Transcripts For CSPAN QA Discussion On The Proud Boys Antifa 20240712

2020 Vice President ial candidate senator Kamala Harris delivers good marks at the Triumph Church near detroit. Are you willing tonight to condemn White Supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in the number of these cities as we saw in kenosha at the portland. Pres. Trump i would say almost everything i see is from the left wing, not the right wing. I am willing to do anything. I want to see peace. It. Biden say pres. Trump what would you like me to call them. Blyd boys stanback and stan stand by. Havethleen belew, you literally what the book on White Supremacy. When you heard that moment what was your reaction . Kathleen very concerning for a number of reasons. I have long since as many analysts have given up trying to understand the president s motivations. Even if he takes the most generous interpretation of trump comments, perhaps he said proud boys, perhaps you meant to say stand down, there is a large and complex White Power Movement in our country that heard the president s words as are called to military preparedness. This is a movement interested in violence against civilians, our democracy and its institutions, and even if the president did not mean to call them to arms, that is effectively what he has done. I am not sure she can unring the bell. Jillian joe biden supplied the name proud boys to him but for people who had never heard of them before. Give us a snapshot. Kathleen the proud boys are a group in a larger landscape of white power and Militia Movement activism. That is broadly french right activism interested in resisting federal government power, advocating for Second Amendment rights and gun possession, gun ownership rights, and also involve people who are outright white supremacist, meaning people who not only believe in the superiority of white people over other people but who are prepared and eager to take a violent action to ensure the continuation of white supremacist power. Jillian the proud boys explicitly disavow White Supremacy and, in fact, there are people of color who belong to the group. How should we process those pieces of information . Kathleen it is helpful to think of overlapping venn diagrams. There are two ways the proud boys are related to a broader landscape of white activism. They are effectively organized around several issues that although they include activists of color and say they are not white supremacist, they are interested in a bunch of ideas congruent with violent white power activism. This includes what the proud boys themselves call western chauvinism, the idea of meeting western cultures are superior to other cultures. ,hey are antiislam antifeminist, violent in many iterations and they work as moments ofes for white power activism. For instance, they were present in the charlottesville rally in virginia in 2017. As a defectiveup security personnel elsewhere. They are shoulder to shoulder with white power activist. Jillian in general, what do i do currents of these groups, what country do they envision and how do they realistically see getting there . That question asked us to go back and look at the history of this movement, and i would like to emphasize we are decades if not generations into this activism. The White Power Movement together klansmen, neonazis, skinheads, radical protesters and in some parts of the Militia Movement in the 1980s and 1990s, and has been at war with the federal government since the 1980s. They have advocated things like , the forced genocide of people of color, the subsequent genocide of people of color and the use of chemical and biological weapons to eradicate the entire world. The nation edit White Nationalism is not necessarily the United States. The nation and White Nationalism is often imagined as the aryan nation and has nothing to do with the u. S. But as a Transnational Group of white people. The department of Homeland Security has issued a threat assessment report that shows not only are these groups, white power extremists and Militia Movement groups the largest threat in the United States. They now outstrip not only what the president calls antifa and the left but they also far outstrip the threat of radical islamist terror in the United States. Dhs has saidnd this is the main problem in relation to terrorist violence that our nation needs to address. Jillian how are statistics on the size of groups as this reliably gathered since nobody is entering surveys . How do we know . Kathleen here is one thing to keep in mind. Since the early 1980s this movement has been using a strategy called leaderless resistance. This will sound familiar to leaders because it is effectively the same thing we are familiar with as selfstyled terrorism in the post9 11 moments. The idea is one or a few white power activists would work toward a common set of goals but without communication with other cells and communication with central leadership. Did a number of important things. It made it very difficult for us to describe and document the White Power Movement violence as it happened, because we instead see a lot of stories about lone wolves, when in fact we are seeing movement motivated violence, but it also means there is not a great correlation between a relative group size and violent activity. In other words, if you are trying to recruit 2000 people to march down main street, that is a different recruitment effort then if you are trying to get six people to detonate a bomb. Neat relationship between relative size of these groups and the frequency of violence that they carry out. Instead, what experts are interested in looking at is the momentum of activism and activity. We can see it through smaller acts of violence the tent to lead up to bigger mass casualty attacks. Jillian lets go back to the president s admonition to standby. Thatif he misspoke in instance, and at the town hall meeting key explicitly disavowed White Supremacy movements when pressed by the debate moderator, but you say groups heard what they wanted to do here there. What happened as a result of hearing those words standby . Kathleen we saw on social media at some of these groups incorporated that slogan stand back, standby as part of a these groups do not need a large signal great we are talking about a paramilitary Unit Movement that is already standing at readiness to take action. The thing experts are concerned subtext of thehe president s comments that indicate he is somehow condoning any violence that might occur in a future Movement Moment when they are called on to act and also the hint of nonprosecution. This is a movement that has not to ampeder signaling up its activity in the past. As screamed like a failed prosecution effort to promoteampaigns to additional violence. We are talking about the movement responsible for the bombing of Oklahoma City in 1995. At that action is the largest deliberate mass casualty event on may lens well between pearl harbor and 911 but we do not think of it as the work of a movement, even though Historical Archive show without a doubt it was that. Part of what we have to think about is white we as a society have not face this as a terrorist threat and what we might need to change in the way we think about these stories to change that conversation. Jillian with the election looming, you have actually been very busy over the past couple of weeks after the debate and subsequent threat against the governor of michigan and virginia. What indering about fact you and others who follow these movements are concerned about regarding election day . Standby for what . What are the scenarios if President Trump wins and loses . My concern based on the history of this movement and the ideology of the people drawn to this kind of activism, i think if there is a Biden Victory there is a real threat that these activists will not see it as if there election and out continue to seek opportunities to carry out acts of violence, and as a reminder, they are interested not just in they haveon, although done that for a century or more as part of the kkk. These are activist interested in infrastructure attacks, mass casualty attacks. Some of them have talked about attacking Nuclear Power plants in order to set off nuclear disasters. These are people interested in major scale violence, not only pull intimidation poll intimidation, and the other historical parallel that is concerning is if trump were to be elected and all these groups into some kind of validity, then we are talking about and extralegal an strike squad that has historical parallels to totalitarian regimes in latin america and elsewhere. In either case, i do not think there is a scenario where this group of people will simply put their guns down and go home. I think these people are very angry and frustrated and are tapping into very widely held frustration about society as a whole related to the pandemic and the quarantine, economic turmoil, major Racial Justice protests and changes to our democracy that i think are impacting a lot of people. These activist take that set of frustrations and seek violent outcomes. Jillian in recent weeks there has also been a great deal in the public sphere about Second Amendment constitutional guarantees for malicious. What is your response to that argument is brought up . Kathleen historians do not tear a clear line from the militias of early america to the groups that are present militias claiming legitimacy and the current moment. The reason is if you look at the history of militias, laid out in the Second Amendment as a well regulated militias and have a very specific role in the early history of our nation, those groups are all incorporated into National Guard and other state run units in the early 20th century. Those groups are all incorporated, so the entirety of legal and legitimate militia activity is run through National Guard and other official channels. All of the private activity as people who study this and have found is illegal to some capacity in every state. There is no state that allows a private militia to do order making more policing of its citizens. Some states also have additional laws prohibiting things like parading with firearms in public or a mapping and training of private armies and the reason for those laws have to do with the prior client activity in those places. That is all before these militia groups have even carried out an action like attempting to kidnap a sitting governor, which is of course illegal in several ways on top of that. The important thing here is we would not want to be sidetracked by the use of the word militia, which specialists and Law Enforcement use to describe one stripe of this broader movement. I think it would be a catastrophic mistake to be taken up with the question of the word when what we really need to be doing is looking carefully at the movement as a whole and thinking about had to confront it. We are talking about a movement posing a direct threat to our free elections, our democracy and to many of the promises of the american nation. Jillian what we are talking ,bout distillery history about 40 years ago, what gave rise to our movement this movement in our society . What was changing back into people coalesce around these ideas . Kathleen the thing that brought this Movement Together and these are activist that are quite diverse. This is a group with a klansman, and skinheads, radical tax resistors, people in white supremacist religions. They are all areas of the nation. This includes men, women, and children, religious leaders, people with advanced degrees and high school dropouts, civilians, veterans, activeduty troops. The thing that allows that big swell of people to come together was a common story about the aftermath of the vietnam war. This feeling of being betrayed by the state and a sense of imminent apocalyptic threat to the white race. They understood the sense of state betrayal as interlinked with a bunch of issues i think people probably usually think of as tacitly conservative, but this movement opposed immigration, abortion, lgbtq rights and more not because of their conservative belief system but because these activists saw all of those things as a right to the white birthright and experienced a soft moment of demographic change people have been talking about what america would no longer be majority white. They see that tantamount to racial apocalypse. These activists are really working with a feeling that the government as betrayed them and a tangible state of emergency that really pushes them toward violent action through the 1980s and 1990s and has been a platform for social networking and organizing over several decades at this point. Jillian demographers estimate that 2042, 22 years hence when white americans will become the minority in this country. What i am hearing you say is that this election is really not the focus . Donald trump is not the focus, but that date which will continue to loom large to endurance best this election is the challenge for them. Kathleen i think that is a lot of what they experience as a threat, right . Also veryent is opportunistic and will capitalize on all of the other tensions in our society as it is able to, but that state of emergency, it is hard to overstate the feeling of emergency and that pressing moment of what they really feel is the racial apocalypse. The other thing to keep in mind when we think about the comparison between white power activism on the one hand and what some people have tried to establish as a leftist comparative example, i think it is very important to keep in mind the comparative casualty amount and depth and breadth of organization. What we see and the White Power Movement is generations of complex social network activity, many groups all reaches of the country bound together by deep social relationships. We are talking about activists who provide childcare to each other, pick each other up to the airport, go to church and White Current churches, get marital counsel from each other. A deeply integrated web of people and this prepares them to lunch violent activity which is completely unmatched by the left. Theian you talked about 1995 Oklahoma City bombing as the most prominent example of what the White Power Movement. Many people thought it was lone wolf Timothy Mcveigh. I am wondering when Something Like this catastrophic actually happens, Timothy Mcveigh was successful in his operation, what does that do to other adherence . Mcveigh weimothy know it was immediately inspirational to a bunch of other people. Leadership activity did not drop off after the Oklahoma City bombing, which is what would happen if people were horrified of that event. Activity spiked after the bombing. We also know that activists in the present moment are doing things like hanging pictures of Timothy Mcveigh in their rooms. We know they are talking about him as a saint and martyr of the movement. He is somebody somebody else up as an example of terrorism and people are seeking that out in a very deliberate way. A clip i want to play of recent testimony to congress by fbi director Christopher Wray talking about the size and scope and threat of the movement. [video clip] within the domestic terrorism bucket, racially motivated violent extremism is i think the biggest bucket within that larger group, and within the racially motivated extremist bucket, people ascribing to some kind of white supremacist ideology is certainly the biggest chunk of that. I would also add to that racially motivated violent extremists over recent years and have been responsible for the most lethal activity in the u. S. This year, the lethal attacks, domestic terrorism attacks have all fit into the category of antigovernment, antiauthority, which covers everything from anarchist violent extremists militias militia types. Jillian since that testimony we learned about the plot against Governor Whitmer. Absent people understand the scope and size of dot plot against two sitting governors. The most important people can do when you begin news about the White Power Movement and militia groups is to do the very hard work, and i understand this is an almost impossible thing to ask in this moment where we see this barrage of news stories and information all the time, but we have to do the work of putting the stories together. If you read the Governor Whitmer story on its own, it is just a few people with one plot. It can seem farfetched. They were apprehended. An fbi agent was able to circumvent their plans that ended up that is the best evenme we can hope for though it was a serious plot and i would call peoples attention to the discussion of exposes and the phrase removing her for trial, which elsewhere in the Movement Means a trial by hanging as a treasonous official. Connecting that incident to the larger landscape of what is happening, not because it is very simple to see , it is easy to falsely imagine the witmer story is different from the boogaloo story, the proud boys story, but there are many places where we see this activity bubbling higher and higher. We see people like fbi director the dhs whistleblower sounding the alarm about as serious of a threat this is and we have to do the work of connecting these events. Theften get stories about christchurch attack about is homophobic violence, the charles does Charleston Shooting as antiblack violence, the pittsburgh shooting as antisemitic violence. And they are all of those things but they are also white power violence. All of those gunmen share in ideology, is it of slogans and in many cases shared ties. That is what the fbi and dhs are trying to combat and that is what they are telling our president is the threat. This is not about comparing two sides of equal threat on both sides. This is about a movement on the right that is intent on the overthrow of the United States. It is catastrophically violent, interested in a mess because with the attacks and you do not have to listen to me as it is oriented of we should listen to the dhs and fbi. We should also listen to radicalize hers d radicalize zers deradicali and are utterly overwhelmed by the volume and we have to Pay Attention to the history of these movements and a long list of anticivilian violence they have already attempted to understand the threat. Jillian speaking of social and regulators are focusing their attention on the culpability of social media giants and helping to spread this information. What do you see as their role and what they can credibly do to help prevent this . Kathleen that is a great question. I am not a specialist on the tech companies. This movement has been online get a sense since 1983, 1984 access used could work early computer Message Boards to butad not only ideology also things like personal ads and social materials. These are not people who are new to social network activism. These are pioneers of social network activism. That should tell us it is not all about facebook or twitter. Made exponentially impossible by facebook and twitter. They will find other spaces when we closed on these bases. What we need is a comprehensive sort of platform policies and actions, because this is a very opportunistic movement and it will go to whatever corner of the internet is not regulated. Jillian have you been able to draw access forces sources of funding . Kathleen my book is about the period from the vietnam war to the Oklahoma City bombing. There is a bunch of funding coming in at from the occasional very rich person who puts in private money to everyday things to thingsy donations like milliondollar robberies of cars and department stores. We see thatey money is just a minute they across the country instead of hoarded anyone places. This is why we know this is a widespread social movement. It is a combination of funding and one way we might be able to combat what is happening is to track the movement of monday. Money. Jillian having raised the alarm , what remedies are there for Civil Society . Biggest thing in my opinion as a historian is that all of this is coming from the fact that we as a nation i have never really fazed our own history of racial inequality. Unlike nations with integrated systems of racial inequality and history similar to the United States, we have never had a true reconciliation commission. We have had very little by the way of memorial efforts. Nationalanamerican museum on the mall is a start. We have unanswered and divisive opinions in the station about what races and what function if you have in our culture. At that is a conversation that has to happen. More practically, what we have to realize about the White Power Movement is that it has been with us for this long not because of any one sector of societys failing. It has happened because of what historians call a trail of failure, meaning we need solutions not only at the level of legislation and surveillance resources. We need legislation, surveillance resources, to companies to make changes, journalist to stop seeing lone wolf when they mean ideologically motivated terrorism. We need ordinary people to do the work of connecting the stories together and we need to shine a very bright light on this. This is a movement that is tried for decades to disappear as a social Movement Toward leaderless resistance and other strategies. At one of the best tools at our disposal is to Pay Attention. Jillian your book is bring the war home. Do you feel any sense of personal danger . Kathleen for me, the potential good of this work is that people paying attention to the story is worth all of it. Hard line of thinking and i appreciate you and the audience taking the time to think about things that are very difficult to face about where we find ourselves, but i really believe that this story getting out there could make a difference and i think you for doing that with me. Thank you for spending time on q a. We appreciate it. In this program, we are unpacking the debate between President Trump and joe biden about the relative threats of the White Supremacist Movement on the altright and the antiphon movement on the left. Next up you will be hearing from jillian melchior, an editorial writer for the wall street journal who has written about antiphon. Lets begin by curing the comments from the two men in the first president ial debate. Pres. Trump somebody has got to do something about antiphon on the left because this is not a white wing problem. This is a leftwing problem. Mr. Biden antiphon is an idea an an organist antifa is idea not an organization. [crosstalk] [indiscernible] everybody in your administration tells you the truth. You have no idea. Aes. Trump antifa is dangerous radical group. Exchange, you wrote for the wall street editorial page about antifa coming to the conclusion that both men are right. Jillian biden is right that this is an ideology first and foremost, but i think 12 is also right that it is dangerous, a radical movement and it is willing to engage in and endorse violence. Lets understood understand technology terminology. Stands for antifascist. What is the fascism that they see that they oppose . Jillian this is a really disorganized you cannot call it a group. It is an ideology. The idea that i darent idea have toadherents confront racism, sexism whenever they see it but those things are not clearly defined. There are some people using more traditional definitions. Types mean conservatives or republicans. It is this expansive definition about what constitutes fascism, and because this is a Leaderless Movement, nobody is there to say what that means. Antifatimes critics of also use the word anarchists. Are the two terms interchangeable . Jillian they kind of overlap. You have an artist who said they are part of antifa, they identify as antifascist but you also have people who are not an artist to as antifascist. It is a group, but there is no formal membership, no hierarchy or structure. It is not the thing you can sign up. It is more like a political affiliation or of movement. They are able to organize online, but there is no topdown. Andf there is no structure, do officials estimate the size of the movement . Jillian i do not think you can to be honest. You see protesters, many of them are antifa. There is overlap between the nt event movement, the anarchist movement, and black lives matter, but it is essentially a of farright groups and i think it is difficult to count them. The only way you could do it is go out there and say do you identify as antifa or not . It is not like there would be a place online. You did interview antifaadherents. How did you find them . Jillian this is not a new movement. They placein antifa, themselves back in the 1920s and 1930s in the u. S. And u. K. This movement came up out of punk, but there are a couple of scholars who have been studying them for quite some time. , and thisout to them was back 2017 when you are starting to see a lot of clashes ween antifa i darenta adherents because this is not a group with a hierarchy or leader, a lot of the work is done spontaneously. As this movement was starting to into the 16, 2 1000 17, 2018, i saw a couple of twitter accounts and ended up following them that way. Some of my facebook friends identify as antifa. It is a broadbase. Ofcan you give us any sense the demographics of adherents . Jillian i would say it is primarily a white movement. Young, leftleaning, and the basic tenants are that they will expose expansive ideas of fascism with an and artist leaning. Erents do not want state censorship of speech that they find factors. They would rather use the or find people they perceive to be fascists, expose them online through docking, get social consequence, whether it is losing their job, popularity, their friends, and a third component of this is not everybody who identifies as antifa engages in a violence, but a pretty universally they were views they refused to disavow it. They view it as a response to fascism and there is even this phrase going around called anticipatory selfdefense. The idea is if you believe violence,ds up in a that now. Anticipatory selfdefense looks like going on a violent offense and at a system where you have rule of law, the right to vote, a political system that is accountable to the people, the use of violence is obviously wrong. Thend watching some of clashes that have happened in american cities, particularly at seattle and portland over the past several months, you describe it as a toxic brew of therents of all parts of political spectrum. Is it clear who is responsible for the violence when it does break out . Kind of thet is difficulties of Law Enforcement. There has been a lot of violence. Granted, there are Peaceful Protesters at their, but the refusal to disavow violence is an illegitimate form of dissent. It is a problem and we have seen pretty extreme violence. The one that strikes me is the repeated use of commercial fireworks. I did not understand what that was. I spoke to someone who sells fireworks at a fireworks stand. These are not sparklers, the firecrackers you buy and light off. These are the kinds of fireworks you use during the fourth of july. They are high grade explosives and they are really dangerous, and you have seen these deployed again and again against Law Enforcement. It is leaderless. It is not centralized. There is not one person calling the shots. First of alloosing when people are taking to the streets, there is a tendency for the most extreme or assertive or violent groups to set the tone for the night and there are no leaders to reign them back in. Movements where you could go after the leader, the financial structure, it isnt much more difficult to target a movement that is decentralized. You can take down one person who is shooting off a firecracker or a firework or throwing sticks or stones or frozen Water Bottles at officers, but it its place you will have hundreds more. That poses a challenge to Law Enforcement they have not faced yet. You mentioned financial structure. Movement orntifa various cells or local organizations funded . Jillian i actually asked quite a few of them this. There is a theory going on in the right that george soros finds this. I reach out to the organization and they deny it. When i ask antifa folks about it, they said this is completely laughable. This is a movement that is anticapitalist, so the idea that they would take money from a billionaire, they said no wait, we find that immoral. But whatsome funding you see is not nt for funding in particular. It is across the spectrum of farleft groups. It gofundme groups, or Legal Defense funds, and some of that money might go to antifa, black lives matter. Some of it may go to protesters who are demonstrating. I think the third thing we keep in mind here is that when we talk about funding, a lot of these things are not actually expensive. There was a story that went viral about a uhaul showing up at a protest, dropping off supplies come up with the protesters i talked to said even if you were to do that, like rent a uhaul, take supplies, at most that would cost a couple hundred dollars. Crud funded people are printing up flyers, organizing online, and it is not that expensive. One of the other aspects of the protest that has been coordinatedt is the wearing of the black during protests. What is the idea behind that . Blocan it is called black and it is something you have seen in the last two decades in farleft protest groups, and the idea is if you were going to show up and protest, especially if there is a high likelihood of vandalism or violence that you want some form of anonymity against protected from Law Enforcement. A lot of antifa protesters have embraced this tactic. There was shot wearing all black, face coverings, and it makes difficult for Law Enforcement to identify those specifically responsible for violent acts. Somebody starting a fire, destroying a business, looting, the police will come in and try to make an arrest and you will see people identically dressed interrupting, and it is easier for them to face back in a crowd and become unidentified. That is another challenge Law Enforcement faces going after the movement. How are tactics like that shared . It isn social media, really fascinating. A lot of these protesters will get online and learn from each other and another interesting phenomenon, at the protest movement in hong kong as well and you are starting to see protesters Pay Attention to what works in other countries during other protest movements and adopting those tactics. Are starting to see the use of umbrellas to block surveillance cameras. I wanted to go back to nonviolent tactics and how do you define the term who are not internet savvy . You mentioned one of the tactics is doxxing. What is that . Idea of doxxing is the finding someone you disagree with and you will expose their information online, there a phone number, there can address, their employer. It is a way to ramp up the pressure on these people. It will often drive campaigns we are it will for instance paint a tweet objectionable and say call this persons employer with the explicit goal of employment or social consequences. What defenses do people have against these tactics . Lot. An they do not have a this is a movement that links to cancel culture or callout culture. If you have seen cases where people have been targeted unjustly. They are not fascist or who have been this misidentified. There is not much they can do about that because this is a decentralized movement. There was no one you couldnt do it too, but also it is not illegal. You wrote for the journal about nt for activity and the city of philadelphia in particular. I want to read a paragraph for our viewers that you wrote. Not all of philadelphias antifascists and anarchists fight sunrun food banks and organizations offering support and mutual aid. Others research and expose all right activist and advocate for the many shun electoral politics but their idea including capitalism is destructive and that police, prisons and immigration should be done away with as become increasingly on the left. What was happening in philadelphia that drew your attention . A pretty large radical left presence. More and more people who identify as antifa. That was interesting to me. The second thing that was interesting is if i had seen a case about a Property Developer who had been accused of gentrification, and his properties had actually been vandalized a ton of times. His family had been threatened, his employees have been threatened and it came to a place where somebody let one of his developments on fire and cause a significant amount of damage. He had told me is that gone to the police time after time to get this investigated, somebody prosecuted for this pattern of harassment and intimidation against him and that he was having no luck getting anywhere. I was curious about why that was and end investigated that in my story. We talked about some of the not activists and you write about them in that paragraph and also some of the nonviolent means they use, but i am curious something you write, which is many shun electoral politics. It is the antifa philosophy represented anywhere in our current electoral politics . Jillian that is a good question and it is one i raise to them. I think this gets to the sort of anarchist theme or strangest under strain a lot of them really object to the Democratic Party. In philadelphia in particular, when i was out covering the Democratic National dimension back in 2016, there was a pretty significant farleft or an artist presence that was really mad at Hillary Clinton and accused the Democratic Party as corrupt, they believes it has turned its back on people of andr and Law Enforcement, there is this general widespread rejection of the u. S. Political system as a whole. They do not want i would if you like a transition from republican politics to democratic politics. That would not solve the problem they are trying to solve. They are seeking an overhaul of the system. There is air however there. Their ideas have become increasingly mainstream on the left. What do you see happening in the progressive part of the Democratic Party that is enforcing these ideas or trends . Jillian i do think there is a tendency on the left that has grown to question whether america was ever great. Tore is a greater tendency disagree with what you view as illegitimate and to confront capitalism, to view that as a problem, and those are the ,hings anarchists and antifa that critique of the political system, the attack on mainstream in a bigger way. Would have been surprised four years ago if a movement to utterly defund the movement had become mainstream, yet that is where they are. You are starting to see a lot of an rhetoric pioneered by artist, antifa by more radical components of political culture become mainstream, and you are also seeing an expansion of collapse culture or canceling people on twitter. That is something that very much has its roots in the radical left activist tradition. What are the trends you see happening in American Society writ large encouraging the growth of movements of this sort . Jillian i would actually argue that when [indiscernible] separated, doe not have a chance to sit down and engage in conversation, it trends towards more extreme ideas which they will find online. That lack of engagement person to person where you have to sit down and have a conversation with someone that you like who has difficult ideas then you come up without that you will move to a more radical position. I think that is one of the components of this trend. A lot of people believe that system isepublican not work for them and there is corruption or widespread problems within the u. S. Political system. That is what i hear when i talk to people more open to bracing embracing antifa or who have started identifying with antifa. Regarding the idea of defining the police, how do they envision a Society Without any sort of Law Enforcement, a way to punish reallywho are destructive a society . Jillian that is something i have asked, and i have not gotten a good answer to. A lot of people want to defund the Police Believe you can have some form of community policing, get invest more in mental health, communities, childcare, but i do not think they have a good answer for what you do for instance if there is a murderer or rapist or someone committing violent crimes, and i do think that is a weak spot in the defund the police movement. Getting back to that idea of why these precincts have been targeted, they view it as illegitimate target because they want to the system. This is something really important to Pay Attention to get a cultural movement, because at the United States relies on rule of law. When there are injustices, we rely on our court system. We rely on our juries to administer justice and this is a form of justice that they are saying is extralegal. In places like portland and we can see this lead to uncontrollable mob rule. I went to go back to your reference to china and hong kong, protesters there and engage a bit in a philosophical conversation. As you will note, this country wasnt founded on protests against the established order and we have enshrined the right to protest in the first amendment. When you think about some of these questions about people protesting elements of our society, where is the line drawn . Jillian there is a big difference between what is happening in hong kong and the United States, and this is a difference that the Chinese Communist party regularly tries to blur. They point out that protesting hong kong devolve into violence and protest in the u. S. To evolve into violence and vandalism. Havee United States, you an alternative expecting clinical defense that you do not have in hong kong and Mainland China and there is a right to vote, and that is rule of law. That enshrinesem [indiscernible] at the center of it and you are able to have a political voice. When we have seen happening in , peacefulissent protest is watched closely by the united by the state. You have seen a National Security logic criminalizes all forms of dissent. I think that in the United States in particular where you do have a recourse, a political voice beyond violence, beyond vandalism, it becomes really dangerous and improper to endorse Political Violence. That is the difference. We have five minutes left. I wanted to play a clip from fbi directors of array as he testified on capitol hill about antifa, because your piece concludes when protest evolved into violence and property destruction, you have to respond. [video clip] not aifa is a real thing, figment. We have seen activity at both the local and regional level. We have seen antifa working together in what i would describe as small groups and nodes. We have a number of predicated investigations into some anarchist violent extremists, at some of whom operate through these notes and subscribe to or self identified with an artist, including antifa, and we will not hesitate to aggressively investigate that kind of activity. Bringing it back to our definition at the beginning, it is clear as we conclude here that not all antifa adherents are anarchists, correct . When it devolves into anarchy and crimes are committed, what are the challenges for Law Enforcement both at the federal and local level . Target ayou cannot Leaderless Movement by going for the person at the top or the funding structure. What we are seeing right out with the Law Enforcement is they are trying to go after individuals who commit illegal acts. The person to go through the water bottle, let the firework off, burned down the building, but the challenge here is that because this is decentralized, you take one person out of the equation, but they are hundreds more who coming and that is not something that is not something Law Enforcement has a good answer to confront. We have an election facing us in this country in a very short period of john. Do you see what outcomes or the other having any influence on the antifunk movement . Jillian when i speak to antifa protesters, there was a lot of skepticism about whether donald trump will step down and there is also a reluctance to believe any donald trump when could be a legitimate win could be a legitimate win and a lot of them are gearing up to purchase and a lot of them fused to disavow violence. There is potential for that especially if there is one winninge appears to be and several weeks later as male and balance are counted, if there is ambiguity around the results in this election, there is a high potential for confrontation, including violent ones. Do you anticipate continuing to follow antifa and also the altright and from what perspective . What interest you most . Jillian i think with movements like this, there is a tendency on the left and right to create strawmen, and it is really important to cover these movements. They are in some ways a [indiscernible] but in the interest in having a public discourse, it is important to hear people out, to understand their critique of the political solution the and the solutions they are offering. One thing i am concerned about is these computations particularly involving the use of Political Violence that there is not a real debate going on, and my goal is to understand what these people are thinking. You can find jillian melchers work on the wall street journal editorial page. Thanks so much for being a part of the q and a program. We are delighted to meet you. Thank you for your time. Jillian thank you. All to programs are available on our website or as a podcast at cspan. Org. The competition is on. Be a part of this years student can video competition. At Middleton High School students, be the start of a National Conversation by making a 5 to 6 minute documentary exploring the issue you want the president and congress to address and 2021. Be bold, show supporting and opposing points of view and include cspan video. There is 100,000 in total cash prizes, including the grand prize of 5,000. The deadline to submit videos if january 20, 2021. You will find competition rules, tips and more information on how to get started at our website, studentcam. Org. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson fields questions from members in the house of commons on the governments response to the coronavirus pandemic. This is 35 minutes. That is the end of the questions. We are not moving onto to questions to the Prime Minister. Here, here. We start with catherine west. Speaker. Johnson i know the thoughts will be for the south