President Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis and subsequent trip to Walter Reed Medical Center make last Tuesday’s presidential debate seem like it was ages ago.
But it wasn’t. And though Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden got away with not answering many of moderator Chris Wallace’s questions and dodging other issues brought up by Trump, one dodged issue in particular deserves more attention than it got in the aftermath.
During a back and forth exchange about condemning extremist groups, Trump remarked that “somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the left because [the riots are] not a right-wing problem. This is a left-wing problem.”
Biden’s only response was to dismiss the idea that the anarchistic left-wing group responsible for helping orchestrate much of the riots and chaos we’ve seen in Democrat-run cities over the last several months even existed. “Antifa is an idea, not an organization,” Biden stated.
That’s not just a bad answer; it’s a dangerous answer. Antifa very much is an organization, right down to the logo they created, the flags they carry, and the damage the cause wherever they go.
Independent journalist Andy Ngo has extensively documented Antifa’s militant activities and testified before a congressional committee earlier this year as to his experiences, including when he was attacked by members of the extremist group while reporting on their destructive actions in Portland over a year ago.
No, former Vice President Biden. Antifa is not just “an idea.” It is much m ore than that, as many business owners who have lost their livelihoods thanks to Antifa setting fires will testify to.
Ngo sustained a brain hemorrhage in the attack.
“What people need to know about Antifa is that it is an ideology and movement that includes organized cells or groups,” Ngo told Fox News in an interview after the debate. “You don’t maintain sustained months of rioting in places like Seattle and Portland without members, participants and money.”
Fox also pointed out that “Antifa has been behind violence and riots for years, with the group tracing its roots back to Portland, Ore., in 2007, but has been behind a surge in violence in cities across the country during the summer in places like Portland, where the federal courthouse was besieged by left-wing radicals for months.”
Videos are shared on social media daily of Antifa wreaking havoc in Portland and whatever other cities happen to be on their radar at any given time.
Typically, the cities they choose to wage war in are run by Democrats because they’ve learned that the respective mayors won’t stand up to them. Instead, they kneecap law enforcement officers by ordering them to more or less “stand down,” which ensures Antifa gets away with maximum destruction and mayhem.
Antifa — in concert with the more radical elements of the Black Lives Matter organization — are responsible for more than a billion dollars in riot damage, which makes the protests carried out since George Floyd’s death the “costliest U.S. civil disorder” in U.S. history, according to the news site Axios. That figure was only for the two-week period of rioting that occurred after Floyd’s death.
We’re four months out from that, and the nightly rioting and lawlessness in the cities such as Portland is still happening. So that number has to be in the billions with an “s” at this point.
No, former Vice President Biden. Antifa is not just “an idea.” It is much more than that, as many business owners who have lost their livelihoods thanks to Antifa setting fires will testify to.
If you are elected president and don’t make a concerted effort to have your Justice Department put a stop to their violent activities, you could very well end up being a one-term president, too.
Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.
