Trump Asked Influencers to Snitch on Antifa Like It’s a McCarthy-Era Blacklist

So, Trump spent an hour and a half yesterday asking conservative influencers to snitch on Antifa’s funders like he’s crowdsourcing a McCarthy-era blacklist. One guy brought him a burned flag and Trump acted like he’d just been handed the Ark of the Covenant. The whole spectacle would be funny if it wasn’t so transparently stupid. Anyone with a brain understands that Antifa isn’t a thing you can join. There’s no headquarters.

No membership dues. No secret handshake. It’s like trying to arrest everyone who’s ever said they’re anti-racism or pro-democracy. These aren’t organizations - they’re positions. But Trump sat there telling people to report names to the FBI director like he’s building a case against the Illuminati. And Kristi Noem - the woman who murdered her own dog after it ruined a hunt and killed some chickens - stood up and compared kids in black hoodies to Hezbollah.

With a straight face. While presenting zero evidence that anyone calling themselves Antifa has access to rockets, organized cells, or international funding networks. But sure, totally the same thing. The tell is in what Trump actually said. Not the part about Antifa being dangerous - that’s the cover story. The revealing part was when he said “we’re going to be looking very strongly at the people that are funding these operations” and then added “probably some of the people I know, some of the people I dine with.”

So he’s threatening to prosecute his own dinner companions if they donate to the wrong causes. That’s not fighting terrorism. That’s using law enforcement to control wealthy people’s political donations. Which is exactly the kind of thing you’d expect from someone who spent his first term shaking down everyone for loyalty. The burned flag bit deserves its own paragraph because it’s so perfectly absurd. MAGA influencer Nick Sortor brought Trump a charred piece of fabric from Portland - a city Trump has apparently decided is just one continuous riot from 2020 until now - and Trump immediately demanded prosecutions.

Never mind that the Supreme Court settled this in 1989. Trump wants to imprison people for a year over symbolic speech because it makes good television. Meanwhile, the Proud Boys - an actual organization with leaders and a command structure whose members literally went to prison for seditious conspiracy - barely get mentioned. The Oath Keepers? Nothing. But some loosely affiliated protesters who show up to counter-demonstrations?

National security threat requiring multi-agency investigation. The playbook is obvious. Trump wants federal troops in Democratic cities. Courts keep blocking him because you can’t just deploy the military against American citizens for protesting. So he’s manufacturing a terrorism threat to justify it. Stephen Miller gets to lead the crackdown, and the people who fund these groups are next. The IRS and Treasury Department get weaponized against left-wing donors.

And it’s all wrapped in this performance about protecting ICE agents and defending democracy. What’s frustrating isn’t that it’s happening - authoritarians always try this stuff. What’s frustrating is watching people treat it like a legitimate policy discussion instead of what it obviously is: using law enforcement to criminalize political opposition. You want to know the difference between Antifa and an actual terrorist organization?

Hezbollah has an annual budget in the hundreds of millions, a military wing with thousands of fighters, and launches actual rockets at other countries. Antifa has people who show up to protests? Sometimes they break windows? Or key a Tesla? One time someone threw a sub sandwich? The threat assessment doesn’t remotely match the response. Which means the response isn’t about the threat - it’s about something else entirely.

Correction, September 28th, 2026: This essay first said Stephen Miller gets to coordinate investigations into universities and nonprofits - Attorney General Pam Bondi said Miller is leading the crackdown on Antifa, and nobody at the event put him in charge of investigating universities. It also said Trump spent two hours asking influencers to snitch on Antifa members - the event ran about an hour and a half, and he asked them for the names of Antifa’s funders; and it misspelled Nick Sortor’s name.

Update, September 28th, 2026: A line now says Kristi Noem’s dog had also killed some chickens before she shot it, by her own account. Apostrophes and quote marks lost in an old publishing glitch are back, each quote checked against its source.