ANTIFA has been the headlines recently as protests against the murder of George Floyd turned violent in some cities – with many groups blaming the group for the violence. In fact, the group has gained so many headlines that it drew the attention of Donal Trump, who now says he is working to label the organization as a domestic terror group.

However, white supremacist hate groups – like the KKK – have caused the vast majority of violence in the United States for generations. Yet the group, which has been around since the Civil War – has no such designation.

Association with a U.S. hate group is not illegal, and despite terrorizing minorities, gays, Jews and Catholics for over a century—committing atrocities designed to induce a state of terror among the public—the Klan is not designated as a terrorist organization. Why is that?

In the wake of marches and protests that turned violent, Trump has threatened to label ANTIFA as a terror organization.

Antifa, short for anti-fascists, describes a broad group of people whose political beliefs lean toward the left – often the far left. Antifa positions can be hard to define, but many members support oppressed populations and protest the amassing of wealth by corporations and elites. Some employ radical or militant tactics to get out their messages but many are peaceful protesters.

Whether you agree with antifa’s ideology or approach, the president’s announcement is shocking, given that many of the most violent hate groups in the United States aren’t designated as terrorists. One notable example is the Ku Klux Klan, which for decades has used bloodshed, intimidation and crime to terrorize Americans – especially Black Americans.

Trump should be more concerned about white supremacy-related violence since it’s the most deadly threat facing the U.S.

Antifa is responsible for zero deaths, ever. Right-wing terrorism is more common in the United States than Islamic terrorism, and, if not for two outlier events of Pulse and 9/11, would have a higher body count.

White supremacist extremism is currently the most lethal form of extremism in the U.S.,” American University professor Cynthia Miller-Idriss told Congress in September. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the far-right was the source of 73% of domestic extremist-related slayings from 2008 to 2019. 

However, Trump has been much more hesitant to declare these menacing groups as terrorists. In fact, Trump isn’t only ignoring the threat of white supremacist terrorism, he’s actively pushing government institutions to overlook it.

According to Reuters, Trump attempted to rename the Countering Violent Extremism program to “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism” — erasing white nationalist violence from its mission entirely. Under the current administration, federal prosecutors are limited in how they can bring white nationalists to justice. 

If Trump wants to label ANTIFA a terror organization, many are asking why not the KKK?

The original Ku Klux Klan, formed in the 1860s, was the largest and most violent domestic terrorist organization that the U.S. has ever known. It only lasted about 10 years, though.It’s since gone through several iterations but the current Klan is a hodgepodge of loosely organized groups with no central leadership.

For this reason, many legal experts agree that would be very difficult – if not unconstitutional – to label any domestic organization a terror group, including ANTIFA and the KKK.

As soon as Trump announced his intentions, a Change.org petition popped up urging him to label the KKK a terror group.

Over one million people have signed a Change.org petition urging the U.S. government to list the Ku Klux Klan as a domestic terror organization. The potion was launched in response to Trump’s plan to do just that against ANTIFA.

“This group has a long history of murder & intimidation of people based on colour and religion,” the petition outlines.

It goes onto say that the campaign aims to make racially motivated crime an act of terror and declare hate groups terrorists.

Despite unprecedented economic losses that have left more than 30 million Americans without work and millions more working in unsafe conditions, Trump has his own priorities.

Since launching his presidential campaign in 2016 on the promise of building a glorious border wall along the U.S. – Mexico border, Trump has been obsessed with realizing this massive waste of tax payer dollars. Now he is renewing calls for the wall to be painted black and in what can simply be described as a cruel and wasteful move.

Donald Trump orders his border wall to be painted black to deter more migrants during the summer when it would be too hot to touch.

Handing out a $500 million paint job contract to a supporter is corruption. And Trump’s monument to hate at the border – in black or any other color – is a giant waste of money while Americans are dying from this administration’s failures. https://t.co/bkw2tKQyOM

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) May 8, 2020

President Donald Trump has requested the border wall, one of his signature campaign promises, be painted black, a proposal that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a new report. 

The Washington Post reported that Trump had ordered the border wall to be painted black in order to make it look more imposing and to make it too hot to touch during the summer. Quoting anonymous administration officials, the Post reported Trump told his senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner to assess cost estimates for the wall painting plan. 

According to estimates, the cost of painting the wall black would range from $500 million for acrylic paint to over $3 billion for a “powder coating” on the wall.

The Democratic National Committee slammed the report, saying Trump “would rather let states go bankrupt than provide them more money to pay their teachers, police officers and firefighters, and fund services for the poor and elderly.”

He is reiterating the call for a black border wall despite a global health pandemic that has left millions infected and millions more without jobs.

As the U.S. death toll from Covid-19 rises to nearly 80,000 and the economy is in shambles, Trump has decided the border wall’s paint job is far more important. The president is insisting that the barrier’s steel slats be painted black, despite officials’ efforts to talk him out of it and $500 million in additional costs that the cosmetic feature is expected to add to the project’s already expensive price tag.

“POTUS has changed his mind and now wants the fence painted,” an official involved in the construction of the wall told the Post. “We are modifying contracts to add.”

It may seem odd to be fixated on the color of his border wall, given the hefty additional costs painting it black would impose on the project and the pandemic currently ravaging the country under his watch—but Trump at least has a good reason. According to the Post, he’s willing to further inflate the wall budget because he believes painting it black would “enhance its forbidding appearance” and “leave the steel too hot to touch during summer months.”

This isn’t the first time Trump has floated painting the border wall black, but officials thought they had talked him out of it last fall.

Trump's plan to paint the border wall black will cost taxpayers an additional $500 million https://t.co/RTRYKeS97t

— Daily Kos (@dailykos) May 10, 2020

Reports have emerged in the past over Trump’s obsession with micromanaging the physical appearance of his famed border wall. In May 2019, a Post report revealed Trump had floated painting the ‘slats’ of the border wall a ‘flat black’ so the metal would absorb more heat from the sun and make it harder for people to scale.

Trump also said he wanted the border barrier to include metal spikes at the top that will cut climbers’ hands.

Fisher Sand and Gravel, a South Dakota-based company already being considered for a $400 million contract to build new portions of wall in Arizona, were consulted to provide estimates for painting. They provided the $500 million – $3 billion estimates for painting the structure’s 30-foot steel bollards depending on the option of paint, which the White House has not yet chosen.

Trump has renewed his call for the border wall and blamed migration on the Coronavirus pandemic – even though that’s 100% fake news.

Border Wall is going up FAST. Over 172 miles already built. 450 miles by early next year, or sooner! Dems want OPEN BORDERS. I want STRONG BORDERS! https://t.co/ZvOo2xYdom

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2020

In recent weeks, Trump has increased attention on his border wall project – labeling it a way to protect the country from the Coronavirus pandemic. According to his administration, the structure and the government’s cruel immigration policy have acted as a defense against coronavirus spreading into the U.S. from other countries.  

‘Mexico is sadly experiencing very big CoronaVirus problems, and now California, get this, doesn’t want people coming over the Southern Border. A Classic!’ Trump tweeted Tuesday.

‘They are sooo lucky that I am their President,’ he gloated. ‘Border is very tight and the Wall is rapidly being built!’

However, the president seems to be ignoring the fact that the U.S. in the number one country in the world when it comes to Coronavirus infections and deaths. In fact, at the beginning of the global pandemic, Mexico had considered closing its border with the U.S. to prevent the spread of the disease from the U.S. into Mexico.