[Itse]

Originally Posted by ToewsFan

Unfortunately, the Antifa defines "fascists" as "anyone who opposes them". Could be a Trump supporter, a guy filming them, a businessman going to work, etc. Haters are haters. The the true anarchists are in the slim minority. The two groups have more in common then they would like to admit.

That sounds like a North American phenomenon to me. I guess over there those people are suffering from a lack of legitimate targets, as you don't have openly fascist groups the same way every country in Europe does. The actual Antifa activities over here are pretty genuinely targeted against actual fascists. We even have plenty of outright self-identifying nazis to attack.

Also, Antifa are not all anarchists, although some are. It is generally what the name suggests, a collection of various actively anti-fascist people. These kinds of activist groups tend to be very confusing to outsiders, because there's always all sorts of people involved with often conflicting ideas both about methods and sometimes about targets.

Those individual people then go on to speak for the whole of Antifa (or what ever activist group we're talking about) often without actually representing them in any real sense.

Mainstream media generally is completely incapable of and uninterested in keeping track of who actually does or says what, instead just going for what ever storyline they think will sell. Which is mostly some variation of "look at these crazy people" or "youth of today are idiots".

You also have to keep in mind that the so-called "anarchists" are mainly composed of young White middle-class students, with too much time on their hands, and just looking for some form of excitement. It's not like they are a marginalized group.

I'm not sure "just looking for excitement" is at all fair, but I agree that they tend to be fairly privileged group. Which is understandable, because you have to be pretty ridiculously sheltered to think anarchism is actually a good idea. Plus you can't get anarchism at all without doing a heavy amount of reading, which in itself means anarchists have more or less academic backgrounds.

They do have some interesting and worthwhile perspectives on society though.