There is a growing urgency within the Trump Administration to take on what the president has called “the radical left lunatics” following the assassination of conservative icon Charlie Kirk. But despite much of the talk from the Right, including even from the administration itself, there is no easy way to dismantle the far-left’s networks. Defeating the forces arrayed against the American republic will require a detailed understanding of the enemy and a systematic plan to break up their networks, utilizing all methods 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 whom the president has identified as a threat.
Currently, the U.S. government refers to domestic terrorist threats in only the broadest possible categories, such as Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremist (REMVE), Anti-Government/Anti-Authority Violent Extremist (AGAAVE), Animal Rights/Environmentalist Violent Extremist (AREVE), and Abortion-Related Violent Extremist (ARVE). In every case, these categories are deliberately constructed to appear content-neutral, which allows the bureaucracy to appear even-handed while selectively emphasizing preferred political targets and ignoring others.
So, for example, while REMVE theoretically includes both white and black supremacist groups, in practice the USG 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 AGAAVE 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 Governor Whitmer 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 places around the country.
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 sub-category every year in reports that are openly available to the public.
A Far-Left 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 further 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 Extremism, treating it as merely examples of single-issue activism. But cases like the BLM 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 USG to use new terminology will be a challenge. In 2021 DHS 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.”
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 (PFLP), Hamas, and the Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army (CPP/NPA). 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.
Whole-of-Government Approach
Because these movements are made up of multiple entities that utilize different tactics and are organized in diverse ways, there is no silver bullet for defeating the Far-Left Extremist movement. Only a whole-of-government—and ultimately a whole-of-society—approach will be successful. Anyone who insists there is a single, easy method for stopping this threat is at best ill-informed.
Department of Justice
The DOJ 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 DOJ 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. 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.
Additional Specific Agency-Level Actions
Office of the Director of National Intelligence
ODNI 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/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.
State should 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 an RAF airbase, 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.
Treasury 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 State/Treasury 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.
State/Treasury should also aggressively pursue secondary designation for groups providing material support for the Communist PFLP and its front organization, Samidoun, and front organizations supporting the CPP/NPA. 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, DHS 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 Extremists 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. 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.
DHS 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 IRS 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 IRS 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 (LMRDA), 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 LMRDA 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 DOJ 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 standdown” 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
There are countless examples of Far-Left Extremism that are openly promoted in federally funded institutions of higher education, 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 Democratic 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 Democratic 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 9/11, there has been a rapid expansion in the academic field of “countering violent extremism.” 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.