CHARBONNEAU – Trump uses the Strawman Strategy to attack Antifa

IN HIS ONGOING attempts to normalize the presence of troops in American cities, President Trump is using the Strawman Strategy to attack Antifa.

The Strawman Strategy is a tactic in which you wrongly characterize or oversimplify an opponent for the purpose of attack. It involves exaggeration and claims of extreme behaviour.

The Antifa (anti-fascist) movement has no national leadership, no membership lists or headquarters. It is a loosely connected network of individuals and small groups who share anti-fascist, anti-racist, and anti-authoritarian beliefs.

Trump has exaggerated the threat of Antifa in order to to seek revenge on cities that support Democrats.

As we can now expect from the temperamental Trump, the Strawman Strategy ranks near the bottom in terms of Intellectual strength. Reasonable arguments, supported by facts, are not his forte.

He uses the Strawman Strategy to simplify complex social phenomena into menacing, coordinated conspiracies. He glibly creates a rhetorical enemy to detract from the chaos he creates.

Trump says that Antifa is behind almost all of the violent unrest even when other actors are involved.

Incredulously, Trump claims that Antifa was behind the Jan. 6 riot at the Capital when he was clearly the instigator.

He exaggerates unrest in Portland, blaming Antifa. Trump described Portland as a “war zone” overrun by Antifa, claiming destruction, vacant storefronts, missing infrastructure, and massive disorder.

In a typical Strawman fashion, Trump claimed that Martin Gugino of Buffalo was an Antifa agitator. The 75-year-old protester was shoved to the ground by police and sustained serious head injuries.

Trump tweeted that Gugino was a “professional agitator and Antifa provocateur.” In fact, Gugino had no connection with Antifa. He is a peace activist associated with the Catholic Worker Movement.

Trump frames protester injuries, such as Gugino’s, as the fault of Antifa rather than pointing fingers at police action, clashes, or localized dynamics. He draws false links to Antifa without any proof, turning a victim of police brutality into a symbol of Antifa “provocation.”

In each case, Trump treats Antifa not as a decentralized network of diverse participants with differing tactics, but as a monolithic, clandestine, and violent enemy. That allows his framing of Antifa to demand drastic countermeasures, to frame protests as terrorists, and distort public perception.

Trump has no intention on healing the deep divides in America. He admits it freely.

At Charlie Kirk’s memorial, Trump said: “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry.” His comments came after Kirk’s widow, Erika, said she forgave the man who killed her husband and that “the answer to hate is not hate.”

President Obama wanted to heal the divide between Democrats and Republicans. In soaring rhetoric he said:  “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”

In contrast, Trump wants to deepen the divide in America and punish those who didn’t vote for him.

David Charbonneau is a retired TRU electronics instructor who hosts a blog at http://www.eyeviewkamloops.wordpress.com.