On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, ESR examines the irrational behaviour of Antifa as an inheritance from their chosen historical models:
“antifa 8973ag” by cantfightthetendies is licensed under CC BY 2.0
An important concept for understanding why the behavior of Antifa is not strategically rational is “propaganda of the deed”.
This is a concept with a long pedigree in left-anarchist theory, transmitted to Antifa via its minority “black flag” left anarchist faction
19th-century romantic anarchists viewed the state and capitalism as powerful illusions that could be shattered by bold, exemplary acts, thereby proving their vulnerability and offering hope to the oppressed. These deeds were intended to ignite the spirit of revolt by alerting the masses to the possibility of revolution, much like a spark that could set off a larger fire — thus, the emphasis on symbolic targets over objectively effective ones.
This kind of political communication could be effective if a majority of society, or at least a critical minority, are seething cauldrons of resentment just begging to be triggered against their oppressors. It also assumes that the revolutionary rage of the masses can, once unleashed, be effectively directed against Antifa’s enemies.
Both assumptions are highly questionable, but the important thing to understand for purposes of predicting Antifa’s behavior is that (a) Antifa behaves as though it still believes them, and (b) Antifa’s aboveground allies don’t have the capacity to restrain its behavior in detail.
The Gramscian infiltrators in the U.S.’s institutions need to keep their links to overt terrorism deniable, so they manage it mostly by raising or lowering the temperature of public propaganda. For example, when a Democratic politician says “Abolish ICE”, describes government actions as “fascism”, or wishes death on the children of a political opponent, this is raising the temperature. The effect, the intended effect, is to license increased propaganda of the deed by Antifa.
Reminder: unceasing damnation of conservatives as fascists and Nazis constituted instructions to stochastic terrorists like Tyler Robinson that the time had come to do something like shooting Charlie Kirk through the neck.
One problem with this is that because of Antifa’s psychology and doctrine, raising the temperature is easy, but lowering it is hard. Thus, it’s not a process the Gramscians want to start unless they believe either that they have escalation dominance over their opponents, or their political position is deteriorating so rapidly that they’ll never get a better chance to induce a legitimacy collapse.
It is out of scope for this essay to analyze to what extent those conditions are true. The point is, we are in a situation where the limited control Antifa’s aboveground allies can exert is all directed towards escalation, and Antifa’s belief in “propaganda of the deed” makes this very difficult to reverse.
Antifa has probably lost sight of the fact that escalating to insurrectionary violence is premature — it doesn’t have an army or a sufficiently powerful and nearby state sponsor for that.
Thus, absent serious degradation of Antifa’s capacity by law enforcement, expect increasing violence. Including, but not limited to, the deliberate murders of law enforcement personnel and opposing politicians.
