This is a symbol expressing White Supremacist hostility toward the political left. Thus, #AntiAntiFa targets left-wing political forces alongside the “usual” targets of the far right, which have historically included religious, racial, and ethnic minorities.
Alongside the parliamentary left, targets also include forces of the extra-parliamentary and far left. For example, a common alt-right meme offers “free helicopter rides” to people on the left, referring to the tactic used by right-wing dictatorships in Argentina and Chile of throwing left-wing regime critics from helicopters, resulting in their deaths.
Anti-left symbolism within White Supremacist culture particularly targets far-left and anarchist activists who have actively opposed and exposed White Supremacists. During the 1990s and 2000s, for example, White Supremacists created imagery targeting anti-racist Skinheads known as SHARPs (“Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice”). Such imagery placed a red circle and diagonal bar or weapon over an image of a Trojan helmet, a common SHARP symbol.
More recently, White Supremacists have created similar imagery targeting antifa (short for anti-fascist), the loosely organized left-wing and anarchist anti-racist movement. White Supremacists have adopted the term “anti-antifa” to describe themselves. Some anti-antifa imagery simply repeats earlier anti-SHARP designs, such as placing a red circle and diagonal line over a common antifa symbol, including red or red-and-black flags positioned side by side, derived from the logo of the 1930s German anti-fascist organization Antifaschistische Aktion. In other cases, the symbol is altered into a design featuring three downward-pointing arrows, derived from imagery used by German and Austrian Social Democrats who opposed Nazism during the 1930s.
Other anti-antifa symbolism distorts common antifa slogans and logos, such as changing “Good Night White Pride” to “Good Night Left Side.” Anti-antifa symbolism frequently promotes, either implicitly or explicitly, violence against left-wing activists.
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