Everyone loves the three wise men at Christmas. Gold, frankincense, myrrh, the star, the long journey — these are the images we place on mantles and church bulletins. But almost no one pauses to consider the politics happening behind the scenes. Matthew’s Gospel is not merely a nativity story; it is a collision of kingdoms. At the center of that collision is a tyrant who sounds far more familiar to modern ears than we might like to admit.

Herod is remembered for one thing: He murdered infants. That is the brutal fact we cannot ignore. But before he unsheathed the sword, Herod did something else — something more subtle, more political, and more recognizable.

Just as Herod spoke the language of worship to mask his intentions, the Democrats speak the language of ‘common sense’ to mask theirs.

He promised moderation. He promised cooperation. He promised unity.

And he lied.

“Go and search carefully for the Child,” Herod told the wise men, “and when you have found Him, bring back word to me, that I may come and worship Him also.” It was a trap. A manipulative plea for compromise. A tyrant asking the righteous to meet him halfway.

Herod never intended to worship Christ. He planned to kill Him. And that is where the story begins to sound painfully modern.

False moderation

Herod’s modern-day heirs still use the same script. Every election season brings a fresh wave of polished slogans: “Commonsense reproductive health care.” “Protecting basic rights.” “Defending freedom.” “Stopping extremism.”

The tone is moderate. The goal is not.

These same Democratic voices champion abortion through all nine months, fund the industry, defend it in court, and celebrate each victory that preserves the so-called right to end a child’s life. Behind the rhetoric of calm reason lies a fixed reality: Every restriction — no matter how small — is treated as an existential threat.

President Donald Trump proved this. He rejected national restrictions, announced he would not sign a bill banning abortion, and embraced the state-by-state approach, even calling a heartbeat bill too restrictive. And the left still branded him a radical intent on a national ban and criminalizing abortion.

The charge did not depend on his position. It depended on leftists' strategy. If the destruction of the innocent is nonnegotiable for them, then every effort to restrain it is labeled “extremism.” Herod does not distinguish between cautious men and bold ones.

The illusion of safety

Many have assumed that careful posture protects influence. The evidence says otherwise. No matter how tempered the proposal, no matter how limited the step, no matter how deliberately “reasonable” the tone, the same accusations appear: “Outlawing women.” “Criminalizing health care.” “Taking away rights.” “Extreme.”

The strategy is simple: Anything that restricts the regime’s power is given the same label. If the political cost is identical regardless of the position taken, then the logic of compromise collapses. Because what, precisely, is being purchased?

If moderation brings no peace, if restraint brings no goodwill, if cautious measures earn the same condemnation as courageous ones, then moderation is not a shield. It is simply paying the price for a position you do not hold.

Herod offered cooperation. The wise men showed respect. On the surface, it looked like stability, but when God revealed the truth, the wise men acted decisively: “Being warned in a dream ... they departed for their own country another way.”

They did not return to negotiate. They did not report back with updated information. They simply refused to play the tyrant’s game. And that refusal protected the Christ-child. Their greatness was not in their gifts but in their clarity. When a ruler is committed to killing the innocent, cooperation is complicity.

New actors, same script

The modern Democratic regime does not offer moderation. It claims moderation while rejecting every limit placed before it.

Photo by: Godong/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

A heartbeat bill? Extreme. An ultrasound requirement? Extreme. Parental notification? Extreme. A 20-week ban? Extreme. Nothing is ever reasonable unless it preserves abortion without limits.

Just as Herod spoke the language of worship to mask his intentions, the Democrats speak the language of “common sense” to mask theirs. The tone is polished, but the aim is unchanged: keep the machinery of death running while demanding that others surrender the moral clarity that might restrain it. Herod promised a partnership he never meant to honor. The Democrats promise moderation they never intend to practice.

The question that returns every year

We have no shortage of latter-day Herods. They still promise moderation, still demand cooperation. They still insist that if only convictions are tempered, peace will come.

But Christmas testifies otherwise. Herod was never going to worship Christ.

The Democrats who champion abortion are never going to tolerate restrictions. The accusations will fall on anyone who lifts a finger for the unborn, no matter how small the effort may be. If the cost is the same either way, then only one path honors God, protects life, and is politically wise: Let us refuse the tyrants by avoiding the negotiation altogether.

If the weight of truly treating abortion as murder is inevitable, then let us play the wise man and embrace our convictions.

How Christians honored a truce the left never accepted

It’s Christmastime, and you can feel the shift in the air.

Something has changed in the nation’s mood. People smile more easily. Familiar music returns. And — quietly but unmistakably — you can say “Merry Christmas” again without apologizing for it. The president of the United States quotes the Gospel of John when he speaks about Jesus.

Christians need to face a hard truth: The truce was a mistake.

For a few short weeks, Americans remember what this season is actually about. Not a generic winter festival. Not a vague celebration of “light” or “togetherness.” But the birth of Jesus Christ — a real event in history that changed everything.

For centuries, Christians have marked this season to reflect on the incarnation of the Son of God. “Christ is the reason for the season” is not a slogan; it is a confession. God entered history. He took on flesh. He came to save sinners. Christianity is not built on myth or metaphor but on eyewitness testimony to what actually happened.

America is now remembering — haltingly, imperfectly — the central role of Christ in its own history. That recovery follows decades of effort by atheists and secular ideologues to banish Christ from the public square. Unfortunately, Christians largely agreed to the truce that made this possible. They kept their faith private while Marxists were happy to occupy public education.

In the 1960s, American Christians accepted what amounted to a truce. I half-jokingly call it the Madalyn Murray O’Hair deal. The now largely forgotten atheist activist sued to remove prayer and biblical instruction from public schools. Christians acquiesced. Public education, they were told, would be “neutral.” Religion would be kept out. Faith would be private.

Christians kept their side of the deal.

The Marxists did not — because they never agreed to one. They announced their intentions openly. They promised to march through the institutions, and they did. Universities filled with faculty who identify as left or far left and who teach Marxist frameworks as settled truth.

Today, it is easier to find a committed Marxist on campus than a practicing Christian.

For 60 years, Marxist philosophy crept into K-12 education and then saturated higher education. What was once smuggled in under euphemism is now proudly declared. Professors announce their ideology on syllabi and use taxpayer dollars to teach students that America is structurally racist and that “whiteness” is a form of oppression.

There was never neutrality. There was only a vacuum — and Marxism rushed in to fill it.

I saw this emptiness firsthand on my own campus at Arizona State University.

At ASU’s West Valley campus, administrators recently installed a “winter wonderland” display. Not Christmas lights — “winter” lights. Decorations carefully stripped of any reference to Christ. The existential meaninglessness was almost overwhelming.

Lights were strung up to flicker briefly in the darkness before being taken down and discarded. What did it mean? What did it point to beyond itself?

Or, as Hemingway wrote, was it simply nada y pues nada y pues nada — nothing, and then nothing, and then nothing?

This is what happens when you preserve form while evacuating content. Ritual without meaning. Celebration without hope. Light without truth.

Christmas is the opposite of that.

Christmas does not offer a vague lesson about darkness giving way to light. It proclaims that Jesus Christ is the light of the world. It is not a symbolic story to be endlessly reinterpreted but a declaration that Christ was born in history, of a virgin, in fulfillment of prophecy, to redeem a fallen world.

That is why efforts to drain Christmas of its meaning always feel strained. When leftists substitute “winter celebrations” and “seasonal observances,” they do not offer neutrality. They offer emptiness — sometimes dressed up as inclusion, sometimes as bureaucracy, sometimes as pagan revivalism. Light shows without the Logos. Rituals without redemption.

Christians need to face a hard truth: The truce was a mistake.

There is no neutral education. There never has been. Every curriculum conveys values. Every institution forms souls. The only question is whether students will be formed in the light of Christ or in the ideology of those who openly despise Him.

Photo by: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Christmas exposes the lie of neutrality. It reminds us that history has meaning, that truth entered the world, and that human beings answer to something higher than administrative guidelines or ideological fashion.

So this year, I am not whispering, “Happy Holidays.” I am saying, “Merry Christmas” — to students, to colleagues, to anyone who will hear it.

Parents and students should remember something crucial: Universities answer to you. You are not passive consumers. You set expectations. You decide what kind of formation is acceptable.

When you see your professors, say, “Merry Christmas.” Say it cheerfully. Say it unapologetically. What you are affirming is not sentiment but truth: that Christ came into the world, and no amount of bureaucratic rebranding can erase Him.

The lights will flicker and fade. Christ will not.

Merry Christmas.

This is what ‘abolish America’ looks like in practice

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles announced that four members of an anti-capitalist extremist group were arrested on Friday for plotting coordinated bombings in California on New Year’s Eve.

According to the Department of Justice, the suspects planned to detonate explosives concealed in backpacks at various businesses while also targeting ICE agents and vehicles. The attacks were supposed to coincide with midnight celebrations.

Marxists, anarchists, and Islamist movements share a conviction that the United States, like Israel, is a colonial project that must be destroyed.

The plot was disrupted before any lives were lost. The group behind the plot calls itself the Turtle Island Liberation Front. That name matters more than you might think.

When ideology turns operational

For years, the media has told us that radical, violent rhetoric on the left is mostly symbolic. They explained away the angry slogans, destructive language, and calls for “liberation” as performance or hyperbole.

Bombs are not metaphors, however.

Once explosives enter the picture, framing the issue as harmless expression becomes much more difficult. What makes this case different is the ideological ecosystem behind it.

The Turtle Island Liberation Front was not a single-issue group. It was anti-American, anti-capitalist, and explicitly revolutionary. Its members viewed the United States as an illegitimate occupying force rather than a sovereign nation. America, in their view, is not a nation, not a country; it is a structure that must be dismantled at any cost.

What ‘Turtle Island’ really means

“Turtle Island” is not an innocent cultural reference. In modern activist usage, it is shorthand for the claim that the United States has no moral or legal right to exist. It reframes the country as stolen land, permanently occupied by an illegitimate society.

Once people accept that premise, the use of violence against their perceived enemies becomes not only permissible, but virtuous. That framing is not unique to one movement. It appears again and again across radical networks that otherwise disagree on nearly everything.

Marxists, anarchists, and Islamist movements do not share the same vision for the future. They do not even trust one another. But they share a conviction that the United States, like Israel, is a colonial project that must be destroyed. The alignment of radical, hostile ideologies is anything but a coincidence.

The red-green alliance

For decades, analysts have warned about what is often called the red-green alliance: the convergence of far-left revolutionary politics with Islamist movements. The alliance is not based on shared values, but on shared enemies. Capitalism, national sovereignty, Western culture, and constitutional government all fall into that category.

History has shown us how this process works. Revolutionary coalitions form to tear down an existing order, promising liberation and justice. Once power is seized, the alliance fractures, and the most ruthless faction takes control.

Iran’s 1979 revolution followed this exact pattern. Leftist revolutionaries helped topple the shah. Within a few years, tens of thousands of them were imprisoned, executed, or “disappeared” by the Islamist regime they helped install. Those who do not understand history, the saying goes, are doomed to repeat it.

Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg via Getty Images

This moment is different

What happened in California was not a foreign conflict bleeding into the United States or a solitary extremist acting on impulse. It was an organized domestic group, steeped in ideological narratives long validated by universities, activist networks, and the media.

The language that once circulated on campuses and social media is now appearing in criminal indictments. “Liberation” has become a justification for explosives. “Resistance” has become a plan with a date and a time. When groups openly call for the destruction of the United States and then prepare bombs to make it happen, the country has entered a new phase. Pretending things have not gotten worse, that we have not crossed a line as a country, is reckless denial.

Every movement like this depends on confusion. Its supporters insist that calls for America’s destruction are symbolic, even as they stockpile weapons. They denounce violence while preparing for it. They cloak criminal intent in the language of justice and morality. That ambiguity is not accidental. It is deliberate.

The California plot should end the debate over whether these red-green alliances exist. They do. The only question left is whether the country will recognize the pattern before more plots advance farther — and succeed.

This is not about one group, one ideology, or one arrest. It is about a growing coalition that has moved past rhetoric and into action. History leaves no doubt where that path leads. The only uncertainty is whether Americans will step in and stop it.

Inside the radical pipeline turning America's teachers into activists

Following the unrest that unfolded at a Turning Point USA event at the University of California, Berkeley, the Department of Justice has launched an investigation into those behind the disruption.

One of the alleged organizers of the recent protest, By Any Means Necessary, has been described as part of the ecosystem of the “anti-fascist” movement.

These educators are attempting to advance their political agenda through statewide governmental jobs and teachers' union leadership positions.

Unfortunately, UC Berkeley is no stranger to left-wing protests turning violent.

In 2017, several far-left agitators were arrested at a conservative rally on the same campus. One of those individuals was BAMN member and middle school teacher Yvette Felarca, who had previously defended the use of militant violence in an interview. She had also been charged in 2016 with assault related to a previous counter-protest.

But Felarca is not an anomaly. Rather, she is one example of a fringe of aggressive, far-left revolutionaries who seek to corrupt the K-12 education ecosystem to advance their radical political ideology. Whether through ethnic studies curriculums, organizing “Teach-ins for Gaza” and anti-Israel activism, or alleged glorification of terrorism and endorsement of Antifa, activist teachers are leveraging the historical trust bestowed upon the education profession to foment an anti-Western, anti-American mindset in schools and the culture writ large.

Not surprisingly, the teachers' unions play a role in funding, promoting, and protecting these activist educators.

In fact, the American Federation of Teachers came to Felarca’s aid in 2018 by passing a resolution in support of her and her lawsuit against Judicial Watch. The legal action was aimed at stopping the watchdog group from obtaining public records from the school district. But the lawsuit failed.

Yet this has not stopped Felarca and other BAMN members from continuing to advance a far-left ideology both inside and outside K-12 schools.

For example, in March, Oakland High School (Calif.) students, flanked by teachers who affiliate with BAMN, led a protest over immigration policies. In this instance, the influence of the teacher-activists is no secret. The student protesters publicly claimed they received help from the local BAMN chapter in organizing the event.

skynesher/Getty Images Plus

Even though street activism can be the most visible form of ideological battle on the American culture, these educators are attempting to advance their political agenda through statewide government jobs and teachers' union leadership positions.

The executive vice president of United Educators of San Francisco, for example, is currently running for state superintendent of public instruction. The San Francisco Unified teacher touts that under his leadership, the UESF “transformed into one of California’s strongest and most militant unions.” His site also states that he is an activist and “longtime organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation” — an organization known to be behind many of the anti-Israel and anti-ICE protests that have taken place across the country.

In Los Angeles, the Association of Raza Educators, the education wing of the radical group Union del Barrio, has a slate of individuals running for positions of leadership in United Teachers Los Angeles. Included on the roster is teacher Ron Gochez, who is no stranger to controversial comments and actions.

In fact, he was recently the subject of a DOJ probe over public statements he made toward Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Other ARE members have served on committees for the California Teachers Association, have been delegates to the NEA convention, and are engaged in groups such as Educators for Justice in Palestine and Queers for Palestine.

The system is being used as a tool to advance a radical left-wing political agenda.

But should ARE achieve its goal of taking over leadership of the union of one of the largest school districts in the country, it would be more status quo than anomaly.

In 2021, UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz infamously proclaimed that “there is no such thing as learning loss.” She continued by stating that it was “OK that our babies may not have learned their times tables ... they learned the difference between riot and a protest.”

Myart-Cruz said the quiet part out loud — the teachers' unions and far-left educators value political activism over learning.

Yet parents, public officials, and even other teachers are either willfully blind or largely unaware of the influence that these nefarious actors have on education despite the increase in public-facing activism. The system is being used as a tool to advance a radical left-wing political agenda, and it comes with a very steep cost for American children.

The proof is already starting to rear its ugly head, as evidenced by a recent University of California, San Diego, report.

Regardless of one’s position on public schools or teachers’ unions, this issue will eventually impact all Americans if left unaddressed. It is time to put a stop to the "school to far-left activism" pipeline and return the institution to its primary charter — to teach children to read and do math.

Jillian Michaels Exposes the REAL Biggest Losers | The Glenn Beck Podcast | Ep 271

'Hey, fascist! Catch!' Leftist group apparently recruiting college students with slogan tied to Kirk murder

Left-wing organizers appear to have posted flyers advertising their club at Georgetown University with the same slogans found on bullet casings near where Charlie Kirk was murdered.

The John Brown Gun Club reportedly posted bright red flyers around campus recruiting students with the phrase, "Hey, fascist! Catch!" in bold text. The flyer also brags that the John Brown Gun Club is "the only political group that celebrates when Nazis die," likely referencing Kirk's horrific assassination on September 10.

'There are students at this campus who want to see conservatives dead.'

Shae McInnis, a sophomore at Georgetown University who also serves as the treasurer of the College Republicans Club on campus, found the posters Wednesday morning.

"I read this immediately as a threat, not only for me but for everyone on this campus," McInnis told Fox News Digital. "Every conservative, everyone who just does not subscribe to the prevailing leftist orthodoxy, this is a direct threat against them."

Photo by Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images

"It means that there are students at this campus who want to see conservatives dead rather than engaging with their ideas, rather than facilitating a political discourse," McInnis added.

The John Brown Gun Club is a leftist group that originally "sought to militarize the white working class and spur it toward a social-justice revolution," according to the Counter Extremism Project. Although the club claims to simply act as armed security at protests, local chapters have often been associated with other left-wing militant groups like Antifa and have been involved in violent attacks.

Most notably, one chapter member, Willem van Spronsen, was killed by law enforcement in 2019 after he tried to blow up an ICE detention center using a propane tank and Molotov cocktails at the facility.

Photo by David McNew/Getty Images

Since the flyers were found on campus, a spokesperson for Georgetown University said they have been removed and that the incident is being investigated.

"Georgetown University has no tolerance for calls for violence or threats to the university," the spokesperson said. "The flyers have been removed and the university is investigating this incident and working to ensure the safety of our community."

Georgetown did not respond to a request for further comment by Blaze News.

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How Trump can dismantle far-left extremist networks

Urgency inside the Trump administration is building after the assassination of conservative icon Charlie Kirk. President Donald Trump has vowed to confront what he calls “the radical left lunatics.”

The rhetoric has grown sharper on the right, including within the administration itself. But dismantling the far left’s networks will not be simple. Defeating the forces aligned against the American republic requires more than speeches. It demands a clear understanding of the enemy and a systematic plan to dismantle enemy infrastructure using every tool of national power.

Defining terms

The biggest initial problem the Trump administration faces in confronting the radical left is a refusal by the national security, federal law enforcement, and intelligence apparatuses to even recognize who the president has identified as a threat.

Because these movements are made up of multiple entities that utilize different tactics and are organized in diverse ways, no silver bullet can defeat the far-left extremist movement.

Currently, the U.S. government refers to domestic terrorist threats in only the broadest possible categories, such as Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremist, Anti-Government/Anti-Authority Violent Extremist, Animal Rights/Environmentalist Violent Extremist, and Abortion-Related Violent Extremist. In every case, these categories are deliberately constructed to appear content-neutral. This allows the bureaucracy to appear evenhanded while selectively emphasizing preferred political targets and ignoring others.

For example, while Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists theoretically includes both white and black supremacist groups, in practice, the government spends its efforts targeting groups that are perceived as white supremacist and underemphasizes black supremacist groups. Similarly, while the bureaucracy might claim to target Antifa and similar radical-left actors under the Anti-Government/Anti-Authority Violent Extremist category, in practice, it has emphasized investigating parents at school board meetings, “J6ers,” Catholic church attendees, and the like.

While federal law enforcement devoted 12 informants to the Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-Mich.) kidnapping case (which collapsed at trial over questions of how much of the plot was inspired by the government itself), all evidence suggests it completely neglected to investigate the John Brown Gun Clubs, which have conducted numerous armed Antifa attacks on federal officers in multiple cities around the country.

An entirely new category

The president must direct the creation of the Far-Left Violent Extremist category and implement its immediate use across all departments and agencies. While the actual name is up for debate, it must explicitly include “anti-fascist” (Antifa), anarchist, autonomous Marxist, socialist, Marxist-Leninist, Maoist, and communist extremists and ensure that these distinctions are accurately and correctly defined.

Such an approach is not radical — in fact, it is used by American allies abroad. The German Ministry of the Interior’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution defines far-left extremism in precisely this way and meticulously categorizes each subcategory every year in reports that are openly available to the public.

A Far-Left Violent Extremist category should also include individuals, groups, networks, and movements based on these ideologies that utilize single-issue activism on topics like animal/environmentalist extremism and abortion as cover for their efforts. Often these apparently single-issue organizations are used as a recruiting tool to activate individuals who may be interested in a specific political topic and bring them farther into a movement whose true objective is revolution. This simple tactic alone shows the uselessness of the present set of federal categorizations.

For too long, the government, media, and academia have minimized the extensive threat posed by far-left extremists, treating it as merely examples of single-issue activism. But cases like the Black Lives Matter riots, Defend Atlanta Forest, Jane’s Revenge, and the Palestinian campus encampments have all demonstrated that for far-left extremists, changing names and logos before taking action on behalf of a changing cause is standard operating procedure. By siloing these cases in different categories, federal law enforcement fails to document — and fails to understand — the danger posed by the far left at the strategic level.

Getting the federal government to use new terminology will be a challenge. In 2021, Homeland Security insiders aggressively leaked about the first Trump administration’s attempt to require the Department of Homeland Security to use accurate terminology to describe Antifa by creating the category of Violent Antifa Anarchist Extremist. The bureaucracy vociferously rejected the effort, which effectively limited and derailed this very necessary addition.

This time the Trump administration must not be cowed.

A granular understanding of the far left is necessary to determine the appropriate response. This breakdown is vital, because such groups typically play different roles in the overall movement, largely based on their ideology and doctrine. This has been true for a century. They also organize in different structures and typically receive funding in different ways through different sources.

Anarchist and autonomist Marxists

Anarchist and autonomist Marxist networks dominate what are considered “anti-fascist” or Antifa activities. These include direct action and violent direct action such as sabotage, vandalism, doxxing, and preplanned violence, which encompasses both rioting and terrorism. They label all of American society, both mainstream conservatism and liberalism and all our public, constitutional institutions, as fascist.

Anarchist and autonomous Marxist groups are typically funded by direct crowdsourced funding, mutual aid, and local community-based fundraising. This is taken from Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin’s theory of organizing, which is used by anarchist/socialist groups to describe how voluntary organizing provides unofficial quasi-governmental services.

In some cases, Antifa groups have fundraised by engaging in illegal activities, including the sale of drugs and prostitution. Senior members of the network may serve as protest training consultants or union organizers as part of their “day jobs.”

Photo by michaelquirk via Getty Images

These groups are decentralized and non-hierarchical, but heavily networked through local “affinity groups,” collectives, or chapters, which are linked to similar groups primarily by ideological ties. They are not necessarily linked by financing. They also share ideological connections with similar groups and organizations that operate abroad, predominantly but not exclusively in Western Europe and Latin America.

Marxist, Marxist-Leninist, Maoist

Marxist, Marxist-Leninist, Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, and other communist organizations typically create and proliferate structures as mass-movement organizations. They think and act with greater strategic purpose than the anarchists and autonomous Marxists and maintain systems of command and control. Their networks predominate in the indoctrination and organizational space, creating overlapping networks of community organizations, front groups, and other structures.

Additionally, they co-opt independent entities. Through their controlled organizations and those they infiltrate, they organize large-scale protests and disruptions under a variety of issues and labels. Whether controlled outright or dominated through disciplined infiltrators in key positions of authority, they can range from small, local, and niche to broad-based and national mass organizations. These groups are the most likely of all far-left extremists to have access to fiscal sponsorship organizations through which they can access significant amounts of donor funds from progressive tax-free foundations.

These vertically integrated organizations and networks are also more likely to have operational ties to foreign governments and foreign communist parties. Examples include the much-discussed Party for Socialism and Liberation’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party and groups like the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, which is extensively networked with other communist parties such as those in China and Cuba.

They may also have ties to communist organizations designated as terrorist groups, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas, and the Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army. Others may have ties to sanctioned governments, including Russia, Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea.

Like the anarchists and autonomous Marxists, these groups have ideological and doctrinal differences. They compete with each other for attention, funds, and recruits. Nonetheless, they effectively interact and coordinate through the use of the concepts of “diversity of tactics” and “popular fronts.” Like an orchestra, these groups play their own separate parts, but they have the effect of coming together as a functioning, cohesive whole. They generally accomplish this despite lacking a single entity that directs and coordinates the operation or campaign.

Defeating far-left extremism

Because these movements are made up of multiple entities that utilize different tactics and are organized in diverse ways, no silver bullet can defeat the far-left extremist movement. Only a whole-of-government — and ultimately a whole-of-society — approach will be successful. Anyone who insists on a single, easy method for stopping this threat is at best ill informed.

Department of Justice

The Department of Justice would presumably serve as the lead agency in any effort. Federal counterterrorism authorities may be needed to address one element of the far-left extremist network. Counterintelligence authorities, working through an entirely different set of statutes, may be necessary to pursue those individuals and groups linked to foreign entities that are facilitating subversion and those advocating, but not actually committing, violent crimes or terrorism.

Legal authorities addressing racketeering, money laundering, charity fraud, and other white-collar crimes may be the best legal instruments in other cases. (Charity fraud investigations against far-left extremist organizations have already played a key role in Georgia and Virginia.) Civil rights enforcement is likely necessary in different situations.

Finally, the implementation of statutes housed under Title 18, Chapter 115 of the U.S. Code that are aimed at groups engaged in seditious conspiracy or direct advocacy of the overthrow of the U.S. government and Constitution may ultimately prove necessary. This option is likely to provoke an aggressive legal challenge, as these statutes have been largely moribund since a series of Supreme Court decisions beginning in 1957, but such a challenge may be desirable. A legal strategy specifically focused on reviving these authorities can select favorable test cases to advance case law.

The Department of Justice should also consider pursuing material support or accessory charges against crowdfunding websites or organizations that flagrantly and negligently assist Antifa groups in raising funds for items or materials used in the commission of terrorist or criminal acts. These may include crowdfunding for potential weapons, armor, shields, face masks, or the cash needed to keep the extremists viable and active.

The Department of Justice should work closely with state and local governments to ensure the toughest convictions possible. State and local jurisdictions may have statutes that are more comprehensive and advanced than the federal government.

A coordinated whole-of-government approach is absolutely necessary to defeat far-left extremism.

The Trump administration should advocate for state governments to extensively cooperate with federal law enforcement and direct federal task force officers to utilize state terrorism, racketeering, sabotage, gang designations, or sedition laws where these might be the most appropriate option.

A coordinated whole-of-government approach is absolutely necessary, preferably directed by a task force at the presidential level, as it would be empowered to utilize any and all appropriate statutes and authorities and properly resourced by representatives from all applicable agencies.

Office of the Director of National Intelligence

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence should produce classified and unclassified national intelligence products on far-left extremism, at both the national and international levels, that highlight extensive evidence of transnational cooperation. Intelligence authorities need to coordinate to identify foreign ties to domestic far-left extremist groups. ODNI should also investigate, and include in its reporting, the role played by foreign adversaries in supporting U.S.-based far-left extremist groups.

The director of national intelligence should authorize a “Team B” competitive analytical exercise composed of independent, outside experts on far-left extremism to allow independent review of materials and methodology and provide alternative analysis. This approach would force competition within the intelligence community and assist it in reassessing and ameliorating its own shortcomings.

State Department and Treasury Department

The State Department should instruct consular officials to thoroughly investigate visa applicants and strictly enforce inadmissibility under Title 8, Chapter 12, §1182 (a)(3)(B) or (3)(D) of the U.S. Code (overthrow of the U.S. government, terrorist activities, or membership in totalitarian parties).

Participation in any anarchist or Marxist party or organization should be considered de facto grounds for permanent inadmissibility. Current visa holders involved with any far-left extremist group or who demonstrate support for such groups should have their visas revoked.

The State Department should also utilize multilateral fora developed for countering violent extremism to create a far-left extremism working group. It should work with foreign counterparts to identify foreign far-left terrorist groups and associated networks to be designated, specifically including Antifa groups.

One example is Germany’s Hammerbande, which has conducted a number of attacks across international borders but whose members were successfully prosecuted in Germany. Other options for relatively straightforward far-left extremist terrorist designations include several Greek Antifa/anarchist terrorist groups. A more aggressive option might include designating Palestine Action, a group recently banned in the United Kingdom for attacking a Royal Air Force base, as a far-left extremist group.

The United States should utilize diplomatic efforts and leverage where necessary to urge foreign partners that do not recognize far-left extremism to do so. These include the other four members of the Five Eyes: principal U.S. intelligence partners Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, whose intelligence and security services have also faced challenges with politicization.

The Treasury Department should pursue designation of international Antifa structures that provide material support for any such designated organizations, such as Antifa International and the International Anti-Fascist Defense Fund, and pursue secondary designations where applicable.

While the State and Treasury Departments may pursue a direct foreign terrorism designation for Antifa as a whole, this approach is likely to face significant legal challenges and risk being underutilized. A piecemeal approach will be slower, but it will be more likely to survive strong bureaucratic inertia.

The State and Treasury Departments should also aggressively pursue secondary designation for groups providing material support for the Communist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and its front organization, Samidoun, and front organizations supporting the Communist Party of the Philippines/New People's Army. In some cases, groups facing secondary sanctions may be U.S.-based organizations or include U.S. nationals.

Department of Homeland Security

In consultation with experts on far-left extremism, the Department of Homeland Security should produce intelligence products for all federal, state, local, and tribal partners on identifying far-left extremist individuals and organizations.

The department should conduct an extensive review of information produced by partner fusion centers to determine whether reporting on potential far-left extremism has been appropriately analyzed and acted upon. Anecdotal reports suggest that federal partners have historically disproportionately ignored or disregarded reporting from state fusion centers related to far-left extremism as compared to other types of extremist ideology.

The homeland security secretary should direct the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program to set aside funds specifically to support future research into the threat of far-left extremism. Because of the high number of far-left extremists who are affiliated with academia, the administration must carefully observe this program to ensure that the ultimate recipients of any grant have a demonstrated history of research on far-left extremism — but are not themselves ideologically aligned with the movement.

Photo by Matteo Della Torre/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Previous recipients of funds under this program have engaged in a strategic minimization, and even outright denial, of the threat of far-left extremism; in some cases, grant recipients appeared to have engaged in Antifa activities themselves. Organizations in which these and like activities occur should see their grants revoked.

The Department of Homeland Security should also conduct a review of its own interactions with individuals who are professed anti-fascists and have been utilized as supposed experts.

Internal Revenue Service

Far-left extremist groups and their benefactors regularly abuse Internal Revenue Service practices related to tax-free nonprofit organizations, including the wide-scale abuse of fiscal sponsorship arrangements. A fiscal sponsor can be held legally responsible for the activities of the entity it sponsors, which has no legal status apart from serving as a project of its sponsor if those are not tax-deductible.

Nonprofit organizations credibly linked to criminal activity should have their tax-free status revoked. The agency should be instructed to review its ruling on the use of fiscal sponsorships to prevent further abuse and should refer individuals for prosecution who are engaged in utilizing tax-deductible funds for far-left extremist activity.

Department of Labor

The Labor Department should be instructed to aggressively enforce Section 540 of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, which prohibits persons who are convicted of certain crimes (including misdemeanors) from serving as a union official, employee, or consultant. This is particularly important, as far-left extremists are often engaged as union organizers or protest training consultants.

The administration may consider seeking an amendment to the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act to ban those convicted of specific crimes that are commonly conducted by far-left extremists, including (but not limited to) felony federal rioting. The U.S. must ensure that all federal employee unions are appropriately scrutinized and, if necessary, penalized or prosecuted for any far-left extremist activities by union members and leaders.

As part of the broad Justice Department legal strategy to revisit enforcement of U.S. statutory prohibitions against advocacy for overthrowing the United States, Labor should consider developing a legal strategy to revisit United States v. Brown, where the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that open Communist Party members could not be prohibited from holding positions in labor unions.

Department of War

As has been demonstrated following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, literally thousands of War Department personnel have been identified as countenancing political violence against conservatives. During the department-wide “extremism stand-down” promoted by then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, it failed to educate its personnel on the signs and dangers of far-left extremism, choosing to focus solely on perceived white supremacist and right-wing extremism.

This occurred despite a Rand Corporation survey that showed Antifa with the highest support among military veterans of any extremist ideology other than the conspiracy theory “QAnon.” Antifa had more than five times as much support among veterans as white supremacist ideology. The secretary of war should order a full review of all insider threat materials and extremist training materials, ensuring they accurately reflect the threat posed by far-left extremism.

Finally, national defense universities, military academies, postgraduate schools, and other military education entities and programs should be encouraged to create coursework and hire professors and instructors who are capable of providing warfighters and national security leadership with a quality education in the nature of far-left extremism.

Department of Education

Examples of far-left extremism openly promoted in federally funded institutions of higher education are rife, as well as in public K-12 education. Scores, if not hundreds, of examples of both college and university professors and K-12 public school educators show open promotion of far-left extremism. In many cases, radical teachers' unions produce training and educational materials for use in the classroom.

Some states have attempted to counter this ongoing effort by educating students about the history and crimes of communism, helping them resist indoctrination and radicalization to such ideologies. The Trump administration should require states to promote appropriate educational materials if they wish to receive Department of Education funds.

The department may also investigate the plausibility of creating grants for research into far-left extremism, while carefully vetting to ensure that such grants do not go to extremists themselves.

Whole-of-society approach

In addition to these efforts, the Trump administration will need to utilize rhetoric and the bully pulpit to help rally Americans around our shared political principles. The president should publicly and repeatedly support and praise Democrat officials at any level of government who publicly stand against far-left extremism.

The goal of the far-left extremist network over the past five years has been to encourage mainstream Democrat elected officials and media figures to utilize their rhetoric. Mainstream Democrats increasingly rely upon far-left extremist networks for political organizing and campaign activity.

The president should also urge his supporters and political donors to bolster private-sector efforts to support independent research, study, and action concerning the threat of far-left extremism. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the academic field of “countering violent extremism” has undergone a rapid expansion. Yet in almost no cases do grants, chairs, or departments exist that focus solely on the study of far-left extremism. This leaves law enforcement and intelligence officials under-resourced and with limited access to credentialed experts on these issues.

The Trump administration has demonstrated the political will to take the fight to far-left extremism, but there will be no shortcuts or quick fixes in this fight.

Now, the hard work must begin.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published at the American Mind.

ANTIFA Named 'TERRORIST GROUP' and Here's Why it's NOT Debatable!

Taking Down ANTIFA is Only the Start of Trump's Bold New Plan

Exclusive: GOP slams Democrat spending plan as 'stale leftovers' riddled with radical left-wing policies

The Republican Study Committee is taking aim at House Democrats for proposing a last-minute funding plan chock-full of "radical left-wing" policy proposals.

House Republicans are set to pass a clean continuing resolution Friday to keep the lights on through November 21 ahead of the September 30 funding deadline. The GOP proposal includes minimal anomalies with the exception of increased security funds in light of Charlie Kirk's horrific assassination.

'Democrats are recklessly threatening a shutdown unless we bend the knee.'

Despite this, Democrats have taken it upon themselves to propose their own funding bill, which RSC Chairman August Pfluger (R-Texas) called "stale leftovers" from former President Joe Biden's administration.

"The Democrats' continuing resolution proposal is nothing more than stale leftovers from the Biden-Harris administration that nobody wanted the first time around, and microwaving them won't make them any more appetizing to the American people," Pfluger told Blaze News.

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

In a memo obtained exclusively by Blaze News, the RSC contrasted the Democrats' bloated spending plan that would help fund abortion and illegal aliens with the GOP's straightforward, clean CR.

Democrats put forth a funding plan that would increase spending by nearly $1.5 trillion, including a continuation of $350 billion worth of Biden-era subsidies. The Democrats' spending bill would also continue to funnel millions in benefits to illegal aliens and left-wing media companies like PBS and NPR and would reverse nearly $5 billion in spending cuts.

"While House Republicans offer a responsible plan to keep government open at current funding levels, Democrats are recklessly threatening a shutdown unless we bend the knee to their $1.5 trillion spending spree that provides illegal aliens with access to Medicaid and spends $350 billion on extending Biden COVID credits that subsidize abortion," Pfluger told Blaze News.

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

"The American people handed President Trump and congressional Republicans a decisive mandate to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse — not to capitulate to the same leftists who drove our country toward bankruptcy and were soundly rejected at the ballot box," Pfluger said.

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