expression explicitly protected under the First Amendment, as “incitement to violence.” As Michael Parenti argued, the cry for “law and order” is rarely a call for justice; it is a call to reinforce existing class and property relations. When the state redefines protected speech as a criminal act, it is not upholding the law. It is remaking the law in its own authoritarian image.

This spectacle was a collaborative performance. Trump served as the orchestrator, setting the tone of menace and performing dominance. He grants permission for the state’s violence, creating a political climate where brutality is encouraged.

The “independent journalists” functioned as the propaganda disease vectors. They are agents of the control society, laundering far-right talking points into a format that mimics objective reporting. Their work consists of decontextualization, creating a closed loop of self-referential “evidence” designed to prevent what Deleuze called “minority becoming,” which is the creative process by which people elude dominant models and invent new ways of being. They are not reporters; they are assets generating content for a pre-determined conclusion.

Finally, the institutional enablers like Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem translated the propaganda into the language of policy. Their role affirms antifa’s core warning, that we cannot rely on the state or the law to protect society from fascism. Bondi and Noem are the state apparatus aligning itself with the fascist project, signaling to the FBI, DOJ, and Homeland Security that the gloves are off. They are the transmission belt between raw demagoguery and the cold, administrative violence of the state.

The legal and constitutional threats articulated in this roundtable are profound. The creation of an enemies list by executive decree is a hallmark of authoritarian rule. It replaces due process with political persecution. The repeated threats to prosecute donors represent a turn toward collective punishment. The casual suggestion to suspend habeas corpus signals a willingness to discard the most basic tenets of constitutional order. Once the state normalizes the repression of a “bad” ideology, no ideology is safe.

A threat of this magnitude cannot be met with appeals to civility, yet a profound confusion, particularly among liberals, hamstrings an effective response. This confusion manifests as a specific, repeated argument. ‘I had never even heard of Antifa until Trump,’ they say, framing personal unfamiliarity as historical fact. They correctly identify right-wing false flags like the ‘Umbrella Man’ but incorrectly conclude that all confrontation is therefore illegitimate. This leads to the ultimate strategic blunder, the plea to ‘stay disciplined and peaceful’ and to avoid ‘physical altercations’ at all costs. This is not a strategy for victory but a plea for respectable defeat. It is a politics of optics that fails to understand that fascism is not an argument to be won but a physical force to be stopped. This deep-seated faith in institutional processes and utter terror of physical confrontation is the autoimmune disorder of the liberal body politic.

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This historical erasure is so profound that some liberals, desperate to prove their case, now claim that the term ‘Antifa’ itself was coined by the far-right as part of the 2016 spectacle. This is demonstrably false. The noun ‘Antifa’ has been part of American leftist and anarchist subcultures since at least the 1980s, inherited from European militants. By the early 2000s, it was well established enough to appear in the titles of publications like The Antifa Straight Edge. A Manifesto (2001) and to feature in widely circulated anarchist manuals like CrimethInc’s Recipes For Disaster (2004). While pedants can endlessly debate the first documented usage, the point is not academic. The claim that the term was invented by the right is a fiction that serves only to reinforce the liberal narrative of inaction.

In reality, Antifa is a political tradition and a tactic rooted in a decentralized loose network of regional autonomous cells of Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) groups. For decades, these affinity groups have operated in relative obscurity, engaging in the unglamorous work of direct confrontation to physically deny fascists a platform. The fascist understands power in a way the liberal, preoccupied with maintaining civility, does not. As a reactionary revolutionary force, it knows its momentum depends on its ability to dominate public space through terror and intimidation. Trump’s obsession with Antifa is not a delusion; it is a calculated recognition that this network, built for small-scale street violence, is the material embodiment of the one thing that can stop a fascist ground game, which is decentralized but organized, physical opposition.

Recognizing this dynamic illuminates the necessary path forward. Our response must be as direct, material, and organized as the repression it confronts. First, we must expose the illusion of a monolithic, terrorist antifa, drawing on its long, decentralized history. Second, we must defend the legitimacy of confrontation. This means actively rejecting the disarming liberal plea to ‘stay peaceful.’ True discipline is not passivity in the face of fascist violence; it is the organized, collective will to prevent them from taking our streets. Denying fascists a platform is not a violation of speech; it is a precondition for the safety of our communities.

Third, we must organize counter-power. The state’s strategy is to isolate and atomize us. Our response must be strengthening the material forms of community defense like tenant councils, shop-floor committees, and neighborhood assemblies. Finally, we must undermine the propaganda apparatus by building our own media and telling our own stories. The roundtable was a declaration that authoritarian propaganda is now overt state strategy. The individuals at that table were not journalists; they were accomplices in the construction of a police state.

Our task is not merely to interpret this grotesque spectacle, but to dismantle it. This fight cannot be won by appealing to the civility of a liberal state that has already chosen its side or by denying the existence of the very forces that oppose it. The antidote to their narrative of terror is not a better argument, but the undeniable, material practice of solidarity that refuses to cede an inch of ground. This solidarity is forged in the streets, in our neighborhoods, and on the shop floor. It finds its voice in the echo of a century-old command to beat the fascists wherever we meet them, denying them the space to organize their project of death. The state has shown its hand. Now we must show ours.