Fascism in the United States is an expression offascist political ideology that dates back over a century in theUnited States, with roots inwhite supremacy,nativism,xenophobia and violentpolitical extremism. Although it has received less scholarly attention thanfascism in Europe, particularlyNazi Germany, scholars say thatfar-right authoritarian movements have been a part of thepolitics of the United States for a long time.[1]
Scholars believe that early 20th-century groups such as theKu Klux Klan and domestic proto-fascist organizations that existed during theGreat Depression were the originators of fascism in the U.S. These groups flourished during periods of social and political unrest.[1] Alongside homegrown movements, German-backed political organizations worked to influence U.S. public opinion towards the Nazi cause duringWorld War II. After the U.S.'s formal declaration of war against Germany, the U.S. Treasury Department raided theGerman American Bund's headquarters and arrested its leaders. Both during and after World War II, Italiananti-fascist activists and other anti-fascist groups played a role in confronting these ideologies.
Events such as the2017 Charlottesville rally have exposed the persistence ofracism,antisemitism, andwhite supremacy withinU.S. society. The resurgence of fascist rhetoric in contemporary U.S. politics, particularly under theadministration of Donald Trump, has highlighted the persistence offar-right ideologies, and it has also rekindled questions and debates about the history of fascism in the United States.[1]
The origins of fascism in the United States date back to the 19th century with roots inslavery in theAntebellum South and theConfederacy,[2] the subsequent passage ofJim Crow laws in theAmerican South, the rise of theeugenicist discourse in the U.S., and the intensification ofnativist andxenophobic hostility towardsimmigrants. During the early 20th century, several groups that have been classified as fascist organizations by contemporary historians were formed in the United States – a prominent organization is theKu Klux Klan.[1]
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), or "the Klan," is anAmerican Protestant-ledChristian extremist,white supremacist,far-righthate group which was founded in 1865 during the post-Civil WarReconstruction era in the devastated South.
Scholars have characterized the Klan as America's firstterrorist group[3][4][5][6] and they have compared its emergence to the emergence offascist trends in Europe.[7] Historian Peter Amann states that: "Undeniably, the Klan had some traits in common with European fascism—chauvinism, racism, a mystique of violence, an affirmation of a certain kind of archaic traditionalism—yet their differences were fundamental. ... [The KKK] never envisioned a change of political or economic system."[8]
The first Klan, founded by Confederate veterans, assaulted and murdered politically active Black people and their white political allies in theSouth.[9] The second Klan was formed in 1915 as a small group inGeorgia and it flourished nationwide by the mid-1920s.[10]
The rise of fascism in Europe during theinterwar period raised concerns in the U.S.; however, European fascist regimes were largely viewed positively by the Americanruling class. This was because fascist interpretations ofultranationalism allowed a nation to gain a significant amount of economic influence in theWestern world and permitted a nation's government to destroy leftists andlabor movements.[11]
During the 1920s, American scholars frequently wrote about the rise ofItalian fascism underBenito Mussolini, but few of them supported it; however, Mussolini's fascist policies initially gained widespread support amongItalian Americans.[12][13]
William Phillips, who served as theAmerican ambassador to Italy, was "greatly impressed by the efforts of Benito Mussolini to improve the conditions of the masses" and found "much evidence" in support of the fascist argument that "they represent a truedemocracy in as much as the welfare of the people is their principal objective."[14]
Phillips found Mussolini's achievements "astounding [and] a source of constant amazement" and greatly admired his "great human qualities."United States Department of State officials enthusiastically agreed with Phillips' assessment, praising Italian fascism for having "brought order out of chaos, discipline out of license, and solvency out of bankruptcy," as well as Mussolini's "magnificent" achievements in Ethiopia during theSecond Italo-Ethiopian War.[14]
The American poetEzra Pound moved from the United States to Italy in 1924, becoming a loyal supporter ofBenito Mussolini, the founder of a fascist state. He wrote articles and produced radio broadcasts that were critical of the United States, international bankers, Franklin Roosevelt, and the Jews. Hispropaganda was poorly received in the U.S.[15]
In November 1925, theOrder Sons of Italy in America helped organize the first U.S. Fascist convention inPhiladelphia. The goal of the convention was "setting up Fascist infiltration into political organizations and mutual aid societies so as to create friendly ties and spiritual agreement".[16] After World War II, the organization faced criticism for the "heavy involvement by the OSIA in Mussolini's Fascist propaganda campaign in the 1920s and 1930s".[17]
In 1925,Virgil Effinger established the paramilitaryBlack Legion, a violent white supremacist offshoot of the KKK that sought to establish fascism in the United States by launching a revolution against thefederal government.[18] The Black Legion was active in theMidwestern United States in the 1920s and the 1930s and grew to prominence during theGreat Depression. TheFBI estimated its membership numbered "at 135,000, including a large number of public officials, includingDetroit's police chief."[19] Historians have suggested lower estimates.[20][21]
The Black Legion is widely viewed as having been an even more violent and radical offshoot of the Klan.[22] In 1936, the group was suspected of having killed as many as 50 people, according to theAssociated Press, including Charles Poole, an organizer for the federalWorks Progress Administration. Eleven men were found guilty of Poole's murder.[19] The Associated Press described the organization as "a group of loosely federated night-riding bands operating in several States without central discipline or common purpose beyond the enforcement by lash and pistol of individual leaders' notions of 'Americanism.'"[23] Nearly 50 Legionnaires were ultimately convicted of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, kidnapping, arson, and perjury.[24] Although it was responsible for numerous attacks, the Black Legion remained limited in size and ultimately petered out.[18]
FatherCharles Coughlin was aRoman Catholicpriest who hosted a prominentradio program in the late 1930s, on which he often ventured into politics. In 1932, he backed and welcomed the election of President Franklin Roosevelt, but the two had a falling out after 1934. His radio program and his newspaper, "Social Justice," denounced Roosevelt, as well as the "big banks" and "the Jews."[25] When the United States entered World War II, the U.S. government took his radio broadcasts off the air and blocked his newspaper from the mail. He abandoned politics but remained a parish priest until he died in 1979.[25]
The American architect-to-bePhilip Johnson was a correspondent (in Germany) for Coughlin's newspaper between 1934 and 1940 (before beginning his architectural career). He wrote articles that were favorable to the Nazis and critical of "the Jews," as well as taking part in a Nazi-sponsored press tour, in which he covered the 1939 Naziinvasion of Poland. He quit the newspaper in 1940, was investigated by the FBI, and was cleared for army service in World War II. Years later, he would refer to these activities as "the stupidest thing[sic] I ever did ... [which] I never can atone for."[26]
Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933.[27] In the years that followed, before the outbreak of World War II, someGerman-Americans attempted to create pro-Nazi movements in the U.S., often bearingswastikas and wearing uniforms.[28] These groups had little to do with Nazi Germany, and they lacked support from the wider German-American community.[29]
Across the U.S., so many small groups sprang up wearing uniforms and identifying as fascist that in 1934, theAmerican Civil Liberties Union released a pamphlet titled "Shirts! A Survey of the New 'Shirt' Organizations in the United States Seeking a Fascist Dictatorship" detailing the gold, silver, brown, black, gray, white and blue-colored shirt liveries of the different emergent fascist groups.[30]
In May 1933,Heinz Spanknöbel, a German immigrant to America, received authority fromRudolf Hess, the deputy führer of Germany, to form an official American branch of theNazi Party. The branch was known as theFriends of New Germany in the U.S.[29] The Nazi Party referred to it as the National Socialist German Workers' Party of the U.S.A.[27] Though the party had a strong presence in Chicago, it remained based in New York City, having received support from the German consul in the city. Spanknöbel's organization was openly pro-Nazi. Members stormed the German-language newspaperNew Yorker Staats-Zeitung and demanded that the paper publish articles sympathetic to Nazis. Spanknöbel's leadership was short-lived, as he was deported in October 1933 following revelations that he had not registered as a foreign agent.[29]
Some American corporations had branches in neutral countries that traded with Germany after the U.S. declared war in late 1941.[31]
TheGerman American Bund was the most prominent and well-organized fascist organization in the United States. It was founded in 1936, following the model ofHitler's Nazi Germany. It appeared shortly after the founding of several smaller groups, including theFriends of New Germany and theSilver Legion of America, founded in 1933 byWilliam Dudley Pelley and theFree Society of Teutonia. The Friends of New Germany dissolved in December 1935 when Hess ordered all German citizens to leave the group after realizing that the organization was not beneficial to advancing their cause.[29]
TheGerman American Bund, led byFritz Kuhn, was formed in 1936 and lasted until America formally entered World War II in 1941. The Bund existed with the goal of a united America under ethnic German rule and following Nazi ideology. It proclaimedcommunism as its main enemy and expressedanti-Semitic attitudes.[29] After March 1, 1938, membership in the German-American Bund was only open toAmerican citizens of German descent.[32][33] Its main goal was to promote a favorable view of Nazi Germany. The Bund was active, providing its members with uniforms and encouraging participation in "training camps."[34]
Inspired by theHitler Youth, the Bund created its youth division, where members "took German lessons, received instructions on how to salute the swastika, and learned to sing the 'Horst Wessel Lied' and other Nazi songs."[35] The Bund continued to justify and glorify Hitler and his movements in Europe during the outbreak of World War II. AfterGermany invaded Poland in 1939, Bund leaders released a statement demanding that America stay neutral in the ensuing conflict and expressed sympathy for Germany's war effort. The Bund reasoned that this support for the German war effort was not disloyal to the United States, as German-Americans would "continue to fight for a Gentile America free of all atheistic Jewish Marxist elements."[35]
The Bund held rallies withNazi insignia and procedures such as theHitler salute. Its leaders denounced the administration of PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt,Jewish-American groups,communism, "Moscow-directed"trade unions, and Americanboycotts of German goods.[36] They claimed thatGeorge Washington was "the first Fascist" because he did not believe that democracy would work.[37]
The high point of the Bund's activities was theirrally atMadison Square Garden in New York City on February 20, 1939, with around 20,000 people in attendance.[38] Theanti-Semitic speakers repeatedly referred toPresident Roosevelt as "Frank D. Rosenfeld," calling hisNew Deal the "Jew Deal," as well as denouncing the supposedBolshevik-Jewish American leadership.[39] The rally ended with violence between protesters and the Bund's "storm-troopers."[40] In 1939, America's top fascist, the Bund's leaderFritz Julius Kuhn, was investigated by the city of New York and was found to be embezzling the Bund's funds for his personal use. He was arrested, his citizenship was revoked, and he was deported.
The U.S. Army organized a draft in 1940 to bring citizens into military service. The Bund advised its members not to submit to the draft. Based on this advice, the U.S. government outlawed the Bund, and Kuhn fled to Mexico.
After many internal and leadership disputes, the Bund's executive committee agreed to disband the party on December 8, 1941, the day after theattack on Pearl Harbor. On December 11, 1941, the United States formally declared war on Germany, and Treasury Department agents raided Bund headquarters. The agents seized all records and arrested 76 Bund leaders.[35]
Canada and the United States battled theAxis powers during World War II. As part of the war effort, they suppressed the fascist movements within their borders, which were already weakened by the widespread public perception that they werefifth columns. This suppression consisted of theinternment of fascist leaders, the disbanding of fascist organizations, thecensorship of fascist propaganda, and pervasive government propaganda against fascism. In the U.S., this campaign of suppression culminated in "The Great Sedition Trial" of November 1944, in whichGeorge Sylvester Viereck,Lawrence Dennis,Elizabeth Dilling,William Dudley Pelley,Joe McWilliams,Robert Edward Edmondson,Gerald Winrod, William Griffin, and, in absentia,Ulrich Fleischhauer were all put on trial for aiding the Nazi cause, supporting fascism and isolationism. However, after the judge's death, a mistrial was declared, and all charges were dropped.[41]
In the 1980s, theOffice of Special Investigations estimated around ten thousandNazi war criminals entered the United States from Eastern Europe after the conclusion of World War II, albeit the number has since been determined to have been much smaller.[42][43]
Some were brought inOperation Paperclip, a project to bring German scientists and engineers to the U.S. Most Nazi collaborators entered the United States through the 1948 and 1950Displaced Persons Acts and theRefugee Relief Act of 1953. Supporters of the acts exhibited only slight awareness that Nazi war criminals would exploit the legislation to enter the United States. Most of the supporters' concern was about disallowing known communists from entering. Similarly, after the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, the global focus shifted from fascism to communism as the next perceived ideological threat. Pressures of theCold War in the years after World War II when the United States focused on counteringSoviet communism more than Nazism contributed to this shift in focus.[42] The totalitarian nature of Nazism had already demonstrated how dangerous centralized, authoritarian regimes could be. As the Soviet Union expanded its influence across Eastern Europe and supported communist movements worldwide, many Americans began to fear a similar form of totalitarianism taking root at home. This anxiety was intensified by events such as the Soviet Union’s successful atomic bomb test in 1949 and the communist revolution in China. These developments, combined with revelations of Soviet espionage in the U.S., fueled widespread suspicion and led to the SecondRed Scare, during which government officials, educators, and entertainers were investigated for alleged communist ties.[44][45][46]
During the 1950s, theImmigration and Naturalization Service conducted several investigations into suspected Nazi war criminals. No official trials came from these investigations. The Holocaust and the possibility of Nazi collaborators living in the country entered the national discussion in the 1960s with the trial ofAdolf Eichmann, accusations of war criminals during Soviet war crimes trials, and a series of articles published by Charles R. Allen detailing the presence of Nazi war criminals living in the U.S. The federal government began to focus on uncovering Nazi war criminals remaining in the country.[42]
Public awareness of the Holocaust and remaining Nazi war criminals increased in the 1970s. Many cases made headline news. The case ofHermine Braunsteiner, the first Nazi war criminal to be extradited from the United States, received widespread media coverage. The case triggered the Immigration and Naturalization Service to locate Nazi collaborators further. By the late 1970s, INS addressed thousands of cases, and the U.S. government formed the Office of Special Investigations, which was dedicated to locating Nazi war criminals in the United States.[42]
Neo-Nazism began to emerge as an ideology in the 1970s, seeking to revive and implement Nazi ideology.[47] In the United States, organizations such as theAmerican Nazi Party, theNational Alliance, andWhite Aryan Resistance were formed during the second half of the 20th century.[48] While initially composed of distinctive movements, in the 21st century, many U.S. Neo-Nazi groups have moved towards more decentralized organization and online social networks with a terroristic focus.[49]
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In 1959, theAmerican Nazi Party was founded byGeorge Lincoln Rockwell, a former U.S. Navy commander, who was dismissed from the Navy due to his espousal of fascist political views.[50]
Headquartered inArlington, Virginia, the organization was initially named the World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists, intended to denote opposition to state ownership of property. The same year, it was renamed the American Nazi Party to attract 'maximum media attention.'[51]
The party was based primarily upon the ideals and policies of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party in Germany during theNazi era and embraced its uniforms andiconography. Since the late 1960s, several small groups had used the name "American Nazi Party," with most being independent of each other and disbanding before the 21st century.[52][A]
On August 25, 1967, Rockwellwas shot and killed inArlington byJohn Patler, a former party member who Rockwell had previously expelled due to his espousal of his alleged "Bolshevik leanings."[50] The party was dissolved in 1983.
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TheNational Alliance was aneo-Nazi,[55] white supremacist[55][56][57][58] political organization founded byWilliam Luther Pierce, author ofThe Turner Diaries, in 1974 and based inMill Point,West Virginia. It was the largest and most active neo-Nazi group in the United States in the 1990s.[59][48] In 2002, its membership was estimated at 2,500 with an annual income of $1 million.[60]
Its membership declined after Pierce died in 2002, and after a split in its ranks in 2005, it became largely defunct.[55][61] According to theSouthern Poverty Law Center, the National Alliance had lost most of its members by 2020 but is still visible in the U.S.[59][49] Other groups, such asAtomwaffen Division, have taken its place.[62]
TheNational Socialist Movement (NSM or NSM88)[fn 1] is a US-based Neo-Nazi organization that was founded in 1974.[63][64] TheAnti-Defamation League has described the NSM as "one of the more explicitly neo-Nazi groups in the United States." It seeks the transformation of theUnited States into awhite ethnostate from whichJews, non-Whites, and members of theLGBTQ community would be expelled and barred from citizenship.[65][66]
Once considered to be the largest and most prominent neo-Nazi organization in the United States, its membership has plummeted since the late 2010s.[65] It is a part of theNationalist Front[67] and is classified as a hate group by theSouthern Poverty Law Center.[66]
The Atomwaffen Division was a neo-Nazi terrorist group founded in the United States in 2015 that was responsible for at least 11 murders. Atomwaffen adhered to the ideology ofaccelerationism, waging a war against the government to overthrow it and install an all-white fascist state.[68][69] The Atomwaffen Division has been reported as disbanded by several news outlets as of November 10, 2024.[70][71]
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From 11 to 12 August 2017, theUnite the Right rally, a white-nationalist event,[72][73][74] took place inCharlottesville, Virginia.[75][76][77] It was organized byRichard B. Spencer andJason Kessler, both Neo-Nazism adherents.[78][79][80][81] Marchers included members of thealt-right,[82]neo-Confederates,[83]neo-fascists,[84] white nationalists,[85]neo-Nazis,[86] Klansmen,[87] and far-rightmilitias.[88]
Some groups chanted racist and antisemitic slogans and carried weapons, Nazi and neo-Nazi symbols, thevalknut,Confederate battle flags,Deus vult crosses, flags, and other symbols of various past and present antisemitic andanti-Islamic groups.[93] The organizers' stated goals included the unification of the American white nationalist movement[82] and opposing the proposed removal of thestatue of General Robert E. Lee from Charlottesville's formerLee Park.[91][94] The rally sparked a national debate overConfederate iconography,racial violence, and white supremacy.[95]
Patriot Front is an American white supremacist and neo-fascist hate group.[96] Part of the broader alt-right movement, the group split off from the neo-Nazi organizationVanguard America in the aftermath of the Unite the Right rally in 2017.[97][98][99][100]
Patriot Front's aesthetic combines traditionalAmericana with fascist symbolism. Internal communications within the group indicated it had approximately 200 members as of late 2021.[101] According to theAnti-Defamation League, the group generated 82% of reported incidents in 2021 involving the distribution of racist, antisemitic, and other hateful propaganda in the United States, comprising 3,992 incidents in every continental state.[102]
Aryan Freedom Network is a Klan-affiliatedChristian Identity neo-Nazi group founded in Texas in 2018. According to the Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium, Aryan Freedom Network has as many as 1,500 members as of late 2025, which would make it the biggest neo-Nazi group in the US, rest of the neo-Nazi groups having only some hundreds of members.[103]
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A growing number of political scientists, historians, journalists, and former officials have increasingly characterizedDonald Trump, the 45th and 47th president of the United States, as a fascist, especially during his2024 presidential campaign andsecond term as president.Trumpism has been likened toBenito Mussolini'sItalian fascism[105] andsignificant academic research suggests the prevalence of fascism and neo-fascism within Trumpism.[106][107] Some historians and election experts have further compared Trump's anti-democratic tendencies andegotistical personality to the sentiments andrhetoric of Benito Mussolini and Italian fascism.[104] Similarly, many have characterized Trump as authoritarian and populist.[108][109]
Madeleine Albright, the formersecretary of state, warned in a book about fascism in 2018.[110] Some scholars have drawn comparisons between the political stylings of Donald Trump and fascist leaders. Such assessments began duringTrump's 2016 presidential campaign,[111][112] continuing throughout thefirst Trump presidency as he appeared to court far-right extremists,[113][114][115][116] including hisattempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election after losing toJoe Biden,[117] and culminating in the2021 United States Capitol attack.[118]
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The attack on the United States Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump on January 6, 2021, has been compared by some to theBeer Hall Putsch,[119] a failed coup attempt in Germany by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler against theWeimar government in 1923.[120]
In "Trump and the Legacy of a Menacing Past",Henry Giroux argued that understanding the rise of "fascist politics" in the U.S. necessitates examining the power of language, social media, and public spectacle in fostering American-style fascism.[121]Jason Stanley argued in 2018 that Trump employed "fascist techniques" to mobilize his base and weaken liberal democratic institutions.[122] Trump has also been compared to Indian Prime MinisterNarendra Modi,[123] while former aideAnthony Scaramucci compared Trump to Benito Mussolini andAugusto Pinochet.[124]
Since Trump was elected to office in 2016, many academics have compared Trump's politics to fascism. Several have pointed out that contrasts exist between historical fascism and Trump's politics. Some also argued that "fascist elements" have operated within and around Trump's movement. Following the January 6 attack, some voices within the academic community felt that things had changed and that Trump's politics and connections with fascism deserved greater scrutiny.[125][126]According to an October 2024 poll held byABC News andIpsos, 49% of American registered voters considered Trump to be a fascist,[a] defined in the poll as "a political extremist who seeks to act as a dictator, disregards individual rights and threatens or uses force against their opponents."[127] AnotherYouGov survey from the same year reported that about 20% of Americans believed that Trump saw Hitler as completely bad; among Republican respondents, four in ten believed that Trump held such position. The same poll reported that nearly half of Trump voters would continue to support a political candidate even if he or she stated that Hitler had done some good things, a position that was held by a quarter of all respondents.[128]
Anti-fascist Italian expatriates in the United States founded theMazzini Society inNorthampton, Massachusetts, in September 1939 to work toward ending Fascist rule in Italy. As political refugees from Mussolini's regime, they disagreed among themselves on whether to ally with communists and anarchists or to exclude them. In 1942, the Mazzini Society joined other anti-Fascist Italian expatriates in the Americas at a conference inMontevideo, Uruguay. They unsuccessfully promoted one of their members,Carlo Sforza, to become the post-Fascist leader of a republican Italy. The Mazzini Society dispersed after the overthrow of Mussolini as most of its members returned to Italy.[129][130]
During theSecond Red Scare, which occurred in the United States in the years that immediately followed the end of World War II, the term "premature anti-fascist" came into currency. It was used to describe Americans who had actively agitated or worked against fascism, such as Americans who had fought for theRepublicans during theSpanish Civil War before fascism was seen as a proximate and an existential threat to the United States (which only occurred generally after theinvasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and only occurred universally after theattack on Pearl Harbor). The implication was that such persons were either communists or communist sympathizers whose loyalty to the United States was suspect.[131][132][133] However, the historiansJohn Earl Haynes andHarvey Klehr have written that no documentary evidence of the U.S. government's references to American members of theInternational Brigades as "premature antifascists" has been found: instead, all of the records of theFBI, theOSS, and theUnited States Army contained terms such as "Communist," "Red," "subversive," and "radical". Indeed, Haynes and Klehr indicate that they have found many examples of members of theXV International Brigade and their supporters sardonically referring to themselves as "premature antifascists."[134]
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Modern antifa politics can be traced back to opposition to the infiltration of Britain'spunk scene bywhite power skinheads in the 1970s and 1980s and the emergence of neo-Nazism in Germany following thefall of the Berlin Wall. In Germany, young leftists, including anarchists and punk fans, renewed the practice of street-level anti-fascism. ColumnistPeter Beinart writes that "in the late '80s, left-wing punk fans in the United States began following suit, though they initially called their groupsAnti-Racist Action (ARA) on the theory that Americans would be more familiar with fighting against racism than they would be with fighting against fascism".[135]
Dartmouth College historian Mark Bray, author ofAntifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, credits the ARA as being the precursor to modern antifa groups in the United States. In the late 1980s and 1990s, ARA activists toured with popular punk rock and skinhead bands to prevent Klansmen, neo-Nazis, and other assorted white supremacists from recruiting.[136][137] Their motto was "We go where they go," meaning that they would confront far-right activists in concerts and they would actively remove their materials from public places.[138] In Pennsylvania in 2002, the ARA disrupted a speech byMatthew F. Hale, the head of the white supremacist groupWorld Church of the Creator, resulting in a fight and twenty-five arrests. In 2007,Rose City Antifa, likely the first group to utilize the name Antifa, was formed inPortland, Oregon.[139][140][141] Other antifa groups in the United States have other genealogies. In 1987, inBoise, Idaho, the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment (NWCAMH) was created in response to the annualAryan Nations meeting nearHayden Lake, Idaho. The NWCAMH brought together over 200 affiliated public and private organizations and it also helped people across six states--Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming.[142] InMinneapolis, Minnesota, a group which called itself the Baldies was formed in 1987 for the purpose of directly fighting against neo-Nazi groups. In 2013, the "most radical" chapters of the ARA formed theTorch Antifa Network,[143] which has chapters throughout the United States.[144] Other antifa groups are parts of different associations, such as NYC Antifa, or they operate independently.[145]
Modern anti-fascism in the United States is a highlydecentralizedleaderless resistance movement. Antifapolitical activists areanti-racists who engage inprotest tactics, seeking to combat fascists and racists such as neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other far-right extremists.[146] This may involvedigital activism,harassment,physical violence, andproperty damage[147] against those whom they identify as belonging to the far-right.[148][149] According to antifa historian Mark Bray, most antifa activity is nonviolent, involving poster and flyer campaigns, delivering speeches, marching in protest, and community organizing on behalf of anti-racist and anti-white nationalist causes.[150][140]
A June 2020 study by theCenter for Strategic and International Studies of 893 terrorism incidents in the United States since 1994 found one attack staged by an anti-fascist that led to a fatality (the2019 Tacoma attack, in which the attacker, who self-identified as an anti-fascist, was killed by police), while attacks by white supremacists or other right-wing extremists resulted in 329 deaths.[151][152][153] Since the study was published, onehomicide has been connected to anti-fascism.[151] ADHS draft report from August 2020 similarly did not include "Antifa" as a considerable threat while noting white supremacists as the top domestic terror threat.[154]
There have been multiple efforts to discredit Antifa groups via hoaxes on social media, many of themfalse flag attacks originating from alt-right and4chan users posing as Antifa backers onTwitter.[155][156] Some hoaxes have been picked up and reported as fact by right-leaning media.[157][158]
During theGeorge Floyd protests in May and June 2020, the Trump administration blamed Antifa for orchestrating the mass demonstrations. Analysis of federal arrests did not find links to Antifa.[159] There had been repeated calls by the Trump administration to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization, a move that academics, legal experts, and others argued would both exceed the authority of the presidency and violate theFirst Amendment.[160][161][162][163]
On September 22, 2025, Trump signed an executive order intended to designate Antifa as adomestic terrorist organization.[164][165] Academics, legal experts, and others have argued such an action exceeds the authority of the presidency and violates theFirst Amendment.[161][162][163] Several analyses, reports, and studies have concluded that Antifa is not a major domestic terrorism risk.[166][154][167]
one of the nation's first terrorist groups
Historians have suggested a combination of reasons for the eventual decline of the Ku Klux Klan of the Reconstruction period: 1)growth of public sentiment in the South against activities of masked terrorists
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)Disorders attendant upon Nazi rallies in New York and Los Angeles this week again focused attention upon the Nazi movement in the United States and inspired conjectures as to its strength and influence.
...and in our political life, where a Henry Morgenthau takes the place of men like Alexander Hamilton, and a Frank D. Rosenfeld takes the place of a George Washington.
In 1939, the German American Bund organized a rally of 20,000 Nazi supporters at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
AtomWaffen Division, which has been linked to at least 11 murders worldwide
{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)One of the first groups in the United States to use the name was Rose City Antifa, which says it was founded in 2007 in Portland.
[...] Antifa, a highly decentralized movement of anti-racists who seek to combat neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and far-right extremists whom Antifa's followers consider 'fascist' [...].
Despite claims by President Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr, there is scant evidence that loosely organized anti-fascists are a significant player in protests. [...] A review of the arrests of dozens of people on federal charges reveals no known effort by antifa to perpetrate a coordinated campaign of violence. Some criminal complaints described vague, anti-government political leanings among suspects, but a majority of the violent acts that have taken place at protests have been attributed by federal prosecutors to individuals with no affiliation to any particular group.