District Attorney Summer Stephan has the distinction of getting the first ever convictions of people accused of being Antifa in the nation.
Wow! Proof that Antifa, the force accused of leading the assault on democracy on January 6, exists, right? Wrong.
There is no organization of any kind called Antifa, except in the minds of misinformation and rage harvesting trolls and a few Fox News types.
There are no meetings or membership requirements. There is a philosophy that sort of matches up. Those beliefs weren’t on trial, but that was the word authorities wanted in the headline. What was achieved was validation of a myth used to tar causes the right deems unpalatable.
Brian Lightfoot and Jeremy White were convicted of conspiracy to riot following seven days of jury deliberation. The trial lasted three weeks. The jurors, who were unable to reach a consensus on nine counts of assault, did convict Lightfoot for five counts of using tear gas not in self defense and both defendants of an additional count of assault.
To make a long story short, there was a brawl in Pacific Beach on January 9, 2021, just three days after the assault on the US Capitol. A group calling itself Patriot March called for a rally in support of then-not-quite-gone President Donald Trump.
They wore MAGA hats and carried assorted flags.
Some people in that group were well known locally for disrupting protests not to their liking. Past experiences with those folk included police turning a blind eye to assorted assaults and harassment.
Another group of people showed up in Pacific Beach looking for a fight. This was about revenge as much as it was about their disapproval of Trump. They dressed up in black, hiding their faces. They’d seen news accounts of self described Antifa fighting in the streets elsewhere and sought to emulate those actions. I’m sure they thought of themselves as Antifa warriors that day.
Mostly those folks spend their time as keyboard warriors, tracking down identifiable members of far right groups and outing their activities to the public at large. And when unrest occurs, some of them are motivated to physically confront Proud Boys, etc., all in the name of stopping a creeping tide toward fascism.
From my perspective, these are the same sorts of wannabe hero fantasies as those who own AR-15s and think they can take on the government. It’s the sort of vanguardism inherent in fringe political causes building off a sense of martyrdom being a spark that will lead to uprisings.
In the PB brawl, MAGAt aggressiveness was ignored by police. There’s plenty of video evidence of assaults. There was mayhem. The police onsite were used as shields by the righties at one point.
Apparently a one-sided version of the fighting was shown to a Grand Jury, which indicted 11 people for assorted crimes. They were all from the guys wearing Black.
I have no doubt that at least some of the assaults leading to these “Antifa” convictions actually took place. DA Summer Stephan could have prosecuted these criminal acts as violations of the law, plain and simple. But she didn’t.
Prosecutor McKenzie Harvey painted the MAGAts as victims.
“At the end of the day, so what? So what if somebody had swastika tattoos on their face?” Harvey asked the jurors. “Incredibly offensive to probably everyone in this room? Absolutely. But what happened to the law? ... No matter what, everyone is entitled to equal protection of the law, no matter what they believe.”
DA Stephan used this prosecution as a means to an end, namely giving validity to a conspiracy theory attached to a broader worldview that justifies lawbreaking (January 6), denies science (how about that measles comeback?), accepts misinformation from foreign powers (pick one), and wants to blame social justice movements on Jews. And it’s not like the DA pulled the Antifa card out of a hat; she also used the same fear factor to win an election.
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For those of you unfamiliar with billionaire George Soros, let me tell you how his name became synonymous with the inference that people of the Jewish religion, culture, and bloodline are secret conspirators looking to [fill-in-the-blank of imaginary bad things].
Antisemitism predates George Soros; he’s just become the present-day catch-all for regurgitating hatred in the service of authoritarianism. What started prior to Christianity as an ethnic hatred, evolved into a religious tenet, now serves as part of a racialized agenda based on Social Darwinism.
For the act of giving scholarships to Black South African students during the apartheid era, Soros antagonized right wing groups supporting that regime dating back to 1979. Through his Open Society Institute and other foundations, Soros’ money has found its way into politically progressive causes in Europe and the Western Hemisphere.
Authoritarian regimes in Russia and Hungary have made opposition to Soros as part of their nationalist agenda. Open Society funded groups were teaching democratic involvement and getting in the way of seizing power. Since the 1990s, Soros has been accused of meddling in nearly every election where authoritarian forces seek to gain power.
Today, even though he’s turned over philanthropy to his son, George Soros has become code for conspiracy theories that unite antisemitism and Islamophobia.
From Wikipedia
A study by Zignal Labs found that unsubstantiated claims of involvement by Soros were one of three dominant themes in misinformation and conspiracy theories around the 2020 George Floyd protests, alongside claims that Floyd's murder had been faked and claims of involvement by antifa groups The Anti-Defamation League estimated that over four days after Floyd's murder, negative Twitter messages about Soros increased from about 20,000 per day to about 500,000 per day.
It’s an article of faith in right wing circles that Soros money is involved with just about anything they object to. When criminal justice system reform activist Geneviéve Jones-Wright ran for County District Attorney, a PAC funded by Soros bought TV ads in support of her candidacy.
In the world of progressive politics, this was no big deal. Liberal and progressive candidates nationwide got donations from an assortment of reform-minded donors.
For District Attorney Summer’s-friendly PAC, these ads were an opportunity.
From the Union-Tribune of March 4, 2018:
A new website launched by Republican Summer Stephan, the appointed incumbent, associates Soros with the far-left group Antifa. The website ThreatToSanDiego.com features a photo of Soros superimposed over an image of Antifa demonstrators. Also on the site’s homepage, under the headline “Who does Soros support?” is another photo of what appear to be Antifa demonstrators burning an American flag.
Antifa, short for “anti-fascist,” is a fairly disorganized group which gained notoriety in the U.S. after violent clashes with the so-call “alt-right” in Berkeley last year.
The website says Soros is supporting Jones-Wright as “the anti-law enforcement candidate for D.A.”
Following the verdict, defense attorney John Hamasaki addressed reporters outside the courtroom:
“The DA expended probably the most resources I’ve seen them expend in any case — murders, multiple murders, gang murders — I’ve never seen a DA’s office expend this much resources for a single case, and I think you have to look at the political circumstances surrounding it,”
DA Summer’s post verdict reaction brought up the Antifa framing:
“We want to thank the jury for their service and for reaching their just guilty verdicts on the two remaining defendants in the antifa conspiracy case.”
All of this is important because the right and their allies in law enforcement are looking to blame Antifa for violence occurring at pro-Palestine encampments on colleges nationwide.
Fox News: Antifa returns with a vengeance in college mobs. Here’s what the future holds
College campuses across the nation are seeing a surge in radical, pro-Hamas activism, reminiscent of the violent Antifa protests of 2020 and 2021. This brand of activism is not new. It's structured, militant, and often escalates quickly, fostering environments where, in this case, antisemitism can thrive unchecked. What we’re seeing unfold is a worrying echo of the Antifa-led disruptions during the Black Lives Matter movement, which often spiraled into violence and chaos.
New Republic columnist Greg Sargent says Democrats shouldn’t remain silent about the big lies Republicans think are campaign fodder:
What does matter is that this kind of talk has become tantamount to the air Republicans and many of their voters breathe. As the Anti-Defamation League explains, Soros’s identity is well known. He’s been elevated for decades by malignant nationalists across the world into a symbol of nefarious globalist forces seeking to manipulate fifth-column agitators to destabilize nations from within. People steeped in these ideas will receive such remarks in exactly that way.
Some Republicans have ventured another version of these claims, insisting Soros funds organizations behind the protests. But Politifact looked exhaustively at this and found that it relies on a comically tortured chain of logic. As The Washington Post’s Philip Bump noted, the connections are “so tenuous as to be obviously contrived.” The crucial point here is that such conspiracy theories often map onto a kind of a spectrum, where softer versions are available that allow proponents to invoke the most pernicious versions while retaining plausible deniability. That doesn’t make it any more defensible.
Indeed, this is exactly how “great replacement theory,” also works: Many Republicans, including Johnson, push a soft version that doesn’t accuse Jewish elites of promulgating the conspiracy. But that’s what untold numbers of people will hear, and its proponents know it.
Finally, here’s a snip from Will Carless, reporting for USA TODAY:
White told USA TODAY he is committed to appealing his conviction. He said he is less worried about the impact of the case on his own life, and more concerned about the future of the anti-fascist movement and the broader protest movement.
“The prosecutors did everything they could to make us look like this criminal gang or terrorist cell,” he said. “It has bad implications for protestors out there trying to fight against fascism, against police brutality and state repression.”
Hamasaki agreed.
“As we’re looking at all these protests happening around the country, I think this bodes ill for a lot of people if prosecutors are looking to file felony conspiracy charges against people who are involved in active first amendment behavior,” Hamasaki said. “It can have a chilling effect.”
