An Anti-fascist Guide to the US 2024 Election

An analysis from Atlanta Antifascists on the upcoming US election and how it might influence and accelerate state repression and far-Right violence.

As a militant anti-fascist group, we have never endorsed any electoral candidate, and that will not change with this election. However, elections can impact the growth of fascist movements, as well as the ability of anti-fascists to fight. Furthermore, although grassroots anti-fascist groups like ours have been operating in the US continuously from the 1980s onward, we were rarely in the national spotlight. 2017 changed this entirely, when the existence of “antifa” became a matter of wide discussion and often wild speculation. This guide aims to combat misinformation about our politics and activity. We also make suggestions on how to organize in the future, no matter which candidate wins.

We will make a few predictions in this piece, based on prior experience and also on our observations of how far-right groups are planning for the election. Our first and very safe prediction is that this election will not follow the same pattern of 2016, in which the ascendant alt-right tied their hopes to Trump, and we saw an unprecedented, de facto alliance between the fascist and white-power far right, and the Republican establishment. Eight years later, many of these fascist and white power far-right groups have become disenchanted with Trump. Foreign policy fractures opened over Ukraine in 2022 and widened over Palestine in 2023.

There are two diametrically opposed positions on the right over Israel, although both positions are antisemitic. One is advanced by Christian Zionists who support Israel, and another is held by paleoconservatives who either oppose Israel or want to cease US aid to Israel. Trump has chosen the Christian Zionist side, leading to his abandonment by formerly Trumpist open fascists and neo-Nazis, although many had become disillusioned even before this point. Some anti-Israel fascist groups, such as AFPAC led by Nick Fuentes, still focus on gaining a foothold in politics and encourage infiltration of the Republican party. Even Fuentes has not been energized by the current Trump campaign, although he was one of the few enthusiastic about Trump’s September 10th debate performance. Many other US fascist groups now regard Trump as a betrayer and reject a “political solution” entirely. These fascist groups will nevertheless take advantage of anti-immigrant scapegoating by Trump, using it as an opportunity to recruit and to build a climate of intimidation.

In the case of a Trump win, there will be infighting on the right as power is redistributed and consolidated. However, this will not mean that life will become easier for anyone else. All traditional scapegoats of the right (racial, religious, and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+, leftists) will continue to be targeted. Some of this targeting will be done by the Trump government itself, but even extra-state targeting may increase, because a Trump win could give a sense of “the people are with us” to the right and thus provide psychological permission for individuals to engage in harassment. Anti-fascists must work in their communities to quickly remove any emboldened feelings on the far right, while engaging with broader protest movements that arise in response to targeting by the state.

We should expect a Trump presidency to be tumultuous. Whatever the actual causes of turmoil, the right will blame its traditional scapegoats. We saw a preview of this dynamic in the responses to the Trump assassination attempt, when far-right media initially tried to revive antifa conspiracies to explain the assassin’s motives.

Repression under Trump may be severe. The extrajudicial assassination of Michael Reinoehl in 2020 by a federal task force is one potential template for political violence. Any individual or organization targeted by Trump or his administration is extremely unlikely to find recourse in law. The state will bring the most violence against social and political movements challenging police repression. However, it will be essential that these movements survive and grow.

DHS and CBP may become power centers as a Trump administration consolidates, given Trump’s history of conflict with the FBI. (It is also possible that Trump symbolically chastises the FBI but quickly makes peace.)  There will be attempts to implement the authoritarian “Project 2025” agenda written by Trump loyalists,  although Trump’s erratic personality means that its implementation may not be as smooth as the planners hope. The extreme right will see themselves as still in conflict with the mainstream power structure, but there will be areas where some groups will take opportunistic advantage. Groups that are less ideologically rigid, like the Proud Boys, may be able to come back into relevancy and present themselves as auxiliaries to state power in order to fulfill a paramilitary function. In cases where a Democratic power structure runs a city (such as our city, Atlanta) and local politicians resist federal intervention, these paramilitary forces may become a preferred way for the far-right state to repress dissent and attack targets such as immigrants.

In case of a Trump win, our work, and anti-fascist work in general, will become harder. Tech oligarchs such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk have supported Trump in the past or in this election cycle. This alignment of tech leaders and the state means that communications over US-based platforms would become much riskier.

Activists will need to improve their informational security and also cultivate more ties outside this country–we encourage taking small practical steps before the election. There will be increasing misinformation about both fascism and anti-fascism and new conspiracy theories that create internal enemies in order to unify the right in hatred. The bulk of our work depends on giving good, free, information to the public in order for people to act against fascism on their own, but if the state has become authoritarian to such a degree that we are unable to do that over open channels, we will need to find alternate ways of getting the information out. One such opportunity is that there will be many mass protests by (center) left groups and local communities. Anti-fascists need to enter coalitions and use these protests to explain and demonstrate how to resist fascism effectively.

If Harris wins, there will be a period of right-wing blame and intense infighting that will quickly resolve into a burying of differences and unification against the new administration. The perceived indignity of having a Black woman president will result in extreme anger and resentment, mirroring and perhaps intensifying the effect Obama had on them: during the Obama administration, militant far-right groups experienced a resurgence.

From the anti-fascist perspective, a Harris administration would largely continue the domestic status quo of the Biden administration. On one hand, based on prior behavior in office, this is a less damaging alternative to Trump on both the domestic and international level, and we would face less danger of being extra-judicially assassinated. On the other hand, this kind of status quo maintains all current repressive policies and simply kicks the can down the road in terms of fascist political violence. The Harris administration will promise legal and carceral solutions to fascism, and those simply do not work. Laws enacted against fascists are used against anti-fascists in practice: one example is the use of mask laws, which were originally supposed to affect groups like the KKK but are now instead applied by the courts against anti-fascists, anti-racists, and pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

In the case of a Harris win, activists need to take advantage of a window of opportunity by growing numbers, de-emphasizing carceral solutions within their communities, and stressing anti-fascist education. Through our media and through advancing a grassroots culture of anti-fascism, anti-fascists should vigorously resist attempts to co-opt anti-fascism into state-based solutions. Immigrant and refugee defense will also become even more important than it is now, because the far right will attempt to re-unify around attacking immigrants. Meanwhile, a Harris administration will attempt to strike a “moderate” balance between two narratives of “nation of immigrants” and “law and order”, which means that in real-term policy, carceral repression will continue unabated.

In the case of an outbreak of violence around the election or certification, anti-fascists should engage using principles of community defense as part of larger engagements of self-determination. Our priorities should be defending those who are targeted by the far right, making sure that shows of intimidation are opposed, and thwarting direct attacks by the far right. Poll workers, who in our city are majority Black, elderly, and working class, will be targets of far-right attacks and we must defend them. However, interceding on behalf of any party’s state power structure falls outside of the principles of community defense. We encourage everyone to think through all possible local scenarios, especially in our city, which could very easily become a flashpoint of election-related violence.

Finally, transphobia and abortion will be issues that the far right will try to organize around under either candidate.

There will be work to do no matter who wins. Candidates and conditions may change, but our anti-fascist principles should remain the same.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash