Republican congressman pretends to attack antifa in an ad released after a weekend of violent political protests

• Texas Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw released a video ad on Sunday showing him pretending to attack antifa activists in Georgia.
• The ad comes as President Donald Trump and his GOP allies have continued to spread baseless claims about the outcome of the presidential election and attempt to overturn the results.
• Over the weekend, violence broke out in Washington, DC, and Washington state between Trump supporters and counterprotesters.
• Pro-Trump members of the far-right group Proud Boys burned Black Lives Matter signs and chanted "f--- antifa" in DC.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican, released a video ad on Sunday showing him pretending to go to war against antifa activists and Democrats in Georgia.

In the three-minute ad, which is designed to look like an action-movie trailer, the narrator says "far-left activists are attempting to gain full and total control of the US government" over footage of prominent Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

The narrator says that if Republicans lose Georgia's two Senate runoff elections in January, which will determine control of the US Senate, "all will be lost." Then Crenshaw, a Navy veteran, boards a military plane, jumps out of it as it flies over Georgia, and attacks two men pretending to be antifa activists.

Antifa is a loosely organized movement of left-wing anti-fascist activists who've gained prominence by protesting the far-right over the past several years. Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have sought to tie elected Democrats, President-elect Joe Biden, and left-leaning activist groups like Black Lives Matter to antifa.

The ad comes as Trump and his GOP allies have continued to baselessly claim the election was "rigged" and that Trump won by a landslide. Biden won the popular vote by more than 7 million votes and defeated the president with 306 Electoral College votes to Trump's 232. The GOP's claims of widespread voter fraud, which Crenshaw has promoted, are unproven.

Over the weekend, violence broke out in Washington, DC, and Washington state between Trump supporters and counterprotesters. Hundreds of members of the far-right group Proud Boys marched in the nation's capital on Saturday to support Trump's efforts to overturn the election and chanted "f--- antifa." Trump supporters tore down and set fire to Black Lives Matter signs outside two DC churches, an act Mayor Muriel Bowser called "white supremacist violence."

The freshman congressman, who lost an eye during an explosion while on tour in Afghanistan, released a similar ad in September, titled "Texas Reloaded," featuring him jumping out of a plane to aid congressional candidates in his home state.

Crenshaw suggested that he deliberately created a controversial ad to infuriate the political left, re-sharing the ad on Monday with the message, "This video is driving the left absolutely mad. Share it."

—Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) December 14, 2020

Other Republicans, including Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, have appeared in similar ads. Greene, a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, posted an ad - which was later removed by Facebook - showing her brandishing an assault rifle and telling antifa to "stay the hell out" of Georgia. Facebook also removed a post she shared that showed her holding a rifle next to photos of three Democratic congresswomen. Both ads violated the social-media company's policy prohibiting "violence and incitement," a Facebook spokesman said.