As the United States tries to tackle right-wing domestic extremism, some public figures continue to try to deflect attention instead to the left-wing faction known as antifa. Last week, former president Donald Trump again minimized the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and then pivoted to one of his favorite targets: violent “radical left people” who had been involved in the 2020 racial justice protests. Fox News’s Tucker Carlson has alleged that antifa was behind the insurrection at the Capitol. And a year ago, currently infamous podcaster Joe Rogan had to walk back comments in which he blamed Oregon’s wildfires on “left-wing people” like antifa.
Similar allegations were made during the 2020 protests that followed George Floyd’s murder as scenes of burning buildings and black-clad individuals in the streets captured the attention of many. Those protests were largely nonviolent, even by historical standards. But Trump and conservative media outlets blamed antifa for the violence that did occur and called the group a “terrorist organization.” Some Republican lawmakers went as far as to say that antifa had “infiltrated” BLM.
Were people who identify as “antifa” in fact involved in the 2020 racial justice protests? We looked at the data to find out.
What is antifa?
“For most people antifa is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wearing a black mask,” wrote sociologist Stanislav Vysotsky. “Antifa” stands for anti-fascism, and the entity is an ideological movement of loosely connected individuals and groups that oppose fascism and white supremacy. In the United States, the “antifa” moniker is most associated with a militant version of anti-fascism, particularly organizations including Rose City Antifa in Portland, Ore., and the Torch Antifa network.
Antifa groups use a variety of nonviolent tactics such as “doxing” and other forms of public shaming. They also use violence to oppose fascist organizing, often responding to right-wing violence with similar tactics.
Anti-fascist ideology and tactics, like those of many of the right-wing radical and white supremacist groups they oppose, are often spread and employed outside formal organizations. However, as sociologists and journalists have documented, antifa groups provide training and tactical coordination for anti-fascist activity. The presence of antifa groups at racial justice protests is thus an important measure of anti-fascist activity within 2020’s BLM protest activity.
Critics claim BLM protests were more violent than 1960s civil rights events. That’s just not true.
How we did our research
For information on antifa during the 2020 racial justice protests, we used event data from the Crowd Counting Consortium (CCC) and the Armed Conflict and Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). CCC collects information on all protest events from news reports and other media. ACLED researchers review over 2,800 sources to collect information on all demonstration events in the United States. CCC tended to undercount antifa at racial justice protests, finding only six mentions, so we supplemented it with ACLED’s findings that antifa was present at 31 demonstrations.
From each source, we identified demonstrations focused on racial justice and determined whether antifa or a BLM chapter attended. We then calculated the percentage that contained mention of any police injuries, crowd injuries, property destruction or arrests.
Antifa’s presence was rare and concentrated in a few regions
Out of nearly 14,000 racial justice protests in 2020, antifa was identified in just 37, or 0.2 percent. That would not qualify as an infiltration of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Antifa activity in racial justice protests was limited mostly to the Pacific Northwest, California and D.C. More than one-third of antifa’s protest appearances occurred in Oregon and Washington.
Antifa’s presence contributed significantly to protest violence
When antifa did attend protests, the incidence of violence was extremely high compared to the level at protests it did not attend. Of the 37 racial justice protests where antifa appeared, 11 — or 30 percent — involved injuries to the crowd; when antifa did not appear, only 2 percent of the protests involved crowd injuries. With antifa present, 14 percent of protests involved injuries to police; without antifa, only 2 percent did. When antifa showed up, 27 percent of protests involved property damage; without antifa, only 4 percent did. And when antifa appeared, 30 percent of protests involved arrests, while only 7 percent of the antifa-free protests did.
In other words, antifa appearances at racial justice protests greatly increased the risk of violence.
But antifa shows up primarily when it wants to counter a right-wing group’s appearance. So, were right-wing groups the real source of the violence? That’s not what our research found. We saw no difference between events in which antifa was facing off with a group such as the Proud Boys or the Three Percenters and when they were protesting unopposed.
What about events organized by Black Lives Matter?
Most of the 2020 racial justice protests were locally organized. Even if protesters chanted or carried signs supporting Black Lives Matter, BLM-affiliated groups were rarely involved. In fact, reports found only about 3 percent of the summer’s 14,000 protests were coordinated by BLM-affiliated groups.
We checked to see whether formal BLM appearances made any difference in a protest’s violence and found no evidence to suggest that it did. When BLM organizations showed up, protests were no more or less violent than when they did not. Both types of events had low levels of violence on every measure.
Violence is more likely to make the news, and radical groups such as antifa can drive news coverage, as previous research has shown. As a result, media coverage can leave the impression that violence was more prevalent than it was in reality. To be sure, our data sets were based on informed estimates of antifa’s presence at racial justice protests and of the resulting violence. But these data collections provide the most systematic and comprehensive coverage of 2020’s racial justice protests available.
There’s a long, troubling history behind the Capitol attack
Antifa was rarely present during 2020’s protests, but when it showed up, there was more violence. We find no evidence that it infiltrated BLM, as some have charged, or caused BLM to be violent. Extremism is a concern, and right-wing extremism may pose a greater threat, but maligning BLM through association with antifa clearly misses the mark.
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Kerby Goff (@kerbygoff) is a PhD candidate in sociology at Penn State.
John D. McCarthy is an emeritus distinguished professor of sociology at Penn State.