Why Chris Bennett is not Antifa

 

 

Antifa is defined by opposition to state violence and ethnonationalist fascism. Authentic antifascist movements—not the Instagram cosplay version—are built on core principles: opposition to ethnonationalist supremacy, resistance to militarism and state terror, defense of oppressed populations, anti-imperialism, solidarity with colonized peoples, critique of capitalist militarized structures. On every one of these metrics, Palestine is the litmus test of global antifascism today.

Why? Because Israel is an ethnostate, committing an openly documented genocide, backed by Western imperialist powers, using total militarized domination, supported by far-right Zionist ideology, and enacting the most advanced form of settler-colonialism on earth. You cannot claim “Antifa” without taking a stand here. Period. 

 

Silence on Gaza signals one thing: Bennett is a consumer of Antifa aesthetics, not a participant in antifascism.

Wearing an Antifa T-shirt, taking selfies in front of red-and-black flags, posting edgy slogans on social media—none of this makes someone Antifa. Antifascism is praxis speaking against genocide, resisting violent state power, naming fascism where it appears, standing with the oppressed, calling out settler colonial violence. If Bennett avoids all of this—and he does—then his “Antifa identity” is cosplay. A costume. A marketing posture. A character he plays on the internet. This hypocrisy is glaring.

 

Gaza is the moral Rosetta Stone: it shows who is Antifa and who is a brand using the label.

Let’s be blunt: Anyone claiming to be Antifa while avoiding the subject of Gaza is lying either to others or to themselves. What is happening in Gaza is textbook fascism, enforced by an ethnostate, using military supremacy against a civilian population, with openly genocidal intent supported by right-wing global networks This is fascism in real-time. To be Antifa and silent on Gaza is like being anti-racist and silent on apartheid. It is incoherent on its face.

 

Bennett’s “Antifa identity” collapses because he is fundamentally a creature of capitalist psychedelic culture.

This is the deeper point—the one that destroys the foundation of his self-image: He thrives inside the capitalist drug economy, which overlaps heavily with:

• liberal consumer activism,
• pseudo-left branding,
• rave culture progressivism,
• New Age market identities,
• spiritualized individualism,
• and commodified rebellion.

This is not antifascism. This is neoliberal counterculture consumerism, painted red-and-black for style. And it shows. Because when it comes to genocide, imperialism, militarized fascism, settler colonialism, and actual mass oppression, he suddenly goes quiet. Why? Because his politics are aesthetic, not structural.

 

Authentic Antifa speaks where it matters — not where it is brand-safe.

Real antifascists: call out the Zionist far-right, oppose Israeli apartheid, name genocide when it is happening, break with Western imperialism, stand with Palestinians without hesitation. This is why Bennett’s silence on Gaza is so revealing. It shows:

• he is not Antifa
• he is not a leftist
• he is not anti-fascist
• he is a participant in a subculture that markets rebellion without practicing it

His identity is performative. His politics are aesthetic. His “Antifa” label is merchandise.

Conclusion: Bennett cannot justify the contradiction because it is not a contradiction — it is an exposure.

Bennett calling himself Antifa while saying almost nothing about Gaza is like a vegan who eats steak, a pacifist who sells weapons, a Marxist who runs a hedge fund, or a Buddhist running a torture prison. It exposes the truth: He is not what he claims. He is what he consumes. His silence is not accidental. It is symptomatic of someone whose politics are superficial and brand-aligned rather than moral and structural...

A PUBLIC PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE OF CHRIS BENNETT

Chris Bennett belongs to a familiar type within the Western counterculture: the self-appointed guardian of a niche mythology who confuses advocacy with scholarship, and polemic with analysis. For decades he has cultivated the persona of the embattled “cannabis prophet-historian,” forever warding off heresy at the edges of his entheogenic canon. His identity is inseparable from this role; the story he tells about cannabis and ancient religion is not simply a theory he argues—it is the foundation upon which his entire public life rests.

This is why criticism, correction, or even contextualisation is received by him not as an academic exchange but as a personal attack. His response pattern is predictable: narrative simplification, selective quotation, aggressive pathologisation of dissent, and the insistence that he is merely the neutral custodian of “facts.” The gap between how he describes his posture (“no sides,” “just the truth”) and how he actually writes (a mixture of character-assassination, insinuation, and sensational framing) is large enough for any informed reader to notice.

Bennett thrives only when he can control the frame—one-to-many polemic, never equal-to-equal dialogue. In direct conversation he retreats into diffidence (“I want no part in this”), but once he is back before an audience his courage returns. There he performs conflict safely, shaping opponents into caricatures so his followers do not have to engage with the substance of their arguments. It is a defence mechanism as much as a rhetorical technique: reduce the critic to a pathology and you never have to reckon with the critique.

None of this is unusual in subcultural ecosystems; what is unusual is Bennett’s insistence on portraying his polemical performances as sober historical analysis. They are not. They are expressions of a deeply vested identity trying to preserve itself. He is at his calmest when unchallenged, and most theatrical when his status narrative is disturbed.

Understanding this dynamic is not about diagnosing him; it is about recognising the structure of his behaviour. Bennett is not a neutral observer, nor a disinterested scholar. He is an advocate defending a worldview into which he has poured decades of selfhood. When that worldview is threatened—by evidence, by nuance, by critique—he reacts exactly as one would expect.

And that is why his excesses speak for themselves. In contrast to the careful documentation I maintain, Bennett’s approach relies on presumption, caricature, and performative certainty. His role within this episode is not that of an authority, but of a commentator whose investment in his own mythos leads him to misrepresent those who do not fit it.

The more calmly one maps the pattern, the more transparent it becomes.