From what I've learned in life, a group like antifa seems a natural target of policing actions.

Quite often (mainly because they're quite often violent).

There was an incident, I want to say last year, where a community college professor went after a right-wing protester with a bike lock. Pretty sure he went to jail.

But, we're kind of used to them here. If there's a protest, there's Antifa. And where there's Antifa (at least here), there's violence.

Most of us run of the mill liberals and leftists are entirely tired of them. They dilute our message, because it gives the Right a reason to point and go, "See?! Told you leftists were violent!"

Buh.

Than Nazis or Klansmen, whether or not violence occurred.

Right now there’s a bill introduced in the House to make wearing a mask while “intimidating people exercising their free speech” a hate crime punishable by FIFTEEN YEARS.

So the lesson a year after Charlottesville? You can be as vile and racist as you want, and there will probably be no charges filed. There certainly won’t be any bills introduced to stop Nazis from having “events” where the Nazis are starting riots, burning (tiki) torches outside synagogues, blindly shooting into crowds, running people over.

But trying to stop those same Nazis? People don’t wear masks because they’re afraid of getting arrested, they wear them because they’re afraid the Nazis will kill them. If they do get arrested, Jeff Sessions has already demonstrated that he is willing to attempt to put hundreds of peaceful demonstrators in prison for decades if one asshole breaks a window.

naming a counter protest "group' after a philosophy, then populating it for edification and consumption. I certainly was surprised when some form of organized reaction happened, but, happy about it as well. I think force sometimes has to be met w force...or in the alternative big numbers.
Maybe they think "antifah" is going to get arrested, and they want some plausible deniability when they get a mug shot...in antifah clothes. Proud boys are known protest agitators.
That's my thinking...based on your thinking...posssibly....

And pits them against each other. The philosophy of the Proud Boys is that they are a group of macho, alpha male motherfuckers who are looking to get their fight on. In fact, in order to even join the Proud Boys you have to fight a member of Antifa or other protest group, and the more people you fight, the higher your rankings go. And I exposed a while back that "Antifa" members were actually paid Russian operatives on Twitter. There's something really fucked up in this mix here.

Rather than the much more self-explanatory "Anti-Fascist"?

It's like whoever promotes "antifa" wants it to sound scary and foreign (like a terrorist group) and look that way too (with the masks).

Antifa is just the shortened version of "anti-fascism" and became the standard over time.

However, I still do think American chapters should think about "rebranding" a bit.

Nazis and their toadies have not gone away, and this is the same, long fight since the 30s.

On the other, the RW media has been controlling the narrative on what the Antifa is, and is making it a dirty word.

It's a label. That's it.

Any type of website claiming they are an "official chapter" of Antifa should be viewed with the utmost suspicion.

It simply lumps anyone who protests white supremacists and neo-nazis in with whatever strange fringe element also happens to show up the protest--for reasons not yet clear--wanting to sew chaos.

I wish people on the left would stop using the term. It's a false narrative.

I thought their whole thing was to protest/fight those fascist groups you mention.

It seems all they do is show up to fight, then cause the right wing snowflakes to retreat and build up their numbers.

They are about eradicating fascism, which sometimes necessitates violence. The end goal being a more peaceful world free of racism, fascism, and the like (but engaging in violence to fight fascists may be necessary to get there).

WWII proved this.

They are "Anti-Fascist" so they probably know what is and is not fascism.

anything the conspiracy theorists dream up.

both in the American Air Forces in WW2. Heroes actually.

Basically you have people who might naturally show up to peacefully protest or counter protest white supremacists or neo-Nazis because of common sense and decency.

And then every once in a while some strange people dressed in black and wearing face masks will show up to these protests and for whatever reason seem more interested in creating chaos and provoking a situation. It’s extremely weird and out of the blue.

What the right has done—somewhat successfully in certain circles—is somehow to combine these two disparate groups and label them “Antifa”, and basically turn them into some shadowy terrorist group.

As if it’s a real group or organization.

It’s not.

There’s no real, legitimate group called Antifa. It’s a fictitious narrative meant to demonize left leaning protesters and create undeserving sympathy for white nationalists.

When youre being lied to 24/7...you DON"T don it at your peril. I think we know now, dt wants us to be in peril. He has loans to pay and stuff to hide.

I'm of the point where I think everything is suspect what Trump and his goons and supporters are doing to us. They want us dead, it's that intense. I don't think there's a whole lot that's legitimate about what's going on right now. Question everything.