Last Saturday, Dec. 13, the nation honored fallen service members with wreaths placed on graves across America. On Dec. 7, America remembered the 84th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. And, on Nov. 11, we honored those who have served in the Armed Forces.
Parades, declarations and speeches recognized the sacrifices made by millions who have served. The service of the roughly 16 million men and women who answered the call to fight against the military dictatorship of Japan, as well as Nazism and fascism in World War II, has recently been sullied by a presidential executive order.
“DESIGNATING ANTIFA AS A DOMESTIC TERRORIST ORGANIZATION, Executive Orders, Sept. 22, 2025, Section 1. Antifa as a Terrorist Threat. Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law.”
My father, Leslie Eugene Orr, was a proud anti-fascist. He flew 30 missions over Nazi-occupied Europe as a tail gunner on a B-17 in the 8th Army Air Force. As a result of those 30 missions and his safe return, his 447th Bomber Group granted him membership in the “Lucky Bastards Club,” an informal brotherhood that considered itself fortunate to have survived.
My mother’s nephew, Lowell Jackson Goodin, expressed through his letters home how proud he was to serve the United States in the Navy. He was on the submarine USS Pickerel (SS-177), in the Pacific Theater near Japan. Unfortunately, his last mission resulted in the loss of the ship and all aboard, the wreckage of which has never been located. He would also be considered an anti-fascist.
I had several opportunities to discuss politics with my father, and I know he would oppose the efforts of the current administration. Arising from humble roots, realizing the benefits of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, he would be disgusted with the authoritarian turn of the Trump administration.
He did not put his life on the line to defend the current efforts to strip citizens of rights, to ruin the lives of working-class Americans, to enrich billionaires further or to allow the corruption that is so rampant in Washington today.
Nor would Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, commander of the D-Day assault on Nazi-held Europe, twice elected president of the United States, approve of these efforts. Most historians would argue that Eisenhower would be Antifa as well. All of these war heroes would be Antifa.
As has been done with the word “woke,” this right-wing administration has twisted Antifa to mean the opposite of what it really is. Remembering our Founding Fathers as radically progressive for their time, we see that they created the Constitution and a governing structure to counter the concept of rule by a king directly. If alive today, they would certainly be Antifa.
According to Faiza Patel of the Brennan Center for Justice, and both former FBI Director Chris Wray and the Congressional Research Service, Antifa is not a group or an organization, but a decentralized movement.
And Shayan Sardarizadeh and Kayleen Devlin of the BBC write that Antifa – a loosely organized, leftist movement that opposes far-right, racist and fascist groups – has long attracted President Donald Trump’s ire.
As witnessed with the last two No Kings Rallies nationwide, and the results of the Nov. 4 election, there is a growing swell of citizens opposed to the current president’s abuse of the Constitution. A Republican-dominated Congress and conservative majority on the Supreme Court have allowed this disregard for our Constitution and are actively engaged in restricting and stripping voting rights from people. Since these politicians and judges seem unable to win the battle of ideas, they choose to stack the deck. As a result, they twist the history of what being an anti-fascist actually means.
Those of us who oppose fascism will continue to exercise our First Amendment rights by shining the light of truth on the corruption and abuses by those in power. As we saw in the Nov. 4 elections, citizens are rising up, using the power of the ballot box, and saying no to those who wish to corrupt our democracy. The midterm election in November may well be the true turning point.
Gene Orr, M.Ed., is a retired educator with 43 years of experience teaching social studies and history in middle school, high school and college in Durango. He lives in Kline.
