The Trump administration is utilizing an imagined enemy—“antifa”—to justify turning ICE into an ultra-violent, unaccountable military invading US cities.
A protester in an inflatable frog costume places a hex on ICE officer at a detention facility in Portland, Oregon, on October 6, 2025.
(Mathieu Lewis-Rolland / AFP through Getty Photos)
Portlanders deploying inflatable animal costumes, a brass band, mass ukulele renditions of “This Land Is Your Land,” bare bike rides, and different techniques of their ICE protests are undermining the Trump administration’s lurid claims that Portland, Oregon, is a “war-torn” metropolis underneath siege by a violent left. It’s arduous to painting somebody dancing in an inflatable frog or hen costume as a terrorist.
This, after all, hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from formally designating “antifa” a home terrorist group. Secretary of Homeland Safety Kristi Noem even claimed to have arrested in Portland “one of many girlfriends of one of many founders of Antifa,” which has by no means been an actual group, only a nickname for antifascists. Girlfriend of founding father of imaginary group is, nicely, a really Kristi Noem class. However the appropriate has been claiming the left is violent even longer than it’s been hallucinating about antifa. And since these claims are sometimes used to justify crackdowns and suppression of First Modification rights, they’re price unpacking, particularly as we head into the large #NoKings demonstrations on Saturday.
An authoritarian regime is nothing with out an enemy to justify its brutality. An imaginary one will do, or the the regime can painting an already-marginalized minority as a malevolent risk. Below Trump, immigrants and the left and anybody standing up in opposition to ICE have been portrayed that manner. Authoritarians routinely hype the peril we’re in if the enemy just isn’t quashed, and naturally that quashing usually and conveniently requires a suspension of legal guidelines, a violation of rights, a seizure of energy, or all the above. Proper now, it’s getting used to justify turning ICE into an ultra-violent, unaccountable military invading US cities.
Some pundits and students are getting on board with the concept there’s a surge in left-wing violence, which, after all, raises the query of what the left is, what counts as violence, whether or not entire political affiliations are chargeable for the acts of people, and why the huge improve in right-wing violence over the previous decade has been so normalized. A recent report by the Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research on “left-wing terrorism” begins:
In recent times, america has seen a rise within the variety of left-wing terrorism assaults and plots, though such violence has risen from very low ranges and stays a lot decrease than historic ranges of violence carried out by right-wing and jihadist attackers. To date, 2025 marks the primary time in additional than 30 years that left-wing terrorist assaults outnumber these from the violent far proper.
It’s a must to scroll manner down within the report to search out that the rise in left-wing terror assaults quantities to 5 incidents in 2025, a few of them questionably from the left. 5.
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“The sudden decline in right-wing terrorism is each extra putting and tougher to elucidate,” says this report, however I believe it’s simple to elucidate: For the far proper, the Trump administration is each their victory and their proxy in the case of terrorizing and attacking their enemies. For instance, the Trump administration secured the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and Republican state governments are actually persecuting abortion suppliers, and girls throughout the pink states have largely misplaced entry to reproductive care. The Trump administration is the far proper and is committing hundreds upon hundreds of acts of terrorism in opposition to immigrants (and individuals who appear like immigrants), taking rights away from trans youth, and selling white supremacy, in addition to blowing up civilians in boats within the southern Caribbean in violation of worldwide legislation. The risk is coming from contained in the (White) Home, however the report doesn’t embrace state terrorism.
Amusingly, Deputy White Home press secretary Abigail Jackson tweeted a screenshot of a chart from the CSIS report through which it’s apparent that over time, there was much more right-wing terrorism.
However, The Atlantic noticed match to let one writer of the examine cowrite a by-product piece titled, “Left-Wing Terrorism Is on the Rise” that pumps up the concept we must be anxious and that is vital. One of many incidents labeled as terrorism was led by a former Marine Corps reservist in Texas; one other was the assassination of Charlie Kirk allegedly by Tyler Robinson. Robinson, 22, was introduced up by a Republican and Mormon law-enforcement household who taught him marksmanship; he’s alleged to have used a gun that belonged to his grandfather.
Whether or not both of those figures belongs to the left is debatable; Robinson is seemingly described as being on the left solely as a result of he loathed Kirk (as do followers of white nationalist demagogue Nick Fuentes) and allegedly had a trans lover. Luigi Mangione, who’s charged with murdering a healthcare govt in late 2024 (like Robinson, he’s nonetheless awaiting trial), is likewise described within the article as left-wing. A good friend of Mangione’s told a journalist that the alleged killer was “left-wing on some issues and right-wing on others. As an illustration, he was pro-equality of alternative, however anti-woke: for instance anti-DEI (and) anti-identity politics.”
One more determine the examine describes as on the left is Cody Balmer, the Military veteran who final April broke into the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion and set it afire whereas Governor Josh Shapiro and his household slept. Though he mentioned he was indignant about Gaza, antisemitism might have performed a task in deciding to attempt to burn alive a US Jewish household for Israeli crimes. However Balmer additionally had “bipolar dysfunction and schizophrenia,” according to his mother, who had sought assist for him simply earlier than the assault, and a historical past of home violence.
As somebody who principally writes about violence within the context of violence in opposition to girls, I discover that probably the most ignored side of violence is its entitlement, the concept the perpetrator has the appropriate to hurt and even take a life. Such conceitedness is at odds with left-wing concepts about human rights, equality, and justice. Plenty of the left is in opposition to the loss of life penalty not solely as a result of it’s unequally utilized however as a result of it’s murder. Arguably, violence itself is a political place that matches in higher with right-wing beliefs like inequality, together with militarism, authoritarianism, and male dominance.
Anand Giridharadas wrote within the aftermath of Kirk’s homicide, “Democracy is, at first and in the long run, a perception that we will stay collectively regardless of distinction and select the long run collectively. It’s a fantastically reckless thought, as a result of it’s arduous sufficient for a household to resolve what to have for dinner. But it surely works; actually, it really works higher than all the opposite methods. It’s constructed on the concept the best way to alter the world round you is to attempt to change others’ minds.”
In case you wholeheartedly consider that, you don’t consider in violence as a legit political instrument in civilian life.
For many years, the anti-abortion motion stoked deadly violence, which led to murders, principally of medical doctors and different workers at amenities that present reproductive care, in addition to harassment of girls looking for companies. In June, a far-right anti-abortion advocate assassinated former Minnesota Home Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband and shot State Senator John Hoffman and his spouse, who survived. An inventory of Democratic politicians present in his automotive suggests he supposed to kill much more, however he was apprehended and awaits trial. (That is the one incident chalked as much as the appropriate within the CSIS report’s tally of right-vs.-left terrorism within the first half of 2025.)
Since accusations of left-wing violence usually proceed with out defining what the left is, I’ll say on this context it appears to imply anybody who cares in regards to the atmosphere, financial justice, and human rights (together with for ladies, immigrants, LGBTQ and BIPOC peoples) and opposes the Trump administration. That may be a class that features lots of Democrats in public workplace, in addition to lots of people who take part in protests, give cash to Deliberate Parenthood and the ACLU—and a handful of extremists. It’s an enormous tent, a broad spectrum of beliefs and commitments, and tens of hundreds of thousands of individuals.
In fact, classes are leaky. As is commonly famous, the political beliefs of some members of the far proper and much left overlap, and people classes are imperfect containers of all of the folks and positions on the market. Moreover, some newcomers to actions and others impatient with the tempo of change see violence as efficient as a result of it’s direct and impactful, although the report reveals that on this nation on this period, it usually backfires and rarely succeeds in producing lasting change.
The CSIS report declares, “Radicals will argue that peaceable politics will inevitably fail and that solely violence will make a distinction,” however I do not know who these radicals are, as a result of in my 40 years round direct-action organizing, I’ve solely encountered theoretical enthusiasm for violence from the sidelines and the occasional younger hothead (virtually all the time white and male) in actions whose overwhelming majority and management are dedicated to nonviolence. I do know somebody who was a part of a violent group within the early Seventies after which grew to become wished fugitive; he’s since grow to be an ardent advocate of nonviolence.
What too usually will get described as left-wing violence at protests is property destruction, which might be harmful and intimidating and is often opposed by protest organizers, however must be considered distinct from harming human life. For instance, on the 1999 protests in opposition to the World Commerce Group in Seattle, the Black Bloc, a small cadre among the many 50,000 protesters smashed lots of store home windows fairly spectacularly. However there are not any reviews of activists harming human beings. Police, then again, used tear fuel; pepper spray; rubber, plastic, and picket bullets; concussion grenades; and armored automobiles in opposition to protesters and bystanders leading to many accidents. Nonetheless, for years afterward, mainstream media retailers portrayed this occasion as an event of stunning activist violence.
One basic query behind all that is: Is a complete political persuasion incriminated by acts dedicated by anybody who shares that persuasion and is that this a type of collective guilt? Not everybody who opposes abortion entry believes in capturing abortion suppliers, for instance. Shouldn’t there be proof not simply that you really want the identical ends however that you just assist the violent means? It was putting that within the quick aftermath of the homicide of Turning Level USA founder and chief Charlie Kirk, the left and even Democrats have been accused of culpability merely for disliking him and disagreeing together with his views. (The Trump administration simply revoked the visa of six foreigners who have been insufficiently reverent towards Kirk and his loss of life, and this official act follows on all of the unofficial hounding of anybody with something dangerous to say about Kirk, demonstrating the seamlessness between the administration and the mobs and influencers of the appropriate.)
A lawsuit filed by the state of Oregon asserts that ICE actions in Portland “threatens to escalate tensions and stokes new unrest,” and The Impartial notes that the aim of frightening unrest is “to justify surging the navy and federal legislation enforcement into the town.” In different phrases, the Trump administration is looking for an incident to justify an excellent stronger and extra militarized crackdown on Democratic cities and much more violation of legal guidelines and rights. For this reason virtually each group and motion aligned with progressive causes clarify a dedication to nonviolence, as real statements of values and as a preventative in opposition to accusations of being terrorists.
The correct additionally understands this, which is why some notable incidents of violence within the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests have been false-flag operations by right-wing teams, together with the homicide of 1 guard and harm of one other at an Oakland federal constructing by Air Drive Employees Sgt. Steven Carrillo, who was related to the far-right Boogaloo Boys, and one other Boogaloo Boy incident through which a member shot right into a police station in Minneapolis. Different right-wing violence at BLM protests in 2020 embrace many incidents of driving automobiles into crowds and the double murder in Kenosha, Wisconsin, by Kyle Rittenhouse, who subsequently acquired assist from right-wing donors and Republican politicians, including Trump. However just like the Seattle WTO 20 years earlier, the 2020 BLM protests are routinely described as violent.
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No such calls for for absolute nonviolence are positioned on right-wing teams. Kirk himself had hardly been held accountable for Turning Level USA’s concentrating on of tons of of educators that has led to years of campaigns of harassment, together with loss of life threats. One such marketing campaign, targeting Rutgers historical past professor Mark Bray, grew so menacing that final week the professor fled to Europe together with his household. He was actually terrorized.
The January 6, 2021, assault on Congress was a convergence of violent teams, together with the Proud Boys and Boogaloo Boys, who gouged, speared, sprayed, and in any other case beat congressional police, vandalized the buildings, and sought to assault elected officers and overturn an election. The insurrectionists who had been convicted of crimes have been pardoned by Trump upon his return to workplace. Proper-wing violence is at an all-time excessive, and it now comes straight from the White Home as, amongst different manifestations, ICE brutality. (It’s additionally putting that Republican legislators are mentioned to obey Trump out of concern for his or her bodily security, indirectly from the administration however from the stochastic terror it has fed and nurtured: “They’re scared shitless about loss of life threats and Gestapo-like stuff” in the event that they dissent, Vainness Honest reports.)
Left-wing violence largely failed within the Nineteen Sixties and ’70s, with the Symbionese Liberation Military (SLA) and Climate Underground demonstrating that small teams utilizing deadly violence have been outliers and burdens for the actions they claimed to signify. (The SLA, it must be mentioned, was in essence a misguided cult.) An ignored side of ’70s radical politics, fantastically documented in L.A. Kauffman’s ebook Direct Action: Protest and the Reinvention of American Radicalism, was the rise of nonviolence as a method and beliefs, and trainings have been paired with processes democratizing decision-making inside activist teams. Nonviolent activism can genuinely change the world and infrequently has modified this nation, from the abolitionist motion to the local weather motion. Acknowledging the ability of protest means acknowledging that the protesters are legitimately harmful to the established order. Recasting protesters as harmful within the sense of felony has lengthy been used as a method to undermine that legitimacy and justify suppressing protest.
Sadly, characteristic filmmakers love left-wing violence plots, and there appear to be much more ecoterrorists and violent leftists in motion pictures than in actual life as of late. One strategy to clarify it’s that secret gun-toting guerrilla teams, shootouts, automotive chases, hunted fugitives, and the remaining work nicely—for motion pictures, whose solely job is to carry our consideration for a few hours.
In actuality, altering the world often takes years or a long time, and it requires the collective work of constructing coalitions, shifting public opinion, profitable court docket victories, or passing laws, which occurs via conferences, perhaps some lawsuits, perhaps some protests and public occasions, extra conferences, undoubtedly some fundraising, and extra conferences. I’ve seen local weather and environmental and Indigenous and feminist and queer-rights victories and adopted the underlying shifts in public opinion. None of it on the level of a gun, all of it from the customarily tedious, typically exhilarating work of activism. I yearn for extra movies like Rachel Lears’s Dawn Motion documentary To the End that present how the world truly does get modified—and fewer nonsense about violence on the left.
Extra from The Nation
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