BANNING ORDER

Trump’s Weird Antifa Move Followed by Authoritarian Pal

Europe’s most prominent Donald Trump fanboy wants to ban antifa, too.

Hungary will follow Donald Trump’s lead and designate antifa a terrorist organization, the country’s populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced. “I am pleased with the decision of the American president, and I am initiating that we do the same here in Hungary,” Orban announced on state radio. “Antifa is indeed a terrorist organization. Therefore, the time has come for us to classify organizations such as antifa as terrorist organizations, following the American model.” Orban, a strong Trump ally, said his move, a day after Trump’s, was inspired by an incident two years ago, in which antifa activists traveled to Hungary and assaulted several neo-nazis during a far-right demonstration in Budapest. Antifa, short for anti-fascist, is a loosely affiliated, decentralized movement that aims to stop fascists and neo-Nazis from demonstrating in public. The movement is primarily, but not exclusively, non-violent and considered more of an ideology than an organization. Ranting about the incident on the radio, Orban bemoaned the antifa “terrorists” who had “come to Hungary and beaten peaceful people in the street, some were beaten half to death, and then they became European members of parliament and from there lecture Hungary on the rule of law.”