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White House Working to Criminalize Left-Wing Dissent as 'Domestic Terror' in Wake of Kirk Murder
"We must end any form of political violence—and reject those who try to exploit it," one Democratic congresswoman asserted.
Sep 15, 2025
Senior Trump administration officials on Monday made fresh threats to crack down on a nonexistent left-wing "domestic terror movement" following last week's assassination of Charlie Kirk—a move that critics called an attempt to exploit the far-right firebrand's murder to advance an authoritarian agenda targeting nonviolent opposition.
Even as investigators work to determine the motive of Kirk's killer, members of Trump's inner circle and supporters have amplified an unfounded narrative of a coordinated leftist movement targeting conservatives.
According to The New York Times:
On Monday, two senior administration officials, who spoke anonymously to describe the internal planning, said that Cabinet secretaries and federal department heads were working to identify organizations that funded or supported violence against conservatives. The goal, they said, was to categorize left-wing activity that led to violence as domestic terrorism, an escalation that critics said could lay the groundwork for crushing anti-conservative dissent more broadly.
Appearing on the latest episode of "The Charlie Kirk Show" podcast—which was guest hosted by US Vice President JD Vance—White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said that "we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people."
"It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name," Miller vowed.
Vance said during the podcast that he wanted to explore “all of the ways that we’re trying to figure out how to prevent this festering violence that you see on the far left from becoming even more and more mainstream."
“You have the crazies on the far left who are saying, ‘Oh, Stephen Miller and JD Vance, they’re going to go after constitutionally protected speech,'” the vice president said. “We’re going to go after the network that foments, facilitates, and engages in violence."
Vance, who like Trump and numerous supporters claim to champion free speech, also took aim at "people who are celebrating" Kirk's killing.
Another unnamed administration official told the Times Monday that government agencies would be investigating people, including those accused of vandalizing Tesla electric vehicles and dealerships and allegedly assaulting federal immigration agents, in an effort to implicate US leftists in political violence.
Vance and Miller's threats ignored right-wing violence—which statistically outpaces left-wing attacks—including the recent assassinations of Democratic Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman, who were murdered in June by a right-wing masked gunman disguised as a police officer.
Investigative reporter Jason Paladino reported last week that the US Department of Justice apparently removed an academic study previously published on the National Institute for Justice's online library showing that "since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives" versus "42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives" committed by "far-left extremists."
“Militant, nationalistic, white supremacist violent extremism has increased in the United States. In fact, the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism.”The Trump DOJ scrubbed this study from their website.
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— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan.bsky.social) September 12, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Responding to Miller's remarks, New Republic staff writer Greg Sargent noted on social media that "Stephen Miller was directly involved in one of the largest acts of organized domestic political violence the United States has seen in modern times, the January 6 [2021] insurrection."
Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) weighed in Monday on Miller's attempt to exploit Kirk's murder, writing on the social media site Bluesky that "it's never acceptable to kill someone for their political beliefs. But the Trump [administration] exploiting the shooting of Charlie Kirk to follow their authoritarian instincts and crack down on the left is incredibly disturbing."
"We must end any form of political violence—and reject those who try to exploit it," she added.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom noted Monday on social media that Miller "has already publicly labeled the Democratic Party as a terrorist organization."
"This isn’t about crime and safety," Newsom added. "It’s about dismantling our democratic institutions. We cannot allow acts of political violence to be weaponized and used to threaten tens of millions of Americans."
The progressive Working Families Party (WFP) said Monday on social media that "JD Vance and Stephen Miller want to use the horrifying murder of Charlie Kirk to target and dismantle pro-democracy groups."
"Their comments call to mind some of the darkest periods in US history," WFP continued. "They're dividing people based on what box we ticked on our voter registration."
Vance and Miller "want to stoke fear and resentment to justify their un-American crackdowns on free speech, mass abductions of working people, and military takeovers of our cities," WFP added. "This isn't going to fly. We’ve survived crises like this before as a country, and we can choose to live in a place where our political freedoms are protected, where we settle disagreements with words not weapons, and where no one has to fear losing a loved one to gun violence."
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Labor-Backed Coalition Launches Working-Class Effort to Flip 35+ House Seats in 2026
"Working people deserve leaders who will fight for them, not grovel at the feet of their billionaire donors," said Maurice Mitchell of the Working Families Party, one of the groups involved in the new coalition.
Jul 16, 2025
A coalition of dozens of labor groups and other progressive activist organizations has launched a new $50 million initiative to flip the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026 with a coalition of working-class voters.
The political action committee, Battleground Alliance PAC, announced Wednesday that it will seek to flip at least 35 Republican-held districts for Democrats by mobilizing voters angry about the Trump administration's assault on the social safety net and authoritarian attacks on civil liberties.
The groups will target their efforts toward mobilizing voters who have been hit the hardest by the Republican agenda.
"These are parents who will lose healthcare for their kids, families struggling after [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] cuts, seniors not being able to afford their medication, people struggling with higher utility bills, and workers who've watched billionaires get tax breaks while their wages stay flat," the group said Wednesday. "They're not just participating, they're at the center of leading this effort to take back control and make their voices heard at the ballot box next November."
The coalition is attempting to build upon the successes of Battleground New York, which mobilized progressive voters in 2024 to flip back many seats lost to Republicans during the previous cycle. Amid the daily outrages of President Donald Trump's second term, they believe that success can be replicated nationally.
"People are angry for a reason," said Stephanie Porta, campaign manager for the Battleground Alliance. "They've seen their rights stripped, their wages stagnate, their bills skyrocket, their healthcare attacked—and they're done waiting. This isn't about the usual D.C. politics. This is about the majority of Americans saying: enough is enough."
Among the groups taking part in the alliance are the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Working Families Party, Planned Parenthood Votes, Indivisible, and MoveOn.
The announcement of Battleground Alliance came on the same day that the Congressional Progressive Caucus outlined its major priorities for 2026 in a briefing to reporters.
"Working people in America are getting screwed by corrupt politicians and big corporations that are driving costs up and keeping pay and benefits down," said the caucus's chair, Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas).
Casar and his colleagues introduced four "task forces" that "go directly at those big problems facing Americans: fighting corruption and corporate greed in order to lower costs and win better pay and benefits."
The Battleground Alliance is taking a similar approach, focusing on the material effects of the Trump agenda on working people.
"GOP members of Congress betrayed their constituents when they voted to kick 17 million Americans off their health care," said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party. "Working people deserve leaders who will fight for them, not grovel at the feet of their billionaire donors. We're ready to organize in districts all across the country to kick out members of Congress who lied to their constituents and voted for this disastrous budget."
The group is planning to pour $1 million into the most competitive districts in the country, targeting Republicans who voted for Trump's massive budget legislation.
Some of the Republican targets it has already singled out include Rep. David Valadao, whose district in California's San Joaquin Valley is majority Latino and has one of the highest Medicaid enrollment rates in the country; and Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, whose Allentown, Pennsylvania district now has 25,000 people at risk of losing food stamps as a result of the law.
"Working people are done watching politicians in Washington hand out favors to the wealthy while our communities struggle to afford care, housing, and food," said April Verrett, president of SEIU. "Through 2026 and beyond, we will continue to organize in places that they've tried to ignore because that's where real change begins."
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Zohran Mamdani's Battle Against the Billionaire Class and Democratic Establishment Is Just Beginning
Noting that corporations, large landlords, developers, and donors "want to keep him out of the mayor's office," India Walton urged Zohran Mamdani's campaign to "stay ahead of the messaging and stay on doors."
Jun 26, 2025
Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday beat disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic NYC mayoral primary—but progressives within and beyond the city don't expect the billionaire class and party establishment that lined up against him to give up so easily. Going into the general election, those who believe in Mamdani's vision are encouraging him and his supporters to maintain the momentum of the movement they've built.
"This is a foot-on-the-gas kind of moment," RootsAction senior strategist India Walton told Common Dreams.
Walton knows about what she speaks. In June 2021, the community activist and healthcare worker defeated incumbent Byron Brown in the Democratic primary for mayor of Buffalo, New York's second-largest city. However, following a bruising general election race, Brown won in November as a write-in candidate—dashing the hopes of Walton's working-class agenda.
"Folks like myself and Zohran have not fallen out of the sky," Walton said. "We have our roots in organizing, and to be able to turn out 40,000 volunteers speaks volumes about how Zohran has been on the frontlines of movements and of issue-based campaigns. And when people know that you have a moral compass and you are fighting for them, they are motivated to come out for you—not only to vote but to volunteer, and I think that we have to believe for ourselves, as progressives, that not only is our message resonant, but our relationships are vital to continuing to see these kinds of wins."
"The way that you combat fear and lies is by having one-on-one conversations with people, because if it comes on a glossy mailer, it's easy to believe."
As Mamdani and his supporters—in New York City and across the country—turn their focus to the general election, Walton said, "we need more people out, more people in the media, cheering him on, congratulating him, and talking about how progressive values do win elections."
"Do what is in your lane to do right: if you can donate five dollars, then donate five dollars; if you can spend an hour phone banking then spend an hour phone banking; if you can make a piece of original art and send it to the campaign to be used on campaign materials, do that," she said. "Whatever it is in your spirit, whatever time, talent, and treasure you have, do that, because this is gonna take all of us in order to make sure that he makes it over the finish line, and it's gonna send a resounding message in November, what this country wants, what this country needs, and what a city that really sets the stage for the tone of the rest of the nation could be."
Walton also cautioned that "I think that we should have every reason to be suspicious of people who endorsed Andrew Cuomo and now want to jump on the Zohran train, because they're only there for their own self-interest."
"I think that a part of where I made a mistake was trying to cozy up to the corporate Democrats who rejected me in the first place," she said, reflecting on her 2021 loss. Mamdani can "keep the tent big," because "we know other people are gonna wanna come along when the train is moving," she noted, "but you don't have to put them in your inner circle."
Billionaires, including former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and corporate interests, such as DoorDash, poured money into Cuomo's primary race. "There's gonna be more of that," as well as attacks on Mamdani from "folks who traditionally donate to Republicans," Walton warned. "It's corporations. It's large landlords. It's developers. It's the donor class. It's the billionaires and the 1% who want to keep him out of the mayor's office."
As Common Dreams has reported, members of the U.S. oligarchy—including Republican President Donald Trump, an erstwhile New Yorker who publicly melted down about Mamdani's primary win, and billionaires like Bill Ackman—are "terrified" that the democratic socialist may be the city's next mayor.
Warren to CNBC's Joe Kernen as he fear-mongers about Mamdani being a socialist: "Where is your outrage over a Republican Party that is saying 'We want to fund every more tax giveaways for billionaires ... while we take healthcare away from everyone else'"
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) June 26, 2025 at 9:03 AM
On Thursday, the billionaire hedge fund manager Ackman, who has made his distaste for Mamdani well known, announced he would lavishly back any "superhero" candidate who emerged to challenge the Democratic primary winner in the general election. Ackman said large amounts of donor money would "pour in" for a candidate who could take on Mamdani's proposals for more affordable housing, healthcare, food, and transportation in the city.
Walton urged Mamdani's campaign to "stay ahead of the messaging and stay on doors. The way that you combat fear and lies is by having one-on-one conversations with people, because if it comes on a glossy mailer, it's easy to believe and people don't have time to go doing their own research, but if someone knocks on your door and has a three-minute conversation with you about who Zohran is, what he's done, and why you should vote for him, that's so much more meaningful than getting a piece of mail."
It's not yet clear exactly who Mamdani, a current member of the New York State Assembly, will face in the general election. Cuomo is considering his next move after conceding Tuesday night—but the ex-governor, who resigned from that post during a sexual harassment scandal, is openly teasing a potential independent run.
"I said he won the primary election," Cuomo told The New York Times in a phone call shortly after his concession speech. "I said I wanted to look at the numbers and the ranked-choice voting to decide about what to do in the future, because I'm also on an independent line. And that's the decision, that's what I was saying. I want to analyze and talk to some colleagues."
The city's current controversial mayor, Eric Adams, is already running as an independent for another term—and, as Semafor reported Wednesday, in the wake of Mamdani's win, the ex-cop has suddenly found "'overwhelming support' from NYC's desperate business elites."
As Gothamist detailed Wednesday, the other candidates are the Republican nominee, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, who "is back on the GOP ballot line four years after Adams trounced him in the general election," and defense attorney Jim Walden, a former federal prosecutor "running a centrist campaign on yet another independent line."
Tuesday's results may be enough to deter Cuomo from launching another campaign for this cycle. As progressive Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid wrote Wednesday for Zeteo:
Mamdani's victory redrew the map of what's possible in New York City politics. He didn't win on the backs of white gentrifiers alone; he built a multiracial, cross-class coalition that reached from the brownstones of Park Slope in Brooklyn to the apartment towers of Jackson Heights in Queens. He ran up margins in progressive enclaves like Park Slope, East Village, and Cobble Hill, but also won working-class, immigrant-heavy neighborhoods across Queens and Brooklyn—Bangladeshi, Chinese, Latino, Arab, Indo-Caribbean. He was the highest performer in Queens among Latino and South Asian precincts and carried South Asian strongholds like Richmond Hill and Jackson Heights, and East Asian precincts like Sunset Park, Chinatown, and Flushing. Most strikingly, he flipped Oakland Gardens, a swing district in Queens... long seen as part of Cuomo's base. Mamdani didn't just activate the left; he broke into communities that conventional wisdom says don't vote socialist. And he did it with a disciplined message on public goods and affordability, backed by a massive, relentless volunteer field operation.
During the primary race, Mamdani battled Islamophobic threats and unfounded allegations of antisemitism. The Muslim victor and fellow candidate Brad Lander, who is Jewish, also endorsed each other—encouraging voters to take advantage of the city's rank choice voting system by listing both men on their ballots and leaving Cuomo unranked.
Other prominent Jewish people and groups also backed Mamdani—including Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action, which "endorsed Zohran on the first day he launched his campaign because we knew this would be a historic opportunity for our movements," the group's political director, Beth Miller, said in a Wednesday statement.
"Trump-supporting billionaires and hateful politicians spent millions of dollars trying to smear Zohran and use the New York Jewish community as a political pawn to drive division. They failed," Miller continued. "Jewish New Yorkers joined the broad and diverse coalition of this campaign to elect a mayor who will fight with us for the humanity, dignity, and freedom of all people—from NYC to Palestine."
"For decades, traditional political wisdom said that in order to win elections, politicians shouldn't speak about Palestinian rights, or hold the Israeli government accountable to international law," she pointed out. "But Zohran's historic victory last night that toppled a political dynasty shows that people are done with that tired, racist, and hateful old version of politics. Our future is not about any one politician. It's about all of us. It's about our movements and what everyday people can build when we come together."
While billionaire Jeff Bezos is popping champagne bottles in Venice with his rich celebrity friends at his $20 million wedding, he wants to lecture struggling New Yorkers that Zohran Mamdani is bad for New York City.The same Bezos-owned Washington Post that pulled its endorsement of Kamala Harris.
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— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin.bsky.social) June 26, 2025 at 12:01 PM
In a Thursday opinion piece for The Guardian, Ben Davis, who worked on the data team for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) 2020 Democratic presidential campaign, noted that "Mamdani is the progeny of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the U.S.'s largest socialist organization in a century."
"He is among the many young people inspired by Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign," Davis wrote. "Mamdani was built by the DSA and the young left-wing milieu that emerged after the Sanders campaign. They cannot be separated. Not his charisma or campaign style. He is a product of the movement."
Sanders endorsed Mamdani last week and told Politico after the primary election: "Look, he ran a brilliant campaign. And it wasn't just him. What he understood and understands—campaign's not over—is that to run a brilliant campaign, you have to run a grassroots campaign. So instead of taking money from billionaires and putting stupid ads on television, which the people increasingly do not pay attention to, you mobilize thousands and thousands of people around the progressive agenda that speaks to the needs of working-class people, and you go out and you knock on doors."
"You cannot run a grassroots campaign unless you excite people. You cannot excite people unless you have something to say. And he had a lot to say," Sanders explained. "He said that he wants to make New York City livable, affordable for ordinary people, that the wealthiest people in New York City are going to start to have to pay their fair share in taxes so that you can stabilize the outrageously high costs of housing in New York, which, by the way, is a crisis all over this country. That you could deal with transportation in a sensible way, deal with childcare, deal with healthcare, deal with the needs of ordinary working-class people."
Sanders—who has responded to Trump's second term and Republican control of Congress by taking his Fighting Oligarchy Tour around the country—framed Mamdani's win as an opportunity for Democratic Party leaders to learn important lessons after devastating losses during the last cycle: "We need an agenda that speaks to working-class people, activates millions of people around this country to get involved on that agenda. Take on the billionaire class, take on oligarchy. That's how you win elections."
"I think they have a lesson to learn, and whether or not they will, I have my doubts," the senator said of Democratic leadership. "If you look at the dynamics of this campaign, what you have is older folks voting for Cuomo, the billionaire class putting in millions of dollars into Cuomo, all of the old-time establishment candidates and politicians supporting Cuomo, and he lost."
In an early signal that Sanders may be right about the party leadership not learning any new lessons, Axios reported Thursday that "many Democratic leaders and donors are panicking" about Mamdani's win—noting that some party leaders have congratulated but not endorsed him, while other officials continue to speak out against him.
Responding to that report on social media, Nina Turner, a former progressive congressional candidate from Ohio, and David Hogg, a gun violence prevention advocate recently ousted as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee after pushing for primary challenges to "asleep-at-the-wheel" Democrats in blue districts, both pointed in jest to a longtime part line: "Vote blue no matter who."
Hogg this week also joined a growing chorus of progressives using Mamdani's victory to call for primary challenges against the Democratic establishment, and to launch campaigns prioritizing working-class priorities.
🎴 Mamdani's insurgent campaign—backed by grassroots activists and first-time voters—overcame tens of millions of dollars."This wasn't just a local upset," said Joseph Geevarghese, leader of Our Rev. "It's a referendum on the direction of the Democratic Party."@newsweek.com: tinyurl.com/4j6pmr5z
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— Our Revolution (@our-revolution.bsky.social) June 26, 2025 at 12:28 PM
"People are tired of a status quo that isn't working for them. Zohran Mamdani's campaign has sent shockwaves across the country and shown what's possible when candidates have the courage to stay true to their values and speak authentically to working people," said Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, which is working to elect the primary winner.
Victor Rivera, co-founder and executive director of Beyond the Ballot, another organization backing Mamdani, said in a statement that "America's largest city just sent a clear message: Billionaire rule is on borrowed time."
"New Yorkers are done with a politics that serves luxury developers, hedge fund landlords, and police lobbyists. Zohran's victory proves that ordinary people, tenants, workers, students, and immigrants, are reclaiming power for the people," added Rivera, whose group is made up of Gen Z organizers fighting "both far-right extremism, and the corporate wing of the Democratic Party."
In a Wednesday fundraising email with the subject line "Zohran Mamdani," Sanders argued that "we cannot stop with just one primary victory in New York City," and promoted candidates including Abdul El-Sayed, a U.S. Senate hopeful in Michigan, and Troy Jackson, who is running for governor of Maine.
The senator also highlighted four candidates seeking seats in the U.S. House of Representatives: Rebecca Cooke in Wisconsin, Adelita Grijalva in Arizona, Donavan McKinney in Michigan, and Robert Peters in Illinois.
"The political future of our country rests upon the very simple principles that working people need to stand together EVERYWHERE to fight back against corporate greed and create an economy that works for all of us, and not just billionaires and large corporations," he said. "We need to elect people up and down the ballot who have the guts not only to stand up to Trumpism, but to take on the monied interests and fight for a working class that has been ignored for far too long."
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