An Antifa whistleblower going by the name Eric said Thursday on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime” that he left the now-designated terrorist organization after a decade due to “pressure” and “ostracization” from other members.
On Sept. 17, President Donald Trump announced the designation of militant far-left network Antifa as a terrorist organization and called for investigations into its financial backers. Fox’s Jesse Watters asked Eric, who wore a face mask to protect his identity, whether the organization’s ideology was “full blown communism.” (RELATED: Antifa Cop Fired Over Insane Social Media Posts)
“I mean, a lot of it is. So a lot of it is — these are accelerationism. It’s not the slow march to the institutions. It is, ‘We want this, and we want it now,’” Eric said. “One of the reasons that I got out of it is probably around 2014, 15, we started seeing groups come up to Seattle and Portland from California, and they were much more like, ‘Hey, you better get in line with this,’ and if you’re not, there’s consequences and there’s pressure.”
While Antifa has existed since 2007, the group gained widespread attention online during the 2020 riots, playing a major role in several Democratic-led cities, including Seattle and Portland. Trump vowed in May 2020 to classify Antifa as a terrorist organization following major riots.
Watters asked Eric whether he was being “forced to take violent action” as a member.
“Oh, not only that, but there was pressure, there was ostracization, things of that nature where you might get into it, say, because you don’t like bigotry in the music scene,” Eric said. “And then later on, it’s, ‘You’re gonna adhere to these tenets, and you’re gonna say and think these ways.’ And if you’re on the fence at all, ‘Silence is violence’ and, ‘Your comrades are gonna become a problem for you,’ you know?”
Prior to explaining why he left the group, Eric said he had been recruited into Antifa as a freshman in high school. He said that while violence was a “perk” of being part of the group, his early role mostly involved recruiting other young members.
While living in Seattle, Eric said that by the time the 1999 riots occurred, he was “ready to go.”
“I had little Molotov cocktails in my bedroom and a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook that I had photoshopped or photocopied at the time from a friend of mine’s older brother,” Eric said. “At the time, I’m like, ‘Oh, this is just a good time.’ It’s only later on that you get more involved with the ideas, the philosophies, the direct- action ideologies that go deeper into later on becoming like a full-blown anarcho-communist and syndicalist.”
As part of Trump’s recent crackdown on Antifa, he announced Saturday the deployment of troops to Portland to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities from the group.
