I feel like this is obvious.

(For the record, I voted blue in the last election.)

The vast majority of America’s view on antifa falls somewhere between “they should all be arrested” and “they’re kids who mean well, but are using the wrong methods”.

Do not know what “ANTIFA” truly means?

This seems like the easiest point to explain. A name doesn’t have to mean exactly what it says, and everyone knows this. I could just as easily say “Why are you opposed to MAGA? Do you not want America to be great?” You, presumably, do want America to be great (according to your own definion of “great”) - but you don’t support MAGA. Why? Because MAGA is not the amorphous concept of making America better. It is a political movement with its own cultural context, specific goals, typical methodology, vocal supporters, etc. This is very easy to understand.

Same with Antifa. Sure, the word literally means “antifascist”, but people are going to look at the broader context of their actions, their goals, and the people who are actually in the movement.

I will step back for a monent and say that I personally know little about what the antifa movement actually does. Maybe they spend most of their time operating soup kitchens or lobbying politicians for electoral system reforms with greater transparency. But for the purposes of this question, that is all irrelivant, since this question is about perception.

And what is the perception of antifa? Of what they actually do, who they actually are, and what they actually want? The perception is an angry young man wearing all black throwing a brick through a Starbucks window. His goal is to bring down the amorphous concept of “the system” or “capitalism” via violent extremism to create a world of anarchy - without much of a plan for what to do afterwards if he ever succeeded (which he won’t). The mainstream dislikes this, because in the case that he succeeds (which is unlikely) we would very predictably have everything good in our lives ruined - jobs, stability, secure finances, enough food, clean water, physical safety, etc - because these things depend on the continuation of the system we live in. And in the case he fails, now they have to endure an annoying draft when buying coffee until Starbucks can replace the window. And the mainstream left especially don’t like him because they feel like he is setting them back politically by associating more left leaning ideas with violence and instability, which most people dislike.

This doesn’t really have anything to do with MAGA. The mainstream does not view these as two equal and opposite factions where one side is clearly good and the other evil. The mainstream sees ICE deporting Australians to El Salvador and says “oh, I don’t like that”. And then they see antifa rioting and say “oh, I don’t like that either”. You may ask that if the mainstream’s plan isn’t supporting antifascism, then what is their plan, and the fact is, they don’t need to have a plan to have a opinion about what they do and don’t like. People don’t like slaughterhouse conditions, but still eat bacon. They don’t like climate change, but still want to buy a fancy sports car. The views of any given person will almost never form a logically sound thesis for an idealized state of the world, because people don’t think logically. We see the world, we feel emotional responses, and then we spin up just enough of a logical framework to support our emotional response… That’s it.