Antifa: Logistics & Particulars + An Interview With a Former Member

In this episode, we take an in-depth look at the controversial Antifa movement, exploring its decentralized operations, anarchic structure, and the psychological tactics it employs to justify violence. We reveal insights from former members and draw parallels between Antifa's methods and historical fascist tactics. Additionally, we delve into the fervor surrounding conspiracy theories, anti-government sentiments, and the spiritual collectives forming within political groups, including those supporting Trump. Join us for a comprehensive exploration of these fascinating and complex topics.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. I decided to do something interesting for this episode. I was like because I've noticed on a few of our videos. I've gone into a topic and I realized that our coverage of the topic is the most thorough coverage of a topic that I can find. And I decided to do the same thing with Antifa because it was just one of those things where I was like, I don't think anyone else has covered this.

You do

Simone Collins: this with your books too. Keep in mind whenever you write a book, it's typically because there's a subject that you don't feel is covered very well by anyone.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And so, I mean, I have, I've, I've heard of Antifa as a concept out of all of my deep dives.

Probably surprised me the most.

Simone Collins: Wow. Are you, are we going to join Antifa now? Is this the surprise? No, no, no.

Malcolm Collins: But the left is right. Remember there was that time when people on the left kept saying like Antifa is a conspiracy theory, Antifa doesn't exist. I, I don't know if you remember when this was like the mainstream talking point on the left.

Where they were [00:01:00] like, Antifa is made up, the right is attacking, you know, they're making up this fictional evil organization to attack, and the organization isn't a representation of anything real, and if you talked about Antifa, you would be labeled as a conspiracy theorist. This was during Trump's first run where the concept of Antifa was seen as a conspiracy.

And some people still hold to this line, but very few still do. Most people generally agree that Antifa is a real thing that exists. The problem is, is it's not. But, unfortunately, like, where my research sort of hit a wall to begin with, Is Antifa doesn't meaningfully exist, and yet it does meaningfully exist.

So and we have multiple members are people who follow this podcast or hang out in our discord who are former Antifa members like reformed Antifa members.

Microphone (3- ATR2100x-USB Microphone): This video actually ends with about a 30 minute interview of one of these. Followers of ours, who used to be in Antifa about [00:02:00] what happens at Antifa meetings, the way Antifa organizes and just a general . Logistics. Of Antifa operations.

Would you like to know more

Malcolm Collins: And so what I mean when I say Antifa doesn't really exist is twofold. One, there is no centralized Antifa organization. There is no group that has a, and two, there is no centralized Antifa ideology.

Simone Collins: Okay. So you don't get a membership card. There is no president. There's no nonprofit organization. There is no

Malcolm Collins: barrier to entry. Literally anyone can just say I'm Antifa or sort of

Simone Collins: anarchic. I am anonymous, et cetera.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Anyone, anyone know anonymous was quite different. There were some organized power hierarchies where people can go.

And there were like, it might be that anyone can technically claim to be anonymous, but there actually are. Individuals who are disproportionately [00:03:00] influencers in the actions of what we call anonymous was in Antifa. There appears to be like, if I'm even just looking for like one famous, like important individual was in Antifa.

There's going to be much fewer of them. The, the flatness of the organizations is much, much bigger than it is with Anonymous. But in addition to that, the discordant views and goals of the people who are within Antifa are Hugely various as we're going to go over in just a second. All that Antifa really is, in fact, I would say Antifa is less of a unified idea than something like the alt right.

Which is what Antifa really sort of emerged to mirror. But. It went further than the alt right ever did, and it represents what I would call a psychological technology. Or a, specifically, it's a technology that gives individuals a psychological license to do [00:04:00] violence against moderates of the other side.

So, what it means when somebody says they're Antifa, like, what fundamentally are they telling you? They're saying They believe that they have a psychological license and the moral justification to act upon a center right MAGA dad the way they would treat a literal Nazi at a, at a concentration camp.

Simone Collins: Oh, I get it. Okay. Okay. So yeah, Antifa is to scary, violent, political extremists. as to borderline personality disorder is to c**t.

Malcolm Collins: I don't understand.

Simone Collins: Well, when someone says that they have borderline personality disorder, they're really saying they're just a c**t. Right. It's

Malcolm Collins: true. I mean, it's true, but that's not really the point I'm making here.

What I'm making here is what Antifa is and what is conveyed by the concept is [00:05:00] I am allowed to treat half of America the way I would treat a human being. concentration camp guard. That is, that is where punch a Nazi comes from. That's where all this comes from. And that's what I'm going to make in this episode is Antifa will say one thing.

They will say we fight against fascists, right? But then if you look at their actions, what they consider fascist is generic center right, or even center left capitalist.

Simone Collins: Now that's interesting, I was watching an interview between Lex Friedman and the guy who founded Young Turks, co founded Young Turks, who was actually framing things very differently.

He was saying that he was a capitalist. He was very in favor of capitalism, but against corporatism, which we kind of 100 percent agree with. And I kind of wonder if that's true, if people who consider themselves far leftists actually favor capitalism and what they're against is corporatism, so what [00:06:00] you're really saying is that they're against corporatists?

Okay. Just no. Just they like capitalism. They are. So they're Marxist.

Malcolm Collins: You'll see really quickly how extremists they are. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, first I'm going to give you how they frame themselves, right? So you can understand how this psychological framing trick works.

Simone Collins: Okay.

. So according to a member of a New York Antifa group, quote and this is who they target, fascists, alt right, white nationalists, etc. . And the main focus is on quote, groups and individuals which endorse or work directly or in alliance with white supremacists and white separatists. We try to be very clear and precise on how we use these terms, end quote.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. And so, if you're looking at like what ideologies do Antifa members usually hold is generally anti authoritarian, anti capitalist, anti fascist and anti state views. And they're generally left wing ideologies and they'll also do things like support, [00:07:00] you know, LGBT rights