US President Donald Trump accused Antifa of attacking his supporters during a rally in Washington DC after reports of violent clashes emerged Saturday night. Hundreds of thousands of pro-Trump protesters marched in the capital city to support the baseless claims of voter fraud, holding different events such as the Million MAGA March, March for Trump and Stop the Steal DC.
Small groups of counter-protesters also gathered in different parts of the city to support President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, sparking clashes with law enforcement and pro-Trump protesters. On Twitter, the US president said that Antifa tried to attack his “innocent” supporters present at the MAGA rally, but had to “run for the hills” because “they defended themselves aggressively.”
“The radical left ANTIFA SCUM was easily rebuffed today by the large DC MAGA Rally crowd, only to return at night, after 99% of the crowd had left, to assault older people and families. The police arrived, but late. The 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 the German Antifa, short for antifaschistisch.” It remains a loosely defined militant political activist movement that identifies itself as anti-fascist. Members of the far-left group describe themselves as revolutionaries with anti-capitalist and anti-government views.
Members of Antifa use a variety of tactics to disrupt events organized by far-right groups that they consider fascists. They dress in black and the most extreme factions of the extreme left movement carry pepper spray, knives, bricks and chains. According to an AOL report, Antifa defends the use of violence to combat “fascist” forces and calls it an appropriate tactic against Trump’s “unprecedented levels of surveillance, imprisonment, deportations and police brutality and assassinations against the American public.” .
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