They (not Trump of course) had to walk it back when it turned out not to be true.
Is there some outside groups posing as others, possibly, but to blame a majority of problems on them is just BS.
I see a lot of mischaracterization of what is a category, not a group. From what I can tell antifa is anti-fascism, and somewhat characterized by people willing to take direct action.
So when you say 'From what I can tell antifa is anti-fascism' - what does that mean? America doesn't have any serious fascist groups - from what I can tell the ruling powers are decidedly corporatist and the first alternative philosophy seems to be light/moderate socialism. Second is maybe libertarianism.
So who/what do you think the anti-fascists are opposing, and what would they espouse if they ever decide there are no fascists for them to define themselves against?
Corporatism was inseparable from fascism in Italy and Germany. The exploitation of the profit motive is one of the primary reasons that so many people overlooked the atrocities.
Fascism is the reason so many companies like IBM, Hugo Boss, L'Oreal, Koch Industries, Audi, Porsche, Adidas, BMW, and countless other extant corporations have dark histories from supporting the German extermination camps to utilizing their slave labor to build their products.
Quoting a few key sentences from Wikipedia:
Fascists believe that liberal democracy is obsolete and regard the complete mobilization of society under a totalitarian one-party state as necessary to prepare a nation for armed conflict and to respond effectively to economic difficulties. Such a state is led by a strong leader—such as a dictator and a martial government composed of the members of the governing fascist party—to forge national unity and maintain a stable and orderly society. Fascism rejects assertions that violence is automatically negative in nature and views political violence, war and imperialism as means that can achieve national rejuvenation. Fascists advocate a mixed economy, with the principal goal of achieving autarky (national economic self-sufficiency) through protectionist and interventionist economic policies. [0]
America doesn't have a serious lobby that believes in those things. There isn't a lobby that is serious about autarchy, there isn't a lobby calling for complete mobilisation and there isn't a lobby calling for a one party state. Apart from maybe the anti-facists I don't know of a lobby promoting political violence. The war and imperialism stuff is possibly true, but that isn't a new thing in American politics - America has been at war my entire lifetime and mostly in the same set of middle eastern countries.
The only link between fascism and American politics is that Trump is popular in the Republican party and is happy to stand up and say that the globalism pendulum has swung too far. That is a tenuous link to fascist ideology.
I've gotta say, the NRA has been getting closer to fitting this.
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/totals?cycle=2012&id=d00000...
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/us/nra-details-plan-for-a...
Their original goal, of a rights advocacy group has turned into a partisan dividing tactic.
Supporting one party over another is not an act of fascism. They promote the GOP because the GOP supports their goals. Do you think it's reasonable to expect them to promote the other party while that party actively works against them?
They promote a stronger police presence in schools, but they also support the right of teachers to be armed and able to defend against attackers. In other words, they support teachers being able to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights. Whether you agree with that or not, the 2nd Amendment is a decidedly libertarian idea. Fascism is authoritarian by nature. Promoting one of these is mutually exclusive with promoting the other.
Regarding police in schools, I don't see how that fits with Wikipedia's definition of fascism: a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, as well as strong regimentation of society and of the economy. Perhaps we're operating on different definitions.
I also wouldn't think poorly of the NRA for just it's change in how it donates to candidates if they weren't performing illegal coordination and also promoting Republicans candidates even if their opponent was aligned with their 2nd Amendment stance.
Police presence in schools is just a step into a strong regimentation of society IMO. And the 2nd Amendment is far too vague to be considered libertarian. We could debate all day over what the intent was, or how it can be interpreted.
Frankly I don't see why that's relevant. My point is that the amendment itself has become a partisan issue. The GOP and the NRA agree on their interpretation of the amendment, while the other party opposes them. Why would you expect two allies to support their mutual opposition instead of each other, and how does not doing so equate to fascism?
> performing illegal coordination
Political corruption != fascism, and it is certainly not unique to it.
> the 2nd Amendment is far too vague to be considered libertarian
I disagree, but I can see how some interpretations of it (that it's meant to arm militias which are agents of the state) could even be considered authoritarian. However, the NRA advocates for the interpretation that says people should have the means to overthrow their government if necessary. I'm having a hard time seeing how that aligns with fascism.