That extremism is what we might call and essentially contested concept. In laymans terms it means Different Things to different people and certainly if you were 100 terrorism experts to define extremism, you would certainly get a wide number of answers if not 100. Speaking for myself, i would define extremism as not just believing certainly there is believe and then there is action. Sometimes scholars will distinguish between the two, but believing in things that are fundamentally radical. That would imply radical change for society. Extremistords, if the political views were actualized in society, society would be thaned in fundamental ways what it is now. Made are distinctions between extremism and violent extremism, a violent extremist is somebody who believes that violence is necessary to bring about these changes. To extremism on the far right, extremism on the far left, there are differences in terms of their beliefs. Anarchist believes a much different set of beliefs than a farright good old boy. On the far left, anarchists believe that all forms of government are fundamentally legitimate and d and that man and woman cannot be free until government is abolished and replaced with local institutions based on mutual aid and direct democracy. Violent folks would believe in the use of violence to achieve those goals. Includes people that subscribe to anarchist beliefs, but some antifa supporters are not anarchists. There is a difference between the two. Host President Trump recently sought to define antifa, i want to so you show you a little bit of what he said at a briefing. We enforce our law and have no tolerance for anarchy and no zerorance 04 violence four violence. Who brings violence to police will face punishment. To the mission of antifa is to spread terror in the u. S. Population with a goal of getting americans to give up to their agenda. This is how terrorist organizations have always operated, biting will not say the name antifa, i do not think he said it today. He mentioned others, but he did not mention antifa. Law enforcement, he mentioned the police, but he did not mention antifa, and wonder what i wonder why. For i want you to define us what antifa what they are and do you agree with the president characterization . Guest i would not agree with the president s characterization, i believe the president is engaged isnt engaged in labeling which is a tactic where you define your opponents as the enemy and you mischaracterize whose who they are and what they are about. This is a lot of what we are seeing right now in the popular discourse in the media about narrative in the media. This narrative that is coming out. Itd define antifa as is not a Single Organization let alone a terrorist organization, it is actually a very loose collection of groups and individuals. Ame would characterize it as movement, others would characterize it as a network. There is no Central Command and control at the national level. Essentially ais number of dozens of local groups located in different cities of the United States and in areas andmight not think of composed of a small number of activists who organize for one, the purpose and that is to confront what they see as fascism and racism. In this case in the United States, they are committed to stopping either by force or not any attempt by far right extremists to organize and publicist publicize their views. Perspective,fa these views, the far right white supremacist views represent an americasl threat to pluralistic multicultural society. Movement,t broad people have different views. You have got your and our cocommunists anarch ocommunists, socialists, and even what i would call liberal antifascists, these are people who have no qualms about going out on the street and engaging in fisticuffs with White Supremacists at protests, but are not anarchists in any meaningful sense. They do not want to overthrow government institutions, in fact, they are quite liberal in that respect. They may even vote. Antifaarchists supporters do not vote, they tend to view our political , they as legitimate scorned liberals such as myself and many other people. There is a lot of a variety within that larger movement. The Common Thread there is that antifa which is of course short for antifascist, they believe we have to confront any forms of ande supremacism, neonazis far right extremists because if we do not confront them now, it will just continue to grow and grow and then we are going to be looking at a much bigger problem down the road, that is how they see it. Host let me remind our viewers they can take part in this conversation, if you are in the eastern and central time zones, 202 7488000, mountain pacific, 202 7488001, text to 202 7488003 and we are always reading on social media, can you give us a brief history of antifa in the United States and around the world. You tell us others begin . How this began . Guest absolutely, the roots of antifa go back to western europe in the 1920s and 30s. Of had different groups local activists in germany, italy, britain, and spain. Those were kind of the main areas as well as other areas in which they were organizing to confront the nazis, mussolinis black shirts in italy, oswaldo mosleys british nationalist and thed in britain fascist in spain, each one of these countries what you had was rising fascist movements and antifascist groups formed in response to those rising fascist groups. Ever since the beginning of antifascism and fascism have always existed in symbiosis. In farrighta rise activity, you often see an increased in antifascist activity. It is the same way in the United States, back in the 1980s we saw a rise in the skinhead movement. Of political activists decided to organize and stop them. They actually came out of the punk rock scene believe it or not and that was also a carryover from europe because the same thing was going on in britain and elsewhere. In portland, there were a group of local activists who wanted to stop the hammer fest. Festivalst was a music organized by the hammer skin skinhead group. These local activists succeeded in shutting hammer fest down. They built on, that energy and that experience rowform a group they called city antifa. To this day that remains the oldest continuing antifa group in the United States. 2000s, before trump, a number of antifa groups arose. Another thing going on in the United States was the rise of antiracist groups. Sometimes groups would decide, you know what, in the United States, antifascist does not play that will. Well. We are going to call ourselves antiracist because that is more relevant to the United States, since the 80s there has been a number of groups that organize that do not call them selves antifascist but they call themselves antiracist. Centralized commanding control. Then, you have the rise of the altright movement. The altright increased in prominence especially in mainstream politics, it galvanized antifascists in the United States who felt this is a very real threat to our way of life. It is no surprise that that after the election of donald trump that we saw a rise in antifascist activity in the United States. That is that brief history. Host lets go to our phone lines and start with can who was calling from arizona, good morning. Caller good morning, thank you for taking my call. Say was ited to sound like both of your guests are coming from the same side, both of them tend to be defending antifa. Say i amwould not defending antifa, antifa actually does not like me. Anarchists outed by and antifa, they actually do not like me. I cannot control the perspectives that your viewers bring when they watch the program, but speaking for myself , i am just this little academic social scientists trying to understand these phenomenon. I would encourage the caller, who i think for the call, by the way i would encourage you to take a look at the war on the rocks piece that i wrote with my colleague dr. Colin clark. I do not have a political agenda other than i have a socialscientific agenda which is to understand what i consider to be a pretty fascinating phenomenon. Host lets go to people who is going from mississippi, good morning. I want good morning, three definitions, i want a Legal Definition of the farleft, the farright, and i want a definition of patriotism. This man, i do not know who he is, but i want these definitions. Could you repeat the question . Tot she said she wanted you give a definition of farleft and farright and then a definition of patriotism. Ok, so somebody on the farleft would subscribe to political and social views that are commonly associated with. Ommunism, socialism, anarchism re are farleft just farleftists the support environmental ideas, again, there is a wide variety of groups that fit on the far end of the continuum. It is the same way on the farright, the farright would include groups like White Supremacists, neonazis, skinheads, militias some of militias are sometimes put over there. Farright groups like farleft groups often have an antigovernment focused especially antifederal government, some of farright folks believe that any government above the county level is illegitimate and needs to be opposed. With respect to patriotism, it is another contested concept, folks on the farright often flagthemselves in with the and using terms like some of the groups they actually use the language of patriotism, they consider themselves patriots. Of course, you have people on the left that actual also consider themselves patriots. What is a patriot . Somebody who believes in the fundamental values of their country, believe and what their country stands for. Thats tough, because what are the fundamental values of any given country that country . That changes over time and it depends on how you are brought up politically. You were raised in one household , you are taught to believe a certain set of beliefs. If youre raised in a household in a different community, maybe you are taught by a slightly different set of beliefs, the but both of those people would see themselves as patriots and pro america. One thing im very concerned is the increased polarization of our country. It is not helping us. Host michael, President Trump back in may said this in a tweet, the United States will be designating antifa as a terrorist organization. One, has that been done . And two, who is responsible for making those designations . And, three, what would a designation like that mean . Guest ok. Well, the president that has not been done domestically. The terrorist organizations in the United States that have been formally designated are all foreign terrorist organizations that operate internationally, and some of them may have engaged in activities, including attacks and fundraising in the United States, so its actually the u. S. State department that designates those foreign terrorist organizations. The u. S. Government at the federal level does not have formal statutes specifically devoted to domestic terrorism. We do have federal laws that touch on it, but no federal statute specifically devoted to domestic terrorism that would include provisions for designating specific groups as Domestic Terrorist Organizations. So the president does not under current law, have the power to designate them as a terrorist designation. However, some believe he could tap in to some of the existing federal statutes and do something to that effect. A lot of terrorism experts look, there is a certain element of political theater here. We have to understand what is happening, we are in an election year. On both sides, there is a lot of politicized activity going on. Our president has cited to run on a law and order platform. A central plank of his platform is to portray antifa as a Domestic Terrorist Organization to get people riled up about them. But if you look at what antifa actually does, which we havent really talked about, its not terrorism. Host lets go to harry who is calling from pittsburgh, pennsylvania. Good morning. Caller i have been watching antifa in portland and other cities, destroying buildings, wrecking police cars, and attacking the elderly people. You keep saying altright. There is no alt right here. It is a group of terrorists that should be condemned in the federal government should go and get them. This guy is longwinded and says nothing and you are a College Professor . God help us if people are learning from guys like you, you are despicable. Guest thank you for the call. I am glad we live in a country where we all have the freedom to express our views. I dont appreciate how you characterize me, but i appreciate the engagement. Again, i would encourage you rather than listen to what im saying, why not have a look at the war on the rocks piece that i mentioned. Easy to find, it is by me and my wonderful coauthor , colin clark. Have a look and read it over and then decide for yourself. Host lets go to cee cee in portland, oregon. Caller thank you for cspan. When you talk about extremism and the definition and fundamentally changing society, you may have mentioned list this, Martin Luther king in the late john lewis was an extremist. If you are for black equality, in the 1960s and today, is an extremist view because it fundamentally changes society. So Martin Luther king wanting to have black rights and access to equal accommodations, that fundamentally changed american society. J edgar hoover and our fbi and cia considered Martin Luther king an extremist. Nelson mandela was considered an extremist. When you look at today and you talk about those with talking about Racial Disparity and black equality and human rights in society, that is an extremist idea. I just wanted to put that out there, that when youre talking about something less extreme, if you are talking about blacks having the same rights as other racial groups and even getting rid of that category of race in weeral by the way in which identify each other in racial categories and if you want to get rid of that and all of the meanings and characteristics surrounding that, that is extremist. Host go ahead and respond, michael. Guest that is a great point. Look, we have a tradition in our country of achieving really important changes in our society by people who at the time were considered to be extremists. Martin luther king is a great example of that. Martin luther king actually called himself an extremist and in some of his writings i think youre absolutely right. Look, there is a proud tradition of radical political organizing. You can be a radical and be peaceful. You can be an extremist and be peaceful. One of the great things about our country is we have the political space to do that. Now there is a difference between people like Martin Luther king who was a peaceful extremist and violent extremists. Malcolm x was somebody who was important to the black nationalist movement. People who are familiar with malcolm xs writings know that his rhetoric was more violent. Han somebody like dr. Kings there are differences between. Xtremism and violent extremism you can see this in many movements, whether tied to race or social justice issues, or whether they are tied to things like abortion, stuff like that. There are plenty of people in the Abortion Movement that are peaceful extremists, and then there are other people in the Abortion Movement that decide im going to go down and bomb that abortion clinic. They are violent extremists. You can see examples across a range of political movements, to the callers original question, i have to agree with you. Again, not all extremism is necessarily bad. It depends where you are coming from yourself politically, frankly. Host michael, you mentioned your article a couple of times, so i want to read something you said, what antifa is, what it is not and what it matters why it matters. This, interestingly, any push to terrorism among antifa supporters would likely be met by opposition from within the movement. Many activists who accept the moral necessity of violence against what they see as an inherently violent fascist state bulk at the prospect of indiscriminate violence against innocent civilians. A lot of viewers would say what we are seeing on television doesnt hold up. Guest i am so glad you read that part, because it was one of the most important points of the article and it was based on my own interviews with people who self identify as antifa supporters. It was a really interesting finding from my research. When if these people see people i mean antifa supporters whether or not they are anarchists, including those who are anarchists and those who are not. Is antifa supporters, it important for them to see their violence as defensive in nature. What they see themselves as doing is responding to the larger violence coming from whether it is coming from the government or coming from White Supremacists, neonazis, they see themselves as my violence is ok because i am responding to this larger violence. My violence is defensive, that is legitimate. Individuals,e same very uncomfortable when the idea of offensive offensive violence that is not defensive in nature, for example, you do a bombing. You plan a bombing targeting civilians or for a political purpose with the intent to terrorize, which is terrorism. Antifa supporters are uncomfortable with that idea and illegitimate. As in fact, this incident with Michael Florez now, i interviewed and antifa supporter after that happened and it is really interesting because he was telling me look, if he truly was trying to protect him and his friend from being stabbed, that would be defensive violence and that is legitimate. If he was on the hunt and was looking for patriot kill, thatvists to is not legitimate. ,hat is illegitimate violence it was interesting to me to hear this and it is consistent with what other antifa supporters have told me which is why we are you in the piece that if antifa were to embrace an offensive ,trategy of offensive violence i think he would have a lot of people be turned off by that. I am not saying that antifa is about to do that, i do not think they are. Host there is a story from a voice of america since you brought up the rhino case rynel case. They say that if he is convicted, it would mark the first time in years that in antifa supporter has been charged with homicide, that is coming from brian leven the director of the center for the study of hate and extreme in a desk extremism extremism. Do you agree with that . Guest as long as you mean in the United States, there has been some incidents in europe where antifa supporters have shot and killed members of the golden gun which is a far political party. In europe, antifa activism tends least the extreme forms tend to be more violent. One thing the people are worried about now is whether we are starting to reach a Tipping Point in the United States. If we are talking about the u. S. , yeah, the killing, that is kind of a watershed in the sense that here you have somebody who identifies as an antifa allegedly appears to have shot and killed somebody that he identified on the farright. Incident last year where you had another antifa attacked an ice facility, it might have been asanized well oregon well. But before he could carry out his attack, he was shot and killed. Importantemphasize an point, we have to be honest here, these are fairly when we are talking about the farleft, these are fairly isolated incidents. If you look at the number of People Killed by farleft extremists that is antifa,narchists in the United States the number over the last 1015 years or so since 9 11, lets say since 9 11. The number is one. Of People Killed in this country by folks on the includet, that would White Supremacists, neonazis, militia, folks like that is over 100, is it it is about 114 or maybe 117. On part withy much what some people from the jihadis. Over 100 versus one, we have to put them in perspective as well. Host lets see if we could get a few more colors and, we will start with justin from columbia, south carolina. Caller hi there, i am curious if there is any kind of connection or lineage to the Anarchist Group in eugene, oregon that we sought during wto of the 90s to antifa today. Guest great question, thank you , thehat, the w. T. O antiglobalization movement in the 1990s is considered one of the precursors of the Antifa Movement today. Youre absolutely right to identify that. So you have the antiglobalist, you have the punk rock scene in the 80s and kind of what is going after the skinheads and then later on in the 90s you had the antiglobalization and then later on you had to the occupy movement. What you sometimes see are were active in those earlier movement that now self identify as antifa supporters. So you have people that were active in those earlier groups that are continuing to be active, but you also have a lot of younger people people in their late teens and early 20s who are not active in the antiglobalization protests and were not even necessarily active in occupy. But they still get influenced by that tradition, they still hear the stories, they still go to the websites and read the pieces and other things, so they are influenced by that larger tradition and culture. I think you are right to identify that as an influence. Host lets go to chal or charles from west texas. Would like, hello, i to say this, the cofounder of in a lives matter said 2015 interview that she is indeed a trade marxist. Your definition of a farleft and farright, you said marxist are farleft. As far as im concerned, she wants to take this country down, we is a peer out communist, have them throughout our federal government, they are fighting trump right now, they are leftovers from obama and i would like your comment on it. Guest could you repeat the question, i only got bits and pieces. Host he said one of the founders of black lives matter said in an interview he read marxiste that she was a and he wanted to know about the connection between groups like black lives matter and antifa. Caller now guest ok, first of all i want to make the point that i am not an expert on black lives matter, i have engaged in research on antifa and anarchism more broadly. With that caveat in mind, yes, there are people there are antifa supporters, even anarchists that go to black lives matter protests. Inave seen it myself fieldwork, there is overlap on the local level, the organizational level. That does not mean they are the same organization, it does not mean that antifa is somehow corrupting the black lives matter movement. In fact, a lot of antifa supporters are very conscious of their White Privilege and they are very sensitive to being portrayed as trying to take over black lives matter. They think it is very important not to do that. As i wasre also mying earlier about antifa, point about how people in antifa believing a variety of political ideologies, youve have got your communists, you have your socialists, even liberals, again, im not an expert on black lives matter but i would that very suspect in large and Diverse Movement you are going to have people it is the same thing. Youre going to have people who identify as marxist, but youre also going to have people that self identify as liberals. A lot are going to self identify as democrat. Again, these are large social movements so we have to remember that you are just going to see a tremendous amount of a variety and political beliefs by people that are willing to get out of there and support those movements. Thank you for the question. Host one of the things we have not talked about is how does the American Government stop the violence . Guest great question. Great question. Deescalate the rhetoric, we have to try and reverse some of the polarization, right . I think you have a lot of local political leaders in portland and elsewhere that are trying to people are upset. Look at whats going on in the country. Its understandable. Beck people continued to killed more disproportionately, more by the police. Its a reality. Covid19, its a reality. People are losing their jobs. People are upset. I get it. But where is this increased polarization going to take us . What kind of a country do we want to live in . About,re people talking its going to get worse now. Where are we headed . We have to come together as a at we are a lot more alike than we are different. We are all americans, we all in stable,e prosperous societies in which our kids can go to school and in which we can get a job, a decent job. Have access to health care. Lets focus on what we want together instead of focusing so much on the differences that divide us. Leadersonal political should stop seeking to divide us. We are all one country. We do better when we come together, not when we stand apart. Miriam from far texas. Caller good morning. Unfortunately we have a very. Owerful network unfortunately it has 5 Million Viewers per day. They are constantly feeding their racist viewers imagery of black protesters with black clothing, masks, and they are trying to confuse the protesters with antifa. I think that is a disservice because they are just promoting hate. Im wondering if that is a very dangerous thing to do with their viewers . Guest could you repeat the question . Host she said she was wondering about fox news and their coverage of antifa, how dangerous you think that is, or if you think thats dangerous . Guest i think it is. We have to understand what is happening right now in our country. Again, we are in an election year, we have a president that has decided, rightly or wrongly that he is going to run on a law and order platform. A central part of that is pretraining antifa yingraining antifa portra antifa as his existential threat to our political since. Fox news largely supports that agenda. They are willing to amplify that narrative, which is why you see fox news continually portray terrorist mob intent on destroying our way of life. And it is unfortunate because its leading to world war implications. Just this week these rumors that antifa supporters have started all the wildfires. The wildfires are being started by antifa. Its nonsense. It is not true. Antifa. Is no friend of they have come out and said this is just not true. There is so much misinformation out there, we have to be really careful of the information that we are consuming because we what the source of it is all the time, whats the agenda behind it . Whereare other incidents people have been told, go to this place because there is going to be an antifa protest and it generates all this activity. It turned out to be antifa supporters that were just doing hoaxes. I do think that the amplifying of this narrative is very leading to, and its realworld implications that could be dangerous. Would like to think michael kenney, the professor at the graduate school of public and International Affairs at the university of pittsburgh for being here with us in helping us understand more about antifa. Michael, thank you for your time. Guest thank you for the opportunity to engage. I appreciate it. Wonderful show. Thank you. Washington journal, everyday day we are taking your calls live on the air on news of the day, and we will discuss policy issues that impact you. Coming up sunday morning, university of maryland professor michael on the results of the watchmen post university of maryland poll on how americans plan to vote this november. Then we will Talk Campaign 2020 and President Trumps reelection strategy with the American Conservative Union chair. Columnist and Washington Examiner National Political reporter talks to us about camping 2020 and the battleground states. And author and republican strategist rick tyler will talk about his new book. Watch cspans washington journal, live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern sunday mornings. Be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, Text Messages and tweet. Tweets. Ahead head of the cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency appeared at the billington cybersecurity annual summit. Christopher krebs spoke about his agencys priorities regarding cyber attacks, the coronavirus pandemic, and election security. Vid summit. This runs 20 minutes. Good morning. As you know by now my name is Todd Billington and its my pleasure to introduce to you fireside chat. Brad is the executive Vice President for cybersecurity with. We are also honored with the vet said we are about 55 days