Okaaaayy...... but none of this REALLY contradicts what the FBI have said. Nor does it, in my mind, shed a meaningful light on a context.
Sure it does...it highlights my point about factors that could lead to increased chances of getting on watchlists, even if the level of damage is less than what's being caused by other entities.
The examples I've mentioned are
1) Being a "definitive group" with a leadership structure in place vs. being decentralized
(IE: far right extremist groups like Army of God or Far left extreme groups like New Black Panther Party are on watchlists, even though far more movements exist - both in terms of property damage and lethality - aren't on those same types of watchlists)
2) Having a mission (or perceived agenda) that appears, in nature, to be more single-threaded
For instance, the amount of vandalism & property damage caused by people claiming to be affiliated with the Antifa movement have vastly exceeded (in a matter of 5 months), the damages caused by people claiming to be affiliated with Animal Liberation Front (in their 44 years of the movement's existence), yet Animal Liberation Front is on the watchlist, but former is not.
Despite claiming that their purpose is simply "opposing fascism", their sentiments span the range of left-wing ideals falling an various different points of the spectrum. As to where ALF is basically "this facility hurts animals, so we're going to go catch it on fire"
There's a 3rd, that I didn't mention previously, and that's the "perceived extreme : Perceived moderate" ratio of the people who comprise the movement.
For instance, you could have a relatively small movement only having 100 people, but if all 100 are viewed as "definitely bad and violent" in the court of public opinion, they're more likely to get that designation than a movement that has 20,000, but only 1% (200 people) that are violent.
Even though 200 violent people are more of a danger than 100 violent people.
During riots in protest of government action, one cannot reasonably claim that EVERY piece of property destruction could be tied to a BLM or Antifa member, even if those events occurred at their protests.
While I don't doubt that there are some one-offs involving either A) right wing agitators trying to make the other side look bad, or B) some unaffiliated opportunists who just want an excuse to get some free stuff...
To say that even 20% of the overall damage falls into those two categories would be a long shot.
The deniability aspect would carry more weight if organizers would actually condemn that sort of thing instead of writing it off nonchalantly.
If I were an organizer of events, and those events kept getting hijacked by people who weren't affiliated with me and they were damaging property and stealing, when asked, my very first statement would be declaring, repeatedly, that those other guys weren't with me and that I don't condone that sort of thing.
However, if my first response was "it's just stuff" or "
these are our reparations", or "
insurance will cover it", that wouldn't even sound like I was denying it, agreed?
The idea that the antifa movement in the US is associated in any way with the Nazi Germany group is akin to saying "well North Korea is a democracy cause it says so in their name".
The German iterations of Antifa are the ones that the current group in the US is seeking to emulate (as evidenced by their flags, slogans, symbolism, etc...).
The particular iteration they're emulating the most is the one from 1960's West Germany, after the war had long been over.
Your example of the "democratic" language that totalitarian regimes use isn't really a valid comparison, as "democratic" in those contexts is just a generic descriptor (and a misleading one) dictators use to convey the idea that their leadership position is the will of the people living there when it actually isn't. Unless you're implying that "AntiFa" isn't really about "AntiFascism", and the name is just some sort of dogwhistle they're using to rally sympathizers from other causes? That could be in the realm of possibility given the Antifa group in Germany (the one whose flags the current one fly), made it pretty clear that their goals included much more than simply "opposing fascism" when, in the 60's, a time when the West German government was 95% controlled by a coalition of Social Democrats and Moderates and there was really no far-right presence in their government to speak of. (which makes perfect sense their government would be mostly left leaning considering their recent experiences of the dangers of radical right ideologies at the time). However, the Antifa at that time simply moved the goalposts and began calling Social Democrats "Social Fascists" and started opposing them as well. (Much like we've seen the current US iterations begin targeting left-leaning Mayors like Ted Wheeler, Lori Lightfoot, Jenny Durkan, etc... for not being "left enough")
Using the moniker and flags/symbolism of a very specific group is different than just using a generic adjective/platitude.
For instance, there's a difference between a group intentionally using some sort of misleading generic name like "People's freedom movement", vs a group showing up flying the flags and using the name of a previous prominent activism movement.
