The farce is with Trump as he declares war on antifa

President boasts 'we got rid of free speech' at bizarre event

- HOLLY BAXTER

Wake up, babe, new civil liberties infringement propaganda just dropped! Today's instalment of America's ongoing descent into farce brings us a White House press release about “antifa terror” and a presidential round table devoted entirely to the group that famously isn’t a real entity.

Around noon, a press release appeared on the official White House website, quoting numerous anonymous Portland residents, including a “man”, a “woman”, and a “business owner”, all of whom absolutely want the National Guard to storm their city. “I kind of support it 110 per cent” is an actual quote.

But that was just the appetizer. At 3pm, the televised meeting began. And boy, was there a lot of meat.

Held at the table of “independent journalists” (far-right activists) and moderated by Donald Trump, it opened with a statement by the president that “paid anarchists” want to “destroy our country,” followed by bizarre, conspiracy-laden claims that anti-Trump protesters have signs made of expensive paper “with beautiful wooden handles” that therefore must have been printed in the basements of secretive organisations, and that “we have a lot of records already, a lot of surprises, a lot of bad surprises” in store for the people who align themselves with anti-fascism.

And by the way, he noted, “we got rid of free speech” because flag-burning is bad.

Attorney general Pam Bondi jumped in to underline the message: “We’re not going to stop at just arresting people in the street.” No, they’re going to “take down the organisation brick by brick” and “destroy the organisation from top to bottom”.