A police cruiser pulled up and stopped at our corner today. My heart began to race. I wondered if I should run out the back door and jump the fence and disappear into the ravine.
I thought maybe the police officer had come to arrest me. That’s because I’m against fascism, and the authoritarian fascist president of our country just declared Antifa (short for anti-fascist) a “Domestic Terrorist Organization.”
I confess. I’m against fascism. I’m against putting kids in cages, against masked unidentifiable ICE thugs rounding up people on the streets and disappearing them, against deploying our military unnecessarily in the cities. I’m against silencing free speech.
I confess we have a modest rainbow flag flying in front of our house. We have a “Save Democracy” sign perched in our garage side window. I carried a “Black Lives Matter” sign at a protest in 2020. I attended the “No Kings” protest. I recently got a vaccine. I once flew the American flag upside down as a sign of extreme peril after he was elected. And now I’ve written this post; more evidence. I emailed the Buffalo Bills to express my disgust at them honoring Charlie Kirk before the kickoff of a home game and asked why they didn’t do the same for the slain Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband. I liked a social media post that called the president a fascist. I have unwavering gratitude for the greatest Antifa movement of all time—when tens of thousands of American soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy and fought and died until they successfully defeated fascist Nazi Germany.
So yeah, I guess I’m Antifa, even though it’s not really an organization but a philosophical movement that opposes far-right, racist, and fascist groups. Even though it is loose and leaderless and lacks any organizational structure.
Here I am, officer. Chase me. Arrest me.
I look out the window again. The police cruiser is pulling away. They hadn’t come to arrest me after all. Not yet.
