U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on September 22 to classify the "anti-fascist movement" as a domestic terrorist organization, but there are voices in the U.S. public opinion that the executive order may lack legal authority.
The White House documents say Trump has designated the “anti-fascist movement” as a domestic terrorist organization, which aims to overthrow the government through violence and incitement, and the document also lists examples of the campaign’s “long-term intimidation” community, including attacks on U.S. immigration and customs law enforcement, police and conservative political activists.
According to the document, the terrorist activities of the "anti-fascist movement" embody the radical left-wing violence trend that has sweeped across the United States in recent years, which is "fomented by the constant lying and malicious attacks on the Republican Party by mentally disturbed Democratic politicians, well-funded left-wing organizations and their media allies".
The document also states that conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated by “radical leftist terrorists.”
According to the Washington Post, the United States has no legal mechanism to list domestic organizations as terrorist organizations. Furthermore, the "anti-fascist movement" is a decentralized left-wing ideology embraced by different individuals and groups. Experts fear that the designation of such a broad movement rather than an explicit group as a terrorist organization could be used to provide an excuse for a broader crackdown on left-wing political forces. According to a recent report by The New York Times, citing Mary McChord, former acting head of the National Security Department of the Ministry of Justice, even if the "anti-fascist movement" is an organization rather than just an ideology, Trump has no legal authority to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations.
In 2020, Trump announced during his first presidential term that he would classify the “anti-fascist movement” as a terrorist organization but did not take any practical action thereafter. The executive order was made in the context of fierce political violence in the United States after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The Democratic Party said that there were political acts of violence both on the left and on the right, and that “most of the violence came from the left.”