US President Donald Trump accused Antifa of attacking his supporters during a rally in Washington DC after reports of violent clashes emerged on Saturday night. Hundreds of thousands of pro-Trump protesters marched in the capital city to back the baseless claims of electoral fraud, holding different events like Million MAGA March, the March for Trump and Stop the Steal DC.
Small groups of counterprotesters also gathered in different parts of the city to support President-election Joe Biden’s win, leading to clashes with law enforcement and pro-Trump protesters. Taking to Twitter, the US President said that Antifa tried attacking his “innocent” supporters present at the MAGA rally but had to “ran for the hills” because they “aggressively fought back.”
“Radical Left ANTIFA SCUM was easily rebuffed today by the big D.C. MAGA Rally crowd, only to return at night, after 99% of the crowd had left, to assault elderly people and families. Police got there, but late. Mayor is not doing her job!” Trump tweeted.
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What is Antifa?
According to Merriam-Webster, the first known use of the term ‘Antifa’ was during Nazi Germany and is “borrowed from German Antifa, short for antifaschistisch.” It remains a vaguely defined militant political activist movement which identifies itself as anti-fascist. The members of the far-left group describe themselves as revolutionaries with anti-capitalist and anti-government views.
Antifa members use a range of tactics to disrupt the events held by alt-right groups which they deem fascists. They dress in black and the most extreme factions of the far-left movement carry pepper spray, knives, bricks and chains. According to an AOL report, Antifa defends the use of violence to combat the “fascist” forces and call it appropriate tactics against Trump’s “unprecedented levels of surveillance, incarceration, deportations, and police brutality and murders against the US Public”.
Trump said that Antifa tried attacking his “innocent” supporters present at the MAGA rally but had to “ran for the hills” because they “aggressively fought back.”
