By David Brooks and Jim Cason on September 20, 2025
image: Estrategia.la.
The White House and its allies, after announcing a war against what they call the “radical left,” indicate that they will proceed with investigations and persecution of opposition organizations and individuals whom they accuse of fomenting political violence and even ‘terrorism’ within the United States, and are apparently preparing a list of these “enemies.”
Donald Trump and other members of his administration blamed the “radical left” for the political violence that they say led to the murder of far-right organizer Charlie Kirk last week, and since then the administration and its allies in Congress and around the country have pushed a coordinated narrative that threatens a fierce crackdown on a broad but as yet unidentified range of left-wing forces, in what some right-wing political strategists are calling “a war.”
The murder suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, is a white American from a Republican family, and so far all that is known is that he sent messages describing his motivation as “I’m sick of that hate” from the victim. Prosecutors have not offered any evidence that Robinson has ties to any network or is acting with others. When he was arrested, Utah’s Republican governor, Spencer Cox, lamented, “He’s one of us” — apparently disappointed that he was not an immigrant, a left-wing activist, or a member of a racial minority.
The president commented on Tuesday that “the radical left has done tremendous damage to the country, but we are fixing it,” and a day earlier he accused: “We have some pretty radical groups and they have gotten away with murder,” warning that charges could be brought against those who have donated “millions and millions of dollars for agitation.”
His team has indicated that they are considering prosecuting several groups and those who support them, including George Soros’ Open Society Foundation and even the Ford Foundation, as well as declaring some groups “domestic terrorists.”
This week, Trump referred to the non-violent activists who interrupted his dinner at a restaurant last week in Washington as part of that “left” and “professional agitators” who should be criminally investigated and their members “imprisoned.” And not only Americans, but his administration threatened to revoke the visas of any foreigner who expresses any opinion favorable to Kirk’s death.
“It’s a vast movement of domestic terror,” Stephen Miller, perhaps Trump’s most influential adviser, charged on Monday in reference to the “radical left.” He added, “We are going to use every resource we have in the Justice Department, Homeland Security, and across this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again… We will do it in Charlie’s name.“
Vice President JD Vance specifically mentioned Ford and Open Society, as well as The Nation magazine, and invited citizens to report their employers if they saw colleagues ”celebrating” Kirk’s death.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson accused left-wing organizations of “fueling violent riots, organizing attacks on public safety officers,” and even coordinating locations for weapons and other tools for use in riots, stating that “the Trump administration will get to the bottom of this vast network that incites violence in American communities.”
On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a call to the media, “leftist groups, and sanctuary politicians to end their demonization” of federal agents from that department, which includes the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. But the statement went further, accusing the media and the “far left” of promoting “hateful rhetoric directed at President Trump, those who support him,” and DHS agents, which “is inspiring violence across the country,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLauhglin.
For some experts, the use of this murder to act against the left raises alarm that it is a return to other moments in this country’s history, such as the espionage and repressive actions of the FBI and other agencies against civil rights groups, such as those that arose against the Vietnam War in the 1960s, or McCarthyism in the 1950s.
Indeed, there are already some examples of how this type of intimidation works in some academic circles and in the media. On the one hand, the University of California at Berkeley—which was a progressive bastion—shared 160 names of professors (including the internationally renowned Judith Butler) and students with the Trump administration as part of an alleged investigation into “anti-Semitic incidents” related to protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Four professors at Brooklyn College, part of the City University of New York, were fired for participating in those protests. On the other hand, a columnist for The Washington Post, Karen Attiah, was fired for posting a quote from Kirk on social media, which was interpreted as an opinion favorable to the assassination.
Former President Barack Obama, in his first comments, condemned the assassination and deplored the divisions and violent acts of intolerance, saying that these tensions have led to what he called “a political crisis of a kind we have never seen before.”
More than 100 philanthropic organizations—including the Ford Foundation, Open Society, and MacArthur—issued a statement on Wednesday opposing Trump’s threats of repression under the pretext of curbing hate speech. “We reject attempts to exploit political violence to misrepresent our good work or to limit our fundamental freedoms,” they said, stressing that attempts to suppress free speech and criminalize opposing views “undermine our democracy and harm every American.”
The danger is so extreme that even an influential national figure on the right—and Trump supporter—expressed alarm. Tucker Carlson warned against laws banning hate speech, which would justify “civil disobedience” because “if they can tell you what to say, they’re telling you what to think, and there’s nothing they can’t do to you.”
The Anti-Defamation League, an organization dedicated to hate crimes and anti-Semitism, has documented that more than 70 percent of extremist and domestic “terrorism” attacks since 2002 have come from the far right.
Until recently, in a 2024 investigation, the Justice Department itself concluded that the vast majority of violent domestic attacks are perpetrated by far-right extremists; however, that report has been removed from the official website in recent days, NBC News reported.
Source: Estrategia.la.