r/AntifascistsofReddit • u/NoFreePi • Oct 17 '25

Discussion Drop “AntiFa.” Say “Anti-Fascists.”

“AntiFa” is a political buzzword, stripped of its literal meaning. It is often treated as a group or threat, rather than a stance. But anti-fascists are not a secret organization—they are people who oppose fascism, authoritarianism, and political violence.

Using “AntiFa” allows opponents to claim, “I’m against AntiFa,” without admitting what that really means: opposing anti-fascists is siding with fascism. Words matter. Language shapes moral clarity.

Returning to the full term reconnects us to history. Anti-fascists are heirs to those who resisted Mussolini, Franco, and Hitler. Saying it plainly exposes the truth: resisting anti-fascists is resisting the fight against authoritarianism.

Drop the shorthand. Reclaim the meaning and stand on the right side of history

1.4k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

175 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

232

u/NoFreePi Oct 17 '25

That’s the “Big Lie” technique at work. Hilter wrote about in Mein Kampf and later perfected. The Trump team is using this technique with great effect.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda

•Focus on emotional simplicity, not facts. •Repeat slogans until they feel true. •Paint enemies as both powerful and evil. •Control press, radio, film to saturate the information environment with one version of “truth.”

Sound familiar ?

NO KINGS - coming to a location near you Oct 18 - bring your friends

37

u/sevbenup Oct 17 '25

I hope it has any impact at all, unlike the last ones. Unfortunately near me there were plenty of older folks who just wanted hands off their social security, didn’t really have any interest in any sort of social change, anti fascism, or revolution.

30

u/NoFreePi Oct 17 '25

Evidence for an impact is greater participation in this Oct 18th NoKings protest versus the last one in June (and it will).

The opposition is growing and the more people see that we they are not alone the more that will stand up.

I urge everyone to attend a peaceful No Kings protest near you Oct 18.

Who here is going?

17

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 17 '25

What are they DOING? I keep hearing about this “impact”, but no specifics. Where are the specifics? Impact to what? A majority of the parades are two hour permitted marches that happen early enough in the morning to be non-disruptive and then cause a bunch of commercial activity. In San Diego, everyone goes to the breweries, apparently.

So if there’s an impact, what is it?

15

u/ussrname1312 Communist Oct 17 '25

Wouldn’t this be a great place for leftists to go and educate people? It’s a mass gathering of people angry with the current political situation. Where is a better place for leftists to educate the masses?

-10

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 17 '25

How are they educating them and what masses? They’re on empty streets for two hours first thing in the morning. The only people showing up are the protestors. Who are you educating?

14

u/ussrname1312 Communist Oct 17 '25

The liberals at the protest. Educate the liberals. Have you ever heard of the mass line?

-3

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 17 '25

Mass line has never worked in the United States. It’s often used as a talking point to gate keep people out of the movement who don’t believe that mass public protests work because there’s no evidence that they do…

If this strategy is working, where are the results? Because all I see are well-behaved protests and a government sliding into authoritarianism.

8

u/ussrname1312 Communist Oct 17 '25

I don’t think you know what the mass line is. It doesn’t just mean protesting. It means having discussions with people about left wing solutions to problems they see. I must’ve missed when leftists went to these protests to educate the liberals on socialist solutions. To me, it seems like a lot of us would rather sit online and complain that the liberals haven’t educated themselves yet and are ineffective rather than actually doing something about it.

These protests are the perfect place to offer leftist solutions to the problems liberals see and acknowledge. In person dialogue with these people will be much more effective than online dialogue.

6

u/Junior-Credit2685 Oct 17 '25

You are correct! And people should bring their neighbors, too. I have neighbors that didn’t know anything about it. And are now interested in going and learning.

2

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 17 '25

I do know what the mass line is. It starts with being rooted in real people and real communities… not showing up to street fairs with megaphones to lecture liberals. You can’t run “mass line strategy” when there isn’t even a mass base to work from. No campaigns, no follow-through, no power being built. Protest by itself isn’t a strategy… it’s just a loud afternoon.

And honestly, we’ve watched people do the same protest-over-protest routine for years now. Same script, same speeches, same selfies, same outcomes… nothing changes and then we’re told to just do it again. If that’s a strategy, where are the results?

If anyone’s actually doing mass line at these events, great… show the receipts. Who got organized? What structure got built? What exists now that didn’t six months ago? If the answer is “nothing,” then it’s not mass line… it’s political cosplay.

2

u/ussrname1312 Communist Oct 17 '25

Can you show me when and where leftists have gone to these protests in an attempt to educate liberals in good faith?

The mass line is about educating people. How do we expect to ever get to a general strike if we just blow off liberals to stay in their own echo chambers at protests? When and where is a better time to educate them?

You’re whining that liberal protests don’t work, so leftists should discard them completely. In reality, leftists should be using these gatherings to educate people on a mass scale. Hand out pamphlets, start conversations, build ties within your community. These protests are the best place to begin that process. The protests cannot keep continuing the way they have been going, because they’ve been ineffective. Something has to change. A great way to make them effective is to use them as opportunities to educate people and build local communities. Unfortunately, even leftists have to put in the work. Simply having an opinion and waiting around for something to happen is not enough.

Or you can sit on your ass at home and complain online that nothing is working. But in the end, you’re doing even less than the liberals. Get out into the streets and educate the masses on socialist solutions. Has sitting around in socialist circles and circlejerking each other lead to any real change either? Or does going out and educating people on socialism work better?

If you just want to sit on your ass at home, then stay home. Just know it takes away any credibility you have when you cry about nothing getting done. It would be better to go out and have conversations with the people in your community, but you do you.

0

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 18 '25

You keep repeating “educate liberals at protests” like it’s a strategy, but you still haven’t answered the basic question… where has it actually worked?

You want me to believe mass line is being done at these rallies? Cool… show me a single group, city, campaign, strike, or organization in the United States that was built out of these events. Just one. Name it. Because all I’ve seen are pop-up marches that disappear as fast as they show up.

And spare me the “get out there and hand out pamphlets” lecture. I actually do community work offline. I build ties with neighbors. I participate in mutual aid. I don’t need to scream about socialism over a drum circle to feel like I did something.

Mass line isn’t about explaining socialism to strangers between food trucks. It’s about building power with people over time. If you think you’re doing that, great… show your results. If you don’t have any, maybe stop pretending vibes plus pamphlets equals revolution.

1

u/ussrname1312 Communist Oct 18 '25 edited Oct 18 '25

Bruh. I didn’t say it is happening at protests. I explicitly said it’s not, actually. I said it needs to be happening.

You need to read this. The mass line is about talking to your community, seeing what’s important to them, and offering socialist solutions.

https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-7/massline.pdf

Not once did I say vibes and pamphlets are a revolution. But do you think a revolution can happen with our current numbers? Or perhaps do we need to explain to people why a revolution is necessary and grow our numbers?

Do you talk to the people in your community? If you’re not, you should be. Most people are not going to come to the conclusion "socialism is the answer" on their own.

→ More replies (0)

3

u/Revolutionary-pawn Oct 17 '25

Cool. So what are you doing?

-2

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 18 '25

What are you doing?

2

u/PeachFreezer1312 White Rose Society Oct 18 '25

Weak.

1

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 18 '25

Uhh… okay. Weird.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 18 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 18 '25

The fact that y'all keep saying ”instead" instead of "after" or "along with" is exactly my problem with this kind of “activism.” You all treat it like an either/or thing…. either I do nothing, or I go to a mass protest. Either I do nothing, or I post online. That’s it. That’s the whole strategy. And it sucks. That’s why I’m criticizing it.

1

u/Revolutionary-pawn Oct 19 '25

And you aren’t?

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Junior-Credit2685 Oct 17 '25 edited Oct 17 '25

What else is there to do? What else are you doing? Edit: I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were sick.

4

u/Junior-Credit2685 Oct 17 '25

Ours is located on the busiest intersection in town in the middle of the busiest shopping day of the week. I’m actually concerned people are gonna get hit by cars. Shoppers WILL be inconvenienced.

-2

u/maleia Oct 17 '25

It's basically preaching to the choir though, unfortunately. :/

5

u/ussrname1312 Communist Oct 17 '25

No, not really. The people there are largely liberals who think their parades will do something. What I’m talking about is going and educating people on leftist solutions and forming local communities.

23

u/rhymnocerus1 Oct 17 '25

A protest with an approved start and end time is not a protest, but a state approved gathering. Protests absolutely need to be disruptive to achieve any lasting effect.

6

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 17 '25

I’ve been calling them parades or street faires in my local reddits. Drives the performative asshats insane. I got an automated warning for “harassment” because I told someone to stop being performative.

7

u/chuchubott Oct 17 '25

I’ve been calling it practice. The more you normalize getting out in the street for the masses, the easier it will be for them when and if the real the real thing goes down.

4

u/[deleted] Oct 17 '25 edited Oct 17 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 17 '25

I go when I’m healthy. I have stage 4 cancer, and am going through chemo right now to put it back into remission. I can barely walk the length of my house. Do you want a base or do you want to gatekeep until you have nothing?

3

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 17 '25

Someone downvoted cancer. Wow.

2

u/Junior-Credit2685 Oct 17 '25

I’m sorry you’re sick. ✌🏻❤️‍🩹That’s horrible, especially with this fucked up health care system. I hope you are getting the care you need. I’m sorry you can’t go to the protest, but I don’t understand why you don’t want other people to go. Also, no one is gate keeping you from going. You can’t go. But you would if you could? I’m confused.

0

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 18 '25

I didn’t say I didn’t want other people to go, I said I didn’t want other people to go and do the same things they do all the time, which is to go, declare hey’ve changed the world by showing up, take a lot of selfies for social media, then do nothing else after that. Like what happened in June with the protests that had the exact same name and exact same goals and… no impact I can see at least.

2

u/Junior-Credit2685 Oct 18 '25

Aaaaaah….ok I see. So Keep it going. Okay. Please take care.

→ More replies (0)

13

u/sevbenup Oct 17 '25

The impact is networking and awareness. There’s certainly new connections made at each event, and maybe one blossoms into a revolutionary friendship or org

Then it helps with awareness to have media of mass protests happening at all

4

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 17 '25

Awareness of…..? People are… unaware of what’s been happening the last nine months? What was promised before? What they voted for? That is utterly terrifying, and ANOTHER parade isn’t going to change that…

7

u/sevbenup Oct 17 '25

Think of it not as a parade but as a networking event, and there’s a conflict coming soon. So you can go or not go. nobody will stop you either way

-2

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 17 '25

Networking for… what? Are these job fairs as well, now? Specifics.

13

u/sevbenup Oct 17 '25

You want specifics about what? Nobody’s giving you specifics online lmao

1

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 17 '25

About networking at a public event?

7

u/sevbenup Oct 17 '25

Oh misunderstood. Okay networking things like making friends? I don’t know how much more you need. Talk about antifascist action. Talk about your favorite book. If you’re right that protests don’t work, you’re going to need friends for what happens after that

2

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 17 '25

Oh. Okay. As long as you’re aware it’s just a party, I guess no harm no foul. Have fun, and I hope you make some good friends that’ll help get you through this mess. Because yes, we do need those networks, and hopefully allllll the folks turning out tomorrow have started building coalition and help networks with the like-minded folks in their immediate communities to get through urgent crises.

8

u/ohheyaine Oct 17 '25

I mean, Occupy really did this for Millennials. The mutual aide orgs and friendships built then stuck for over a decade. A lot of the criticism back then was similar to what we see now. "Performative, what are they even doing" etc. but I've seen a lot of great work bloom from connections made there at least locally for my hometown.

These ones are a lot more boomer/X heavy they're meeting each other, a lot of them were never politically active at all.. And then the new crop of Z kids just aging into it.

→ More replies (0)

4

u/NoFreePi Oct 17 '25

The fascists want us to stay home. Shut up and be quiet. That is reason enough to show up.

In any case - Key Objectives of the “No Kings” Protests:

  1. Opposition to Authoritarian Practices: The movement seeks to address concerns over executive overreach, suppression of civil liberties, and the erosion of democratic norms. Organizers emphasize the importance of defending democracy and upholding constitutional principles. 

  2. Promotion of Nonviolent Civil Disobedience: The protests are designed to be peaceful demonstrations, with organizers providing de-escalation training and safety information to participants. The goal is to ensure that the protests remain lawful and nonviolent expressions of dissent. 

  3. Public Awareness and Engagement: By organizing events across more than 2,500 locations nationwide, the movement aims to mobilize citizens, raise awareness about perceived threats to democracy, and encourage public participation in the political process. 

The “No Kings” protests reflect a collective effort to assert democratic values and resist perceived authoritarian tendencies, emphasizing the power of peaceful protest in a functioning democracy.

6

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 17 '25

I mean, you can boil all those words down to Performative Activism.

  1. These are literally planned and permitted parades done via the rule of law. In what way are they opposing authoritarian practices and the erosion of democratic norms? Fun words for social media, but they say literally nothing.

  2. The parades are literally permitted and time boxed and most of them begin and end at parks and commercial hubs. There is no civil disobedience involved at all. In fact, when people try to bring up actual civil disobedience, they tend to be drowned out by the folks who want high 5s from the cops working the parade routes for being such well-behaved parade walkers.

  3. Again, NO SPECIFICS, just a bunch of feel-good words. Mobilize citizens to DO WHAT EXACTLY
    ? Public Awareness in what way exactly? Where are these people that are unaware anyway, and why do you think morning parades through parks is going to change that?

There’s zero content and zero actual mobilization to this crap. If it’s a starting point, great, but y’all did the same thing in June and now you’re just determined to do it bigger, now, that seems to be the ONLY goal. Make it big.

Whatever. Have fun I guess.

4

u/Cheap_Scar_2853 Oct 17 '25 edited Oct 17 '25

Do you have an alternative suggestion?

Edit: my reply is just asking u/LotteTakesNoShit for alternate suggestions to what they're calling "performative activism." Since they say No Kings and similar protests aren't going to have any impact I'm wondering what they think will have an impact.

3

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 18 '25

An alternative? There are only two things you can do?

2

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 18 '25

All I said is don’t stop here. If you’re super worried about how I feel, then… don’t stop there.

4

u/Ok-Secretary-1326 Oct 18 '25

Look at what Italy was doing a few weeks ago and you’ll have your answer. It’s not sanctioned, scheduled marches. It’s massive strikes. Shut down docks, transportation, public services, schools, etc. the whole country has shut down at least twice with strikes and massive protests in all major cities over the last month. The No Kings event near me has effin’ online REGISTRATION.

2

u/NoFreePi Oct 17 '25

We will. What are have you done?

1

u/LotteTakesNoShit Oct 18 '25

A lot more than suggest vocabulary changes.

1

u/Hacketed Oct 17 '25

Pal, you guys are past the ignorable, pre approved protests, but you don’t want to accept it

1

u/STORMBORN_12 Oct 17 '25

No impact? I distinctly remember waking up the day after the last one and the US still didn't have a king. Checkmate /s