An executive order labeling antifa as a domestic terrorist organization is spurring pushback from critics across the ideological spectrum who say President Trump is laying the groundwork to crack down on those with opposing views.

Short for anti-fascism, national security experts say antifa is not the sprawling, organized group that Trump has claimed but rather a loosely formed ideological movement, one at times embraced by protesters who have violently clashed with police.

“Antifa is a movement like feminism or environmental activism, as opposed to a distinct group,” said Faiza Patel, director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice.

“This is not like a group that you can sort of target with financial sanctions in the same way you would with a foreign terrorist organization. So then that leads you to the question of, well, then what does this executive order actually do?” she said.

White House officials argue antifa and other left-wing groups were part of a complex network that has been creating chaos and fomenting political violence, and that it needed to be addressed through the power of the federal government.

“These are not lone, isolated events. This is part of an organized campaign of radical left terrorism,” deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said Thursday. “It is structured, it is sophisticated, it is well-funded, it is well-planned. There is really no parallel like this to anything else in the country right now.”

The Trump order comes in the wake of the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, which has prompted an outcry from the White House over political violence it blames on the left.

At the same time, Trump’s desire to crack down on antifa and the left isn’t entirely new. Trump in 2020 said he would designate antifa as a terrorist organization amid the height of Black Lives Matter protests, though he never followed through with an official action.

Pat Eddington, a fellow with the libertarian Cato Institute, called the executive order

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