Via Newsbusters, I don’t know where to begin. Here’s Whoopi talking about (I think) the 2016 Homeland Security analysis characterizing Antifa activities as “domestic terrorist violence”:

When we look to see what they were talking about, there was nothing there because when you look at the bottom of the list the year that they’re talking about is when Obama was in. So we went to see what they had been protesting, what fascist stuff Antifa had been protesting. There’s nothing there. We can’t find anything. This to me– Antifa is one of those things, I don’t want to say the right, but somebody came up with as a catch phrase so that you could say there’s violence on the other side. I don’t remember violent demonstrations before the gentleman who’s in now came in… People kept saying on television — particularly on the other networks. Well, this group. I kept saying who is this group? Because when you see how stuff is organized, you can say that’s who we are, we’re fighting for this. Oftentimes I found that sometimes the side that is kvetching the loudest has sort of orchestrated this so they can bitch about it. I’m not sure who was storming through the streets. I’m not sure who was storming through the streets.

How the hell did she get from point A, that she heard the term “Antifa” for the first time only recently, to points B and C? Point B: Because the term is new to her, she’s skeptical that Antifa exists at all. Point C: To the extent that violent protests really are happening, she seems to think they’re being staged by Trump supporters calling themselves “Antifa” to make the left look bad.

What?

The term “Antifa” is new to me too; I don’t know that I heard it before 2016. But the far-left “black bloc” anarchist underground it comes from has been around for years. These are the same people, more or less, who rampaged through Seattle at the WTO in 1999. It’d be interesting to know when and how the term “Antifa” came to prominence as an umbrella term for black bloc outfits. My guess is that some of those outfits popularized it themselves over the past two years to capitalize on Trump’s political ascendancy. “Anti-fascism” is a waaaaaaay better brand than “anarchy,” especially given how many mainstream Americans deride a president whom they detest as a fascist. That should have been Whoopi’s first clue that her theory is moronic — if Antifa was a false flag by the right to make the left look bad, they never would have given it a name as positive as “anti-fascism.” They would have called it “Anarcha” or the “Stalin brigades” or something more pejorative.

Also, when was the first time Whoopi heard the term “alt-right”? White nationalism has existed for ages but the idea of an “alt-right” as a discrete political movement is also new to most people and also coincides, not surprisingly, with the rise of Trump. By Goldberg’s logic, the alt-right could be a false flag by the left to make conservatives generally and Trump in particular look bad. I’ll say this for her, though: At least she doesn’t make it to point D, which is excusing Antifa’s violence as essentially self-defense against hate. Watch to the end of the clip below. Is that what Sunny Hostin and Joy Behar are trying to say? Whoopi’s position, that Antifa just might be a dirty trick by the right, at least maintains some moral horror towards the group rather than apologizes for it.

Exit question: What exactly is she getting at in questioning the 2016 Homeland Security assessment of Antifa? Does she think *Obama’s DHS* would make something like this up?