The Authoritarian Implications of Trump’s Antifa Terrorism Order
On September 22, 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order designating “Antifa” as a domestic terrorist organization. The move came just days after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, which Trump instantly blamed on “radical left wing political violence.” For the administration, the tragedy became a political opportunity: the chance to turn a diffuse left-wing movement into a foil for Trump’s authoritarian ambitions.
This designation is unprecedented. The United States has no legal mechanism for labelling a domestic political movement as a terrorist organization. Antifa is not an organization but a loosely affiliated movement rooted in anti-fascism. Yet the Trump administration seized on outrage and fear to inflate the threat. From a political psychology perspective, this is a textbook case of authoritarian threat framing: use a crisis, exaggerate a danger, and expand executive power while eroding democratic norms.
The Executive Order as Political Theater
The order describes Antifa as a “militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government.” It instructs federal agencies to use “all applicable authorities” to “investigate, disrupt, and dismantle” Antifa activity. The scope is broad, encompassing “any person claiming to act on behalf of Antifa, or for which Antifa or any person claiming to act on behalf of Antifa provided material support.”
On its face, this seems sweeping and decisive. Yet the order cites no statute granting Trump authority to designate a domestic terrorist organization. Nor does it introduce new penalties. It is therefore largely symbolic. But political psychology reminds us that symbols can be potent. Authoritarian leaders rely on what scholars call threat inflation—the amplification of ambiguous dangers into existential threats. The designation is not about changing law; it is about changing perception.
The administration framed this as a fulfilment of Trump’s promise to get “tough on the radical Left lunatics” in the wake of Kirk’s death. Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller vowed to “identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy” left-wing networks. Vice President J.D. Vance went further, suggesting even progressive non-profits might be scrutinized. These rhetorical flourishes reveal intent: not a neutral law enforcement measure, but an open political crackdown.
What Antifa Actually Is
Understanding Antifa matters. Unlike Al Qaeda or ISIS, Antifa is not a structured group. It is a decentralized, anti-fascist ideology. The Congressional Research Service notes that it “lacks a unifying organizational structure or detailed ideology,” consisting instead of “independent, radical, like-minded groups and individuals.” Historian Mark Bray explains it with a simple analogy: feminism is not an organization, though many groups call themselves feminist. Antifa is similar.
Activists identifying as anti-fascist organize in small collectives or act independently. Their common goal is opposition to fascism and white supremacy, often expressed through counter-protests at far-right events. A small subset sometimes engages in confrontational tactics like property destruction or street fights. But their actions rarely resemble terrorism, which typically involves mass-casualty violence or systematic campaigns of fear. As Bray notes: “Insofar as terrorism is setting off explosives and killing people, that’s not what these [Antifa] groups ever do.”
Even the FBI recognized this distinction. In 2020, Director Christopher Wray testified that Antifa is “a movement or an ideology, not an organization,” and that the Bureau investigates violent acts but not ideology. By ignoring this reality, Trump’s order deliberately collapses ideology into organization. Psychologically, this is cognitive simplification, the authoritarian impulse to reduce complexity to a simple enemy.
Legal Toothlessness and Symbolic Repression
The United States has a statutory definition of domestic terrorism (18 U.S.C. §2331(5)), but it is descriptive, not prescriptive. It defines violent acts intended to intimidate or influence government but does not create a chargeable offense. Individuals who commit violence are prosecuted under existing criminal statutes: murder, arson, conspiracy. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, was convicted of murder and use of a weapon of mass destruction, not “domestic terrorism.”
Trump’s order cannot change this. It does not criminalize Antifa membership. It does not create a domestic terrorist designation system akin to the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list. It simply tells agencies to use existing laws more aggressively. Critics like the Cato Institute have rightly mocked it as a “designation of an idea,” idiotic on multiple levels.
From a political psychology perspective, however, this toothlessness is not weakness, it is strategy. The ambiguity allows the administration to maximize fear without the burden of legal procedure. The designation acts as a psychological signal to law enforcement and the public: treat anti-fascists as terrorists, regardless of the law.
Why the Trump Administration Wants This Label
The order functions on several psychological levels:
Rallying the Base
Trump’s political base is driven by authoritarian predispositions—preference for order, fear of outsiders, hostility to dissent. Labeling Antifa as terrorists taps directly into these predispositions. It activates what political scientists call the authoritarian dynamic, strengthening loyalty by heightening fear.Chilling Dissent
The terrorism label creates a chilling effect. Protesters, academics, and activists risk being branded terrorists for opposing fascism. Social psychologists call this a threat environment: people self-censor when they fear disproportionate punishment.Expanding Surveillance
The designation gives agencies rhetorical cover to expand monitoring of left-wing activists. Even if charges fail, the disruption of surveillance, subpoenas, and raids undermines organizing. This is a form of pre-emptive delegitimization—discrediting opponents before they act.
Authoritarian Psychology in Action
The executive order does more than misuse legal authority; it reveals the deeper psychological machinery of authoritarian politics. Trump has always relied on projection—accusing his opponents of the very tactics he embraces. In this case, he paints anti-fascists as violent revolutionaries while simultaneously tolerating armed militias at his rallies, endorsing violent language, and refusing to condemn right-wing extremists. By displacing his own movement’s authoritarian impulses onto his enemies, he deflects scrutiny and keeps his followers convinced that they are the real victims under siege.
Just as striking is the order’s insistence on treating Antifa as a singular organization. In reality, anti-fascist activism is diffuse and disorganized, but the administration prefers to imagine it as a centralized enemy. This simplification is not accidental—it satisfies the authoritarian need for binary clarity. Trump’s base, already conditioned to see the world in sharp divisions of “us” versus “them,” is offered a neatly packaged adversary to hate.
The Kirk assassination provided the perfect spark for a moral panic. Instead of treating it as an isolated crime to be investigated, Trump and his allies inflated it into proof that the entire American left is complicit in violence. Political psychologists note that moral panics allow leaders to impose repressive policies under the guise of protecting the public. Trump’s use of the tragedy exemplifies this: a single event becomes the justification for treating millions of dissenters as dangerous radicals.
Finally, the order plays into Trump’s long-standing effort at identity fusion—the merging of his personal political fortunes with the very idea of the nation. By declaring anti-fascists terrorists, he reframes opposition to him as opposition to America itself. This is authoritarianism in its purest psychological form: delegitimizing dissent by recasting it as treason.
Consequences for Civil Liberties
The consequences of this manoeuvre are not abstract. The most immediate effect is a chilling of free speech. When ordinary people see “antifa” treated as synonymous with terrorism, they may think twice before attending a protest, retweeting anti-fascist commentary, or even voicing criticism of far-right politics. The First Amendment becomes hollow if citizens feel that exercising it could draw them into the crosshairs of counterterrorism policy.
The designation also reinforces selective enforcement. For decades, law enforcement has downplayed the threat of right-wing extremism while disproportionately targeting left-wing activists, especially those of colour. By branding anti-fascists as terrorists, Trump codifies that imbalance. Violence from Proud Boys or armed militias is minimized, while resistance to fascism is exaggerated into a national security crisis.
Even if the order is eventually struck down in court, the normalization of the idea itself is corrosive. Once a President has attempted to label a domestic political movement as a terrorist organization, the boundary of what is thinkable has shifted. Political psychologists call this boundary expansion: a move once unthinkable is now part of the conversation, making it easier for future administrations to revisit with more polished legal tools. The damage is not just to the law but to the democratic imagination.
Lessons from Political Psychology
What can be learned from this authoritarian playbook? The first lesson is that threat inflation works. Most Americans do not know much about Antifa beyond what they hear in the media. In this knowledge vacuum, Trump’s framing of a “shadowy, violent conspiracy” gains traction. It is far easier to scare the public with caricatures than to explain the movement’s decentralized reality. Countering this requires relentless public education and narrative reframing.
The second lesson is that facts alone are not enough. Pointing out that the order has no legal authority is necessary but insufficient. Authoritarian appeals work because they activate fear, not because they withstand rational scrutiny. The administration thrives on affect, not accuracy.
A third lesson is the importance of reframing. Anti-fascism must not be allowed to stand in the public mind as extremism. It should be articulated as civic virtue: the defence of democratic norms against authoritarian movements. Reframing anti-fascism as patriotism undermines the administration’s attempt to equate dissent with terror.
Finally, solidarity is essential. Authoritarian strategies depend on isolating dissenters—making them appear as lone radicals. Building broad, visible coalitions across labor, racial justice, climate, feminist, and LGBTQ movements resists that isolation. Social psychology tells us that belonging is a shield against repression. When dissent is collective, it cannot be so easily stigmatized.
What the Left Should Do
For the left, the task is not only legal but psychological. The first step is to expose the legal vacuum at the heart of the executive order. It changes nothing in law, but Trump thrives on the illusion of decisive action. Stripping him of that aura is crucial.
At the same time, anti-fascism must be reclaimed as patriotism. The administration wants the public to see anti-fascists as threats to the nation. The counter-narrative should be clear: they are defending the very democratic principles that Trump is undermining.
Coalition-building is another urgent necessity. Authoritarian leaders target groups piecemeal. Only when movements unite can they resist the divide-and-conquer strategy. The more cross-cutting solidarity is built, the harder it becomes to demonize dissent.
Activists must also prepare for intensified repression. Surveillance, subpoenas, and harassment are likely. Training in legal rights, digital security, and movement discipline reduces the psychological power of these tactics. Repression thrives on fear and disorientation; preparation deflates both.
Finally, the authoritarian psychology at work must be named. Projection, simplification, moral panic, these are not random habits but systematic tools. Exposing them in real time robs them of some of their potency. The public must be shown the playbook, not just the plays.
Foreign vs. Domestic Terrorist Designations
One of the sharpest ways to see the absurdity of Trump’s order is to contrast it with the system for foreign terrorist designations. The State Department has clear statutory authority under 8 U.S.C. §1189 to designate foreign groups as terrorist organizations. Those designations carry criminal penalties for material support, allow for asset freezes, and target identifiable entities with leadership, membership, and funding streams.
Trump’s order has none of these features. Antifa has no headquarters, no leadership structure, and no membership rolls. There are no bank accounts to freeze, no training camps to dismantle, no chain of command to prosecute. The order creates no new penalties and cites no statute. It is a symbolic act of political theater masquerading as counterterrorism.
| Feature | Foreign Terrorist Organizations | Trump’s “Antifa” Order |
|---|---|---|
| Legal Basis | State Department authority under 8 U.S.C. §1189 | None. No domestic equivalent exists |
| Scope | Structured organizations abroad | Decentralized ideology at home |
| Consequences | Criminal penalties for material support; financial blacklisting | No new penalties. Only symbolic stigma |
| Enforcement | Clear organizational targets, funding streams, leadership | No membership rolls, no headquarters, no structure |
| Constitutional Concerns | Minimal, as foreign groups have no First Amendment rights | Severe. Designates a domestic political stance as terrorism |
This comparison underscores the fundamental absurdity of the order: Trump imported a counterterrorism tool designed for foreign groups and tried to use it against domestic dissent. In doing so, he trampled on constitutional protections and exposed his authoritarian instincts.
Simply Put: Naming the Real Terror
Donald Trump’s executive order is not about protecting Americans from violence. It is about weaponizing fear to silence dissent and consolidate power. By labeling anti-fascists as terrorists, he attempts to redefine opposition as treason, dissent as danger, and democracy itself as expendable in the service of his own political survival.
The order is legally hollow, but psychologically potent. It chills free speech, emboldens law enforcement bias, and expands the boundaries of acceptable authoritarian action. Its danger lies not in what it changes on paper but in what it signals about the future: that the machinery of counterterrorism can be turned inward, against the people, for political gain.
The real terror here is not Antifa. The real terror is the authoritarian psychology on display in the Trump administration; projection, fearmongering, and the relentless manufacture of enemies. To resist it, the people must fight on both legal and psychological fronts: stripping away the aura of strength, exposing the emptiness of the order, and reclaiming anti-fascism as the democratic instinct it has always been.
Sources
Designating Antifa as a Domestic Terrorist Organization – The White House
On Trump's Anti-Antifa Executive Order | Cato at Liberty Blog
Trump's Terrorism Designation of Antifa: Meaningless or Serious Threat? - Charity & Security Network
DHS is Fighting Back Against Antifa Violence | Homeland Security
References
Altemeyer, B. (1996). The authoritarian specter. Harvard University Press.
Bray, M. (2017). Antifa: The anti-fascist handbook. Melville House Publishing.
Stanley, J. (2018). How fascism works: The politics of us and them. Random House.
Sunstein, C. R. (2009). Going to extremes: How like minds unite and divide. Oxford University Press.
Table of Contents
