What is Antifa? The parallels between Trump targeting the “radical left” and McCarthyism in the 1950s

It feels to many that a chilling phrase is circulating again in U.S. politics: “the enemy within.” United States Attorney General Pam Bondi suggested that the Department of Justice would go after Americans they “deem as Antifa,” promising to handle them “just like we did with cartels.”

Novelist Don Winslow took to X to warn his 1.5 million followers that Donald Trump was preparing to use Antifa as a pretext to “declare civil war” and deploy the military in U.S. cities.

It may sound apocalyptic, but a coordinated campaign of silencing perceived leftists – whatever that really truly means – is already underway. After the killing of far-right activist Charlie Kirk, teachers, journalists and even late-night host Jimmy Kimmel have been doxxed or dismissed for criticising him. The message: those who question the right risk professional ruin.

From McCarthy’s blacklists to digital witch hunts

The echoes of the 1950s Red Scare are unmistakable. Senator Joseph McCarthy’s crusade against alleged Communists depended on accusation, intimidation and the public naming of enemies. Today, similar tactics unfold on social platforms where anonymous users expose critics and tag their employers. An online version of the loyalty oath.

Vice President JD Vance told people to “call them out,” something that mirrors the logic of those Cold War hearings. It’s moral panic dressed as patriotism. Then as now, dissent is painted as disloyalty, and political fear becomes a tool of control.

Why does Trump have an Antifa fixation?

Trump’s new executive order designating Antifa a “domestic terrorist organisation” takes that paranoia a step further. Antifa – short for anti-fascist – is not actually a structured group, despite some of the things said, but a loose movement opposing far-right extremism, the likes seen from Hitler, Franco and Mussolini. There are, though, some who wear the colors or wave the flag of anti-fascism who go too far, and have opened the door for everyone to be tarred as extremists. The FBI, for its part, has repeatedly said it’s better described as an ideology, not an organisation, yet Trump insists it must be “dismantled.”

Legal scholars warn there’s no constitutional basis for treating a domestic political current as a terrorist entity.

During the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954, a lawyer famously asked, “Have you no sense of decency?” Seven decades later, it’s worth asking again. When citizens fear being labelled radicals simply for dissenting, democracy’s foundations begin to erode.

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