While most rational people oppose fascism or any authoritarian government, most don’t become violent.
Every movement begins with an idea that sounds noble. Oppose tyranny. Fight fascism. Protect the oppressed. But history teaches us that ideals can mutate once rage replaces reason. That’s the uncomfortable truth behind today’s Antifa, an American network whose actions often betray the very freedom it claims to defend.
Antifa is short for Antifaschistische Aktion, a 1930s German Communist front that fought Hitler’s Brownshirts. Antifa in America traces its roots to 1930s anti-fascist movements and later reemerged in the 1980s punk and anarchist scenes as groups like Anti-Racist Action confronted neo-Nazis in the streets. After 2016, Antifa gained national visibility during protests and riots in cities like Berkeley, Portland, and Seattle, where confrontations often turned violent. While far less extreme than organized insurgent groups abroad, the warning signs are unmistakable. Its trajectory shows how movements that begin with moral conviction can drift toward aggression and chaos when confrontation becomes the goal instead of justice.
Equating a handful of masked militants in Portland with the soldiers who stormed Normandy is not only absurd, it’s historically dishonest. Since 2016, the black-bloc style of protest has repeatedly evolved into assault and arson. Here are some examples of the hundreds of instances of violence:
Sacramento 2016: counter-protesters, including Antifa-affiliated activists, confronted a group hosting a rally. Among the outcomes: at least eight people were injured (five of them stabbed) in the clashes.
Berkeley 2017: fires, smashed windows, and $100,000 in campus damage during protests of a college speaker.
Portland 2019: journalist Andy Ngo beaten unconscious while filming a rally.
Summer 2020: nightly riots outside federal buildings left dozens of officers injured, vehicles burned, and downtowns barricaded.
Atlanta 2023: Molotov cocktails hurled at officers guarding the “Cop City” training site.
Seattle 2024: a journalist chased and bloodied during a university protest.
These are not isolated incidents or random clashes. These are patterns, documented on video, acknowledged even by local Democrat mayors, and costing taxpayers millions in overtime and reconstruction.
Yet some commentators still affirm: “Antifa isn’t an organization, it’s just an idea.” Others claim the violence is defensive. But ideas don’t torch courthouses, burn vehicles, or assault civilians, and self-defense doesn’t include sucker-punching reporters. Calling every riot “mostly peaceful” is like calling a thunderstorm mostly sunny. It insults the victims, the business owners, and the credibility of legitimate peaceful activists. Let’s not excuse it on culture.
Those who do not know history risk repeating it. As a Colombian American, I recognize this trajectory. In the 1960s, Colombia’s FARC guerrillas started as idealists fighting inequality. By the 1990s, they were kidnapping civilians, involved in extortion, illegally mining, and trafficking cocaine. When ideology becomes license for violence, moral authority dies, and public sympathy with it. Antifa risks that same fate: the more it excuses brutality, the more ordinary citizens turn away. This movement lost its way because its ideology won over its ethics. While the scale of violence committed by Colombia’s guerrilla movements like the FARC was far more extreme, their trajectory offers a compelling cautionary example. Antifa is nowhere near that level of brutality, yet it similarly shows how movements born from ideological zeal can drift into aggression, intimidation, and moral decay when rage replaces reason. It becomes anarchy.
Defenders often romanticize Antifa’s “heritage” while denying its modern crimes. That selective memory is not education; it’s propaganda, and quite frankly, intellectually dishonest. You can’t celebrate the legacy of World War II anti-fascists while pretending not to see the fires and shattered storefronts of recent years. You cannot chant about freedom while silencing speakers with fists. To do so is to replace truth with mythology.
Authentic anti-fascism doesn’t wear masks; it stands in daylight. It builds schools, mentors voters, and debates ideas. It fights bad laws with better arguments, not with bats and firebombs. If America truly wants to inoculate itself against authoritarianism, we must model civility, not mirror the thuggery we condemn.
On the other hand, Neo-Nazis and white-supremacist groups have tried to attach themselves to political movements, only to be condemned and even removed from rallies when they appear. Those individuals represent hatred, not ideology. The difference is that such groups are publicly rejected across the political spectrum, while Antifa’s violence too often meets silence or worse, justification from those who should know better. Condemning violence should never depend on which side commits it. Yet that’s the double standard we keep seeing, where outrage is selective, accountability is uneven, and moral courage stops at party lines.
We need accountability. Law enforcement has every right to treat assaults and arson as crimes, regardless of ideology. Journalists should stop romanticizing riots as passionate resistance. Universities should defend free expression, not tolerate intimidation squads. And citizens, left or right, must refuse to excuse political violence simply because it comes from their side.
The White House’s decision to designate Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, as detailed in the official fact sheet, was neither symbolic nor premature; it was a recognition of a growing threat within our own borders. While Antifa lacks the global hierarchy and reach of foreign terror groups, its pattern of organized violence, intimidation, and digital harassment fits the textbook definition of domestic terrorism: using fear to advance political aims. Beyond street riots, Antifa’s tactics include doxing, publicly exposing private citizens and officers, along with targeted threats, online stalking, and mob-style intimidation. These actions are designed not to debate ideas but to destroy reputations and silence dissent through fear. The movement’s decentralized nature makes it harder to track, not less dangerous. Its networked aggression, on the streets and across the internet, creates fear, suppresses free expression, and destabilizes communities. In that sense, Antifa may operate at a smaller scale. Still, its intent to impose ideology through chaos places it firmly on the spectrum of political extremism that the federal government has every right, and duty, to confront.
Let me be clear: there is no fascism in America today. Fascism is when the state controls every aspect of life, when citizens vanish for speaking their minds, when elections are illusions, and fear, not freedom, decides what people say or do. It’s when people whisper instead of debating, when obedience replaces thought, and when loyalty to power becomes a matter of survival. None of that exists here. We protest freely, vote, and challenge authority every single day. We are imperfect, but we are still free. Calling our nation fascist doesn’t expose tyranny; it insults the millions who truly lived under an absolute dictatorship.
Fascism feeds on fear; liberty thrives on honesty. When we excuse violence because it comes from our side, we forfeit the moral high ground. The path back to credibility begins with truth: Antifa’s past may have noble roots, but its present bears broken bones and burned streets. Let’s oppose fascism without becoming what we hate.
Ever since Arizona passed universal school choice, the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program has been the target of the Red for Ed teachers’ union, Democrat lawmakers and their corporate media allies. They demand transparency and accountability for alleged abuse of ESA dollars—all while scandal after scandal continues to pop up in our state’s K-12 public schools.
We saw it at the beginning of the year when the Isaac Elementary School District (IESD) was placed under a state receivership after it was determined that it had a budget shortfall of over $12 million! And this wasn’t a surprise. The Auditor General had been sounding the alarm on IESD’s mismanagement of funds for five years!
But where was the corporate media? Where was the digging? Where was the series of articles and threads on X exposing the corruption?
We got none of it. Instead, we have certain Red For Ed reporters, like Craig Harris, attacking Arizona’s popular ESA program with liberal talking points about unspent funds and alleged waste and abuse.
But if the failures of IESD weren’t enough, now we have the sordid financial tale of Tolleson Union High School District, a story so scandalous that it should make every taxpayer’s blood boil…
A rising array of threats to the public and environment stemming from the boom in “green” energy technologies and the batteries they use means the time for virtue signaling by regulators and policymakers must come to an end.
In every boom time involving any type of energy source, governments at all levels inevitably find themselves behind the curve when it comes to developing an effective set of regulations designed to minimize impacts on the public and environment.
In the early years of the 21st century, Americans witnessed this phenomenon play out when it came to the oil and gas Shale Revolution, which saw its first success in the Barnett Shale region, which happened to lie in the midst of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex in north Texas. For the first time in decades, oil and gas companies found themselves struggling to drill wells and install pipelines in and adjacent to highly populated areas, leading to an array of conflicts and tensions with the public that the pre-existing regulatory structure had not been designed to resolve.
More recent years have given rise to the same societal dynamics related to boom times for the wind and solar industries. In state after state, governments have found their legacy regulations lacking when dealing with public concerns over major projects condemning large swaths of arable lands and wildlife habitats, the dumping of aged-out solar panels and wind blades in public landfills, traffic, and other impacts. Even today, 25 years into this heavily subsidized renewable energy expansion, few if any states have implemented proper regulations governing the dismantling and disposal of these often-gigantic industrial projects.
Similar concerns are now rising related to the dangers posed by lithium-ion batteries, whose use is rapidly expanding across the U.S. to power electric vehicles and provide backup for intermittent power generation provided by wind and solar. The major threat from these rechargeable batteries is their tendency to overheat and spontaneously combust under certain conditions. The problem has resulted in a proliferation of photos and videos of burning passenger and school buses, major conflagrations in large battery storage facilities, and of burned-up commercial freight ships foundering and sinking into oceans around the world.
The AP reported on Oct. 4 on rising opposition from local communities to a proposed installation of large stationary backup battery projects in or adjacent to their cities and towns. The report focused on Long Island, which could become home to an array of such installations to provide back up to multiple offshore wind projects in the coming years.
Industry proponents say the installations are perfectly safe, just as the makers of electric buses have assured city councils and school boards in recent years, only to see some of those buses erupt in flames while on their routes or in crowded bus barns with predictable results. But Michael McGinty, mayor of Island Park, is reluctant to assume the risk. “We’re not guinea pigs for anybody … we are not going to experiment, we’re not going to take risk,” he said.
An Oct. 11 report by The Epoch Times details rising concerns over the risks to airlines and travelers posed by lithium-ion batteries brought on board. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported 89 incidents during 2024 in which “lithium batteries emitted smoke, fire, or extreme heat on board planes, and up until the end of August 2025, there have been a further 61.” This troubling fact led the FAA to update its guidance on proper care and storage of such batteries on airlines in September.
In January, an Air Busan passenger jet carrying 170 passengers and six crew members was completely destroyed by a battery-caused fire on a runway in Busan, South Korea. Luckily, everyone on board was evacuated and survived, though three suffered serious injuries.
These and other significant, rising concerns surrounding wind, solar, and the batteries they use show that what proponents like to call “green” energy is neither as friendly to the environment nor as safe and benign as advertised. They also point to the very real need for public officials prone to signaling their green virtues to gullible voters to take these issues seriously and develop regulations needed to protect the public and the environment. Doing anything else is simple malpractice.
David Blackmon is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, an energy writer, and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
What’s most likely to get your local officials fired up to fight for you? Lower utility rates? Wrong. Removing sexually explicit material from our libraries? Nope. How about just filling potholes in our roads? You’d think so. But what really gets the local officials in Chandler going is making sure they can sit on city council or as mayor longer.
Proposition 410, a local ballot measure, seeks to amend the city charter’s term limit section to extend the term for how long councilmembers and the mayor can serve. The measure is particularly problematic because it directly benefits a sitting councilmember, Matt Orlando, allowing him to run for mayor in 2026 without interruption after finishing his second consecutive council term. This proposition is not about reigning in political power; it’s about conveniently clearing the path for one councilmember to extend his political career. If it doesn’t pass in November, Orlando will face issues being elected mayor after his stint on the council, and clearly, he can’t have that.
The current city charter provision essentially says that one person can serve no more than two consecutive terms as councilmember, mayor, or a combination of both, and must wait four years before running again for either office. Therefore, someone can only serve two consecutive terms total.
However, some argue this language is ambiguous, allowing for another interpretation, one that allows a person to serve up to sixteen consecutive years: eight as a councilmember and eight as mayor. This interpretation has been the practice in Chandler for the past three mayors. Kevin Hartke, Boyd Dunn, and Jay Tibshraeny each served eight years as councilmembers and eight years as mayor – sixteen consecutive years.
The proposed language change on the ballot effectively attempts to legitimize the last three mayors by expanding the term limits in the city’s charter. It now states that a person can serve up to two consecutive terms as councilmember and two consecutive terms as mayor, sixteen years total. After reaching either limit, or a combined sixteen consecutive years in both offices, they must wait four years before running again for either position.
Recently, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals Board of Professional Responsibility recommended the most drastic punishment—disbarment—for former U.S. Assistant Attorney General Jeff Clark over his private strategic counsel in the aftermath of the 2020 election. This complaint was pushed by liberal activists, showing the lengths they will go to punish individuals by going after their livelihoods despite the clear lack of criminal, unlawful, or unethical behavior.
Even past Attorneys General – William Barr, Jeff Sessions, and Michael Mukasey – filed an amicus brief to push back against this “dangerous precedent,” writing, “Disciplining Mr. Clark would open the door to charging federal lawyers with ‘dishonesty’ or ‘attempted dishonesty’ for statements made during oral arguments, theories in briefs, legal advice provided in memoranda, or even (as here) proposals in privileged internal draft documents and discussions. Such acts of political retribution would severely discourage lawyers from serving in the federal government and invite extraordinary dysfunction as federal lawyers constrain the advice they provide for fear of political retaliation by the Bar.”
Over the past decade, radical politicians and interest groups have weaponized the key to attorneys’ livelihoods over partisan disputes, as in Clark’s matter before the DC Appeals Board. These parties seek to bring their vengeance on conservative attorneys’ bar licenses, which allow them to do their jobs and provide for themselves and their families. The obvious intent of these attacks—which echo other attacks from the left such as debanking conservatives, voting against company directors, and threatening doctors’ licenses—is to terrorize and chill any conservative voices.
Attorneys are one of the most important groups to protect from these attacks because their entire job is to open the courthouse doors for their clients; if they are chilled by the left from representing certain groups, those groups will lose their constitutional rights to access the courts and have their causes zealously argued or even to receive legal advice in the first place. Simply put, if our nation is to exist in a society where attorneys feel free to perform the services their clients expect and deserve, we must enhance the protections for their licenses – especially from outside agitators who have no business engaging in this interference.
Perhaps no greater example can be found of this abuse of our judicial system than after the 2020 election in Arizona, when two respected attorneys found themselves facing legal complaints for their work to represent the Arizona Republican Party, as political officials across the country worked to hash out challenges to the hotly contested General Election. The most insidious part of the claims against these men wasn’t simply about the filings, but that a New Jersey Congressman, U.S. Representative Bill Pascrell, led the official accusations.
Most people, regardless of their understanding of our legal system, can apply good-old-fashioned common sense to conclude that lawsuits must be waged between two sides with a substantial nexus to the alleged misconduct. Yet, Pascrell had no connection to the case. He filed a complaint against the Arizona-based attorneys, which was ultimately dismissed. However, the damage was done to these attorneys’ reputations because of their fight to beat the frivolous charges from an unconnected, unhinged, partisan Democrat thousands of miles away.
Whether you agree or disagree with the efforts to extend litigation in the courts in the aftermath of the 2020 election, it is uncontestable that the left and their allies grossly abused their powers to assault, undermine, and intimidate attorneys who were attempting to do their jobs within a legal system enshrined by the American Constitution and laws. These tactics were experienced across the country, as President Trump and Republican-affiliated attorneys – like Jeff Clark – found themselves not only defending their clients but their livelihoods against increasingly personal and vicious attacks – from parties that, again, had no direct interest or tie to the case.
This reality was also seen more recently in the State of Montana, where dozens of charges were leveled against the Attorney General, the honorable and respected Austin Knudsen. The allegations were, in part, brought against Montana’s Attorney General for exercising his First Amendment right to criticize justices on the state’s Supreme Court as he worked to execute his constitutionally appropriated responsibilities to the people and legislature. Again, what was most egregious about this case was that one of the earliest steps was an ethical complaint being lodgedby a California-based attorney – hundreds of miles away from the action. Because of this complaint, Attorney General Knudsen is now fighting a serious suspension that could complicate his abilities to represent Montanans.
These cases, and plenty more, are why I have been working on legislation in Arizona to protect well-meaning, law-abiding, and ethical attorneys from fear of reprisal from outside radical left agitators. If eventually passed and signed into law, the bill would mandate [is it now law now? – no] that the State Bar of Arizona and the Supreme Court immediately dismiss all complaints against attorneys, where the complainant does not have an attorney-client relationship with the attorney or another substantial nexus to the attorney’s alleged violation or conduct, and where it is clear that the complaint is simply a difference of political opinion. In addition, I collaborated with the Arizona Supreme Court to change its rule that had allowed this persecution to take place. This reform is necessary for many good conservatives who deserve to work their profession without fear of political persecution. I’m grateful that the court made the right decision to strike the balance of protecting the public from bad attorneys while defending good attorneys from frivolous complaints.
If the events of the past decade, as our nation becomes more politically polarized, have taught us anything, it is that we must guard the legal profession to ensure that bad actors are not permitted to chase away good attorneys who are committed to doing their jobs. Not everyone will agree with the cases those attorneys assume — and that’s okay. Our nation’s judicial system, which allows parties to peacefully work out their disagreements, is part of what makes our nation the envy of the entire world. We should resolve to defend this proud institution from nefarious agitators who must not be allowed to interfere with or manipulate our hallowed judicial system.
Warren Petersen is the President of the Arizona State Senate and represents Legislative District 14.
After publishing this Substack, I came across this video of a young woman’s “detransition” story. I also learned that Texas Christian University canceled an event featuring Chloe Cole, another “detransitioner” who travels the nation sharing her testimony. The fight to protect the next generation from the evils of “transgenderism” is far from over.
This quote is from the young woman who lived as a “male” for eight years but now regrets having a double mastectomy, full hysterectomy, and genital reconstruction surgery:
“I’m so angry…and so sad. It’s like a virus, or something, that infected me. And it happened so quickly…I can’t have kids. I’ll never lose my virginity. It’s like I’m left to just accept the scraps of the life that I could have had…I don’t know how to be okay with that. I hate when people [say], ‘Everything happens for a reason.’ No, this didn’t happen for a reason. It’s just a tragedy. Call it what it is.”
In the video, you can see what appears to be mutilation scars on her left forearm. Skin grafts are typically taken from this area to construct “a penis, urethra, scrotum, and the obliteration of the vaginal cavity with closure,” an operation known as phalloplasty (or “bottom surgery”). While it is possible to correct genital deformities, the damage to her body is irreversible, and the trajectory of her future is permanently altered. She can recover some femininity, but her womanhood is gone forever.
This is the expected end of social “transitioning,” cross-dressing, and using alternative names and pronouns—all of which can be concealed by false interpretations of student privacy laws. Also, when K-12 district representatives and employees implement DEI policies, host rainbow celebrations, and defend “gender identity,” they are advocating for all of the above. No one is born in the wrong body, and anyone who supports sterilizing and castrating minors should not be trusted around children.
I always bring the “transgender” agenda back to government education because it’s an area where many parents are still asleep at the wheel. Public schools (and increasingly some private schools) are the battlefield as board members, administrators, teachers, and counselors position themselves as the enemy of parental rights. Thankfully, parents are winning in the courts, and thousands of children will never undergo “transgender” medical malpractice. Still, parents must remain vigilant in the ongoing war to assert moral authority over their children.
It’s also important to bring attention to another group that’s not doing enough to tackle the “transgender” problem. Sadly, many Christians are aiding and abetting the spread of LGBTQ ideologies and practices. Keep in mind that “Christian” is a relative term associated with thousands of denominations and cults, and can be interpreted to mean a “good person.”
On February 25, 2025, Pew Research published survey results showing that “57% [up from 54% in 2014] of U.S. Christians say homosexuality should be accepted by society; 55% [up from 44% in 2014] say same-sex marriage should be legal.” The report also reveals 29% of Christians believe greater acceptance of “transgender” individuals is “a change for the better.” The latter is a baseline number, as researchers did not ask this question in previous case studies.
Oddly enough, Barna’s 2025 study shows Millennials and Gen Z have increased their church attendance. The report says, “The typical Gen Z churchgoer now attends 1.9 weekends per month, while Millennial churchgoers average 1.8 times—a steady upward shift since the lows seen during the pandemic. These are easily the highest rates of church attendance among young Christians since they first hit Barna’s tracking.”
Before we celebrate, let’s consider that in 2004, 51% of American pastors held a biblical worldview. By 2022, just 37% of pastors had sustained a biblical worldview, while 62% held syncretistic beliefs (that is, blending Christianity with other religions). In 2023, only 36% of pastors were “very effective” in helping Christians grow their faith over time. A mere 10% were “very effective” in “growing new converts into mature Christians,” while 12% encouraged believers to share their faith, and a measly 6% reached out to non-Christians.
These are sobering statistics, and, according to Barna, the increase among Gen Z still equates to attending church “less than half the time” of older generations. So, while young people are seeking truth, many will join ministries led by compromised leaders. Gen Z’s faith might grow over time, but they won’t share it outside the church, and what they learn may not have a lasting effect. In short, the American Church produces converts without conviction and consumers without consecration, who master religious transactions without transformation.
My fellow believers, none of this is a sign of “revival.”
I have lost count of how many times we canceled Netflix, rebooked Disney vacations, and chose Walmart over Target. Jumping on a trend is not good enough. We can’t be so preoccupied with our regularly scheduled programming that we fail to address the spirit of the age that’s consuming present generations.
Are we too holy to associate with LGBTQ people because their sin looks different than ours? Are we so loving that we can’t confront sin at all? Have we settled for inviting the lost to hear watered-down preaching because we’re too biblically illiterate to usher them into the Kingdom directly? If we’re honest, most Christians wouldn’t know how to minister to that broken woman in the video. We would say, “Jesus loves you,” and hand her a flyer for the next church event.
I agreed when the woman said destroying her body didn’t happen for a reason, and she called it a tragedy. The expression, “Everything happens for a reason,” is typically what believers (and nonbelievers) say when they lack the capacity to produce genuine empathy. It’s on par with “God works in mysterious ways,” a favorite among those who cannot discern the difference between coincidence and divine appointment. Neither of these phrases is found in Scripture.
The truth is, everything does not happen for a reason. Some things—and I would argue, living in a fallen world, that most things—happen as a consequence. Our beliefs influence our actions, and actions dictate outcomes. We can only help the next generation by imitating the Berean Christians (Acts 17:11), speaking the truth in love (Eph. 4:15), and investing time in young people beyond religious activities. Some sinners will never darken the doorway of your church, but they shouldn’t have to wait until Sunday to hear the gospel.
I challenge Christians to befriend an LGBTQ person, learn their story, and, when their heart is ready, preach the full gospel to them. Don’t stop at “Jesus loves you” and a church invitation. Tell them why He was crucified. Explain that He is not only our Friend—He is also our Judge. He extends mercy to those who repent and wrath to those who reject Him. Jesus came as a lamb, but He will return as a lion. Faith in His work on the cross is the only way to life, both now and for eternity.
Never separate love from truth.
Tiffany Benson is the Founder of Restore Parental Rights in Education. Her commentaries on education, politics, and Christian faith can be viewed at Parentspayattention.com and Bigviewsmallwindow.com. Follow her on socials @realtiffanyb.
