An expert on anti-fascist groups who teaches at New Jersey’s flagship state university is moving his family overseas.

When supporters of former President Donald Trump violently broke into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, the melee left five people dead, including a Capitol police officer. Even though many of the rioters waved Trump flags and wore Trump hats, some Republican politicians quickly blamed the intrusion on Antifa. According to Bray, Antifa gained new prominence in the United States in 2017 after a clash with the white supremacist, Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. “The left in America has incited far more political violence than the right,” Gaetz has also said on the floor of the House of Representatives. Based on information from the FBI, the Anti-Defamation League and a historian, we give the claim of Antifa being involved in the attack on the Capitol a rating of Not True on the Trust Index.

It's a scene that has unfolded in many other cities and small towns this year, the product of fear and conflict stoked by bogus posts on social media, right-wing news outlets and even some of the nation's most powerful leaders. A man suspected of fatally shooting a Trump supporter after a pro-Trump caravan in Portland, Oregon, last month had described himself in a social media post as “100% ANTIFA." They’re trying to blame all this stuff on antifa, and I’m like, ‘Who exactly is antifa? Adam Klein, an associate professor of communication studies at Pace University, analyzed social media posts by far-right extremists and antifascist activists leading up to the Charlottesville rally three years ago. “You don’t get the sense online that there is an organization as much as there are some prominent (social media) accounts associated with antifa,” he said.