Fourteen years after Occupy Wall Street and five years after the George Floyd riots, the Democratic Party has embraced the tactics of the mob. Anyone who hoped the party would retreat from extremism was wrong.

The movement calling itself No Kings has returned, proving the point. What began as a slogan of defiance now serves as the organizing banner for a political faction that thrives on confrontation, violence, and plausible deniability.

The republic cannot survive a ruling class that excuses its own mobs.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk could have been a moment of national reflection — a chance for Democrats to reconsider their indulgence in rhetoric that blurs the line between protest and terrorism. Instead, the party apparatus has chosen escalation.

When you tell unstable people that Trump is a “fascist,” that dissent is violence, and that opposition equals Nazism, don’t be shocked when someone acts on it.

The logic of the left

To understand how this happened, you must understand how the modern left thinks. Progressives treat speech as violence and dissent as an existential threat. Anyone who refuses to affirm their ideology becomes, by definition, an oppressor.

From that premise, violence becomes “self-defense.” If Trump is Hitler, then violence against him — or anyone aligned with his cause — is not just justified but virtuous.

The left’s revolutionaries no longer storm palaces. They dominate the streets. On October 18, No Kings protests will erupt again across the country. What was once the fringe tactic of radicals has become the preferred strategy of the Democratic Party: organized street action modeled on unstable regimes abroad.

This backslide into mob politics raises tensions at a time when the nation needs prudence. Instead, Democrats seem eager to test how far their own movement will go.

What lies beneath the No Kings network

After the June 14 protests, our team at the Oversight Project traced the movement’s primary organizing partner, 50501. What we found confirmed the worst suspicions: demonstrable ties to the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the Democratic Socialists of America, Antifa, and Students for Justice in Palestine.

These groups have openly supported violent action or defended authoritarian regimes, including China’s Communist Party. Mapping their social media connections revealed links to foreign influence networks tied to Chinese propaganda operations.

Antifa affiliates have also joined the effort, circulating merchandise celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death — shirts reading “Nazi Lives Don’t Matter” and “Normalize Political Violence” printed with a guillotine.

This is the energy behind No Kings. Its rhetoric echoes the Chinese Communist Party’s talking points on Tiananmen Square and defends regimes that crush dissent. Some of its alumni have even celebrated the murder of Israeli diplomats. Others maintain direct connections to Neville Singham and Chinese consulate officials.

For years, Democrats obsessed over alleged Russian meddling in U.S. politics. Yet now they embrace networks steeped in foreign influence to advance their own protest movements. As the Trump administration maps these organizations, many roads will lead overseas. Beijing has long used this method — stoking domestic unrest to weaken rivals from within.

The question isn’t whether the Democrats know this. It’s whether they care.

How the extremists captured the party

So how did a movement this toxic gain institutional cover from the Democratic establishment? Why do party leaders like Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) offer it full-throated support? And why do former Republicans like George Conway, Bill Kristol, and Joe Walsh lend their credibility to the cause?

Because the Democrats have surrendered to their radical base. They’ve stopped trying to lead it and started following it. Rather than condemn political extremism, they seek to normalize and rebrand it.

When Antifa militants show up at Democrat-aligned protests, party leaders feign surprise. When violence erupts, they retreat to the safety of “plausible deniability.” It’s a tired act — and the public no longer buys it.

RELATED: Trump names Antifa. The establishment still pretends it doesn’t exist.

hoto by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

Why the crackdown terrifies them

This explains why Democrats fight so ferociously against classifying Antifa as a domestic or foreign terrorist organization. Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 directs a whole-of-government response to domestic extremism. Through the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces, federal agencies already possess the tools to investigate, expose, and dismantle these networks.

The real question is whether they will use them.

A serious enforcement effort would strip away the Democrats’ mask of deniability and expose the institutional support behind the violence. It would show that what poses as activism is, in fact, the operational arm of a radicalized political movement.

The choice ahead

Across the world, major parties have flirted with revolutionary tactics when democracy failed to deliver their goals. It’s the oldest temptation in politics. But America is now watching a mainstream party openly indulge in it.

Street action, foreign influence, and mob intimidation are not signs of progress — they are symptoms of decay. If Democrats continue down this path, they will drag the country with them.

The republic cannot survive a ruling class that excuses its own mobs.