by Edward Ring
While the Antifa movement may defy easy characterization, one of its most animating features is a commitment to opposing the alleged right-wing racism practiced or condoned by “millions” of “white nationalists.” They condemn any such endorsements of so-called identitarian concepts. But who are the real identitarians? And to which movement is identitarianism both the centerpiece of their rhetoric, and a smokescreen to hide their true agenda? A look at online material promoting an upcoming Antifa-type action offers clues.
According to a recent tweet by embattled journalist Andy Ngo, “Antifa is leading a ‘Border Resistance’ militancy training that will converge on a 10-day siege in El Paso, Texas.” The website Ngo references is BorderResistance.com, with the tagline “Call to Action in El Paso September 1-10.” The homepage displays a graphic poster headlined with the words “CALL TO ACTION,” followed by the somewhat nebulous phrase “Border Resistance Convergence.”
As has been painstakingly emphasized in the wake of the tragic mass shooting in El Paso on August 3, nowhere on this website are the words “Antifa,” or, for that matter, anything that might remotely be construed as synonymous with the violence that anyone paying attention would know accompanies Antifa protests, whether they’re in Portland, Berkeley, Charlottesville, or countless other places.
For that matter, it is unclear whether or not this “convergence” will still occur—Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick has “warned the left-wing group Antifa against coming to the state following the mass shooting in El Paso.” It is reasonable to assume that Patrick would have also been referring to the planners of the “Border Resistance Convergence,” regardless of whether or not they have any formal connection to Antifa cells.
Nonetheless, the “Border Resistance” website does contain language offering insight into the ideology of these organizations, whether they are directly backed by Antifa or part of the collection of local and regional groups that align themselves with the movement. It is an ideology that is as steeped in identitarian divisiveness as it is riddled with contradictions.
Antifa’s Identitarian Ideology Is Embraced by the Mainstream Left
While organizations like Antifa—along with the planners of the “Border Resistance Convergence”—embrace identitarian ideology, the same ideology in only a slightly less virulent form is embraced by the mainstream American Left.
The 10 days of “trainings and direct actions” that are (were?) planned for El Paso are to “help us address US-funded genocide and local concentration camps.” Evidently, if you’re a far-left, anti-American ideologue, such language gets a pass on its hyperbole. To such a believer, today’s conditions in the El Paso Processing Center and those enforced 75 years ago at Treblinka are indistinguishable.
Identitarian ideology becomes evident, along with continuing contradictory logic, in the next paragraph, where prospective travelers to this “convergence” are advised that when they go to El Paso, they will be in “Tigua, Raramuri, Piro, Suma and Manso territory.” Reminding virtually everyone in North America that they are trespassing on stolen land has become a favored trope of the far Left. But how is this rational? If this is Tigua (etc.) “territory,” doesn’t that territory have borders?
Why would the organizers of the El Paso Border Resistance Convergence assert the legitimacy of Tigua (etc.) territory, yet deplore the existence of United States territory? Is this “border resistance” convergence only based on the illegitimacy of U.S. borders? Looking back in history, had no tribe existed in the El Paso area before the Tigua (etc.) overran them? It was wrong that Europeans overran Tigua (etc.) territory, so now it’s OK for foreigners to overrun Texas?
The next sentence offers some clarification: “This convergence is being run by Indigenous & QTPOC (Queer, trans, people of color) leadership and anyone who passively or aggressively disrespects that will be asked to leave.”
Ah ha. Indigenous people—presumably including the local Tigua (et. al.), will run the “convergence,” along with the “QTPOC” cohort. Descendants of Europeans—so long as they’re “white,” lack a Hispanic surname, are heterosexual, and identify as the sex on their birth certificate—are indeed required to defer to everyone else.
Further reading of the “convergence” promotional material verifies this elevating of “QTPOC” people into positions of supremacy. For example:
- “We are very much relying on white comrades to donate money and throw down on renting temporary spaces for our more vulnerable friends.”
- “Are you coming prepared to follow the direction of Indigenous, Black, Brown, and most affected-centered leadership?”
- “It is the responsibility of those of privilege to financially support others to join us for this convergence.”
- “How can we make this space safer in the current context of the world concerning topics such as Decolonization, the prevalence of Racism even in leftist spaces, inter-racial conflict, the cis-white-hetero-patriarchy, etc.”
Before continuing, let’s admire the creativity in this new and hyper-inclusive alphabetical innovation: “QTPOC.” What a fine way to maximize the inclusive capacity of five characters. Gone is LGBTQ, and POC (“people of color”) is no longer an orphan. “L,” “G,” and “B” are presumably now subsumed within “Q,” and of course “T” for “trans” shall be retained because “trans” is the hottest new category of victim, and now there is room for “POC” to be merged to create a brand new, linguistically efficient string of letters: QTPOC.
But how does alphabetizing every possible identifiable group that might have any conceivable grievance and proclaiming all of them to be victims of the “cis-white hetero patriarchy” (CWHP?) bring people together? Do these strident, simplistic calls for retribution, restitution, repentance, and submission elicit compassion? Or do they erase compassion?
The Left’s Identitarianism: “QTPOC Supremacy”
While the organizers of the “convergence” in El Paso are enforcing QTPOC supremacy among their participants, why is it when we see video and photos of similar demonstrations in recent years, the demonstrators seem overwhelmingly to be white, if not actually from that most deplorable subset of white, the “cis-white-hetero-patriarchy” (CWHP)?
From available evidence, albeit anecdotal, it seems implausible that the individuals organizing these “convergences” and “direct actions” are not mostly white. But rationality, or, for that matter, actual QTPOC supremacy, is not the ultimate objective of the identitarian Left in America.
Which brings us to the true ideology of America’s far Left, from Antifa to academia: It is a coalition of mostly white activists who despise capitalism, private property, traditional American values, their own heritage, and, arguably, themselves. They couch their Communist core values in the same identitarian rhetoric that they claim to oppose when it comes from right-wing sources.
When it comes to identitarian politics, the difference between Right and Left—and it’s a big one—is that only a minute fraction of conservative, pro-capitalist, pro-American ideologues are identitarians, whereas the American Left is defined by its identitarian politics. It is their seductive currency, obscuring the nihilistic agenda of international Communism, which is the deadliest ideology in the history of the world.
Apart from an insignificant fringe, the American Right does not emphasize identity group hierarchies and other forms of identitarian demagoguery in their political messaging not only because it is anathema to their ideology, but also because they don’t have to. The ideals of individual freedom, compassionate capitalism, and inclusive nationalism are powerful enough to occupy center stage.
The American Left, by contrast, must emphasize identitarian messages and identitarian policies because their hidden agenda is to establish the 21st century’s version of Communism. They are fighting to impose a neo-feudalist international corporate socialism on the American people. Most of them will never see their righteous identitarian fury for what it is: useful idiocy.
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Edward Ring is a Senior Fellow of the Center for American Greatness. He is a co-founder of the California Policy Center, a free-market think tank based in Southern California, where he served as their first president. He is a prolific writer on the topics of political reform and sustainable economic development. Ring, a fifth-generation Californian, has an undergraduate degree in political science from UC Davis, and an MBA in finance from the University of Southern California.
Photo “Antifa” by Old White Truck. CC BY-SA 2.0.
