Lincoln Square features some of the most acute commentators I read, and I found one recent essay really profound. I will quote several observations, but I encourage you to click through and read the entire thing.
The author, Kristoffer Ealy, began by describing his reaction to a clip from C-Span, in which FBI Security Operations Director Michael Glasheen testified that antifa represents a major domestic threat. Congressman Benny Thompson allowed Glasheen to “fully commit” to that assertion, before asking him a series of questions: where is antifa is based? Who leads antifa? Where is its central location? Of course, these are questions that Glasheen couldn’t answer, because–as most informed Americans know–antifa simply means “anti-fascist.”
Antifa isn’t an organization–it’s a political point of view.
As Ealy points out, what made this exchange so embarrassing is the fact that, on paper, Glasheen isn’t a clown like Kash Patel, “whose entire public persona is built on grievance cosplay and unearned confidence.” Glasheen joined the FBI in 2001, and he knows how the agency is supposed to identify and document real threats.
Which is precisely the problem. This wasn’t ignorance speaking. It was acquiescence. A conscious decision to launder a political narrative through the credibility of a badge and a résumé, because in Trump world, repeating the story matters more than whether it’s true…This man is the fucking FBI Security Operations Director, and that title should come with a baseline expectation that he understands what words like “organization,” “leadership,” and “structure” actually mean…
That is Trump administration 2.0 in a nutshell: absolute confidence paired with complete incoherence. Serious authority chasing imaginary threats while refusing to name the real ones.
In Trump world, words like “antifa” and “woke” function as formless racist dog whistles– useful precisely because they can’t be located, described or inspected.
And because [antifa] has no fixed shape, no formal structure, and no identifiable center, it becomes a catch-all that can absorb whoever is already on the margins: immigrants, protesters, students, journalists, Black activists, LGBTQ people — basically anyone who makes certain people uncomfortable. That isn’t a coincidence. That’s the utility.
These endlessly useful abstractions are examples of what scholars define as Moral Panic Theory: a strategy in which political figures exaggerate or invent threats with the intention of creating enough fear to justify expanded uses of power.
The threat doesn’t need to be real; it needs to feel urgent. History is full of examples — crime waves that don’t exist, satanic cults hiding in plain sight, caravans that mysteriously disappear after elections. Moral panics work because fear lowers the standard of evidence….
Symbolic threats don’t endanger your physical safety; they threaten your sense of identity. They’re framed as attacks on “who we are,” not on anything that can be measured, tracked, or responded to by people doing actual work. That’s why the danger always feels enormous and urgent, while remaining conveniently vague. The threat is emotional, not operational — which is perfect, because you can’t SWAT-team a feeling, but you can scare people into voting over one.
Ealy is absolutely correct– this is how the warnings about “antifa” are intended to function. Antifa is a symbol meant to trigger “anxieties about social change, racial reckoning, generational shifts, and cultural discomfort.” When the enemy is indistinct and unformed, that enemy can be whoever the moment calls for.
This isn’t simply stupidity. It’s strategy. Amorphous enemies allow governments to police thought instead of behavior. They shift power away from proving harm and toward punishing suspicion, and that’s the part we should be wary of — not because it’s dramatic, but because it’s effective.
This dynamic is what political theorist Timothy Snyder warned about in his frequently-cited book “On Tyranny,.” It explains how authoritarian regimes get people to “obey in advance.” Such regimes use the Moral Panic strategy because it results in fearful people who actually know better complying reflexively.
That’s why Trump deploys federal agents theatrically. Why immigration enforcement becomes spectacle. Why entire communities are treated as suspect. That’s why Trump can casually revive language like “shithole” and know exactly what permission structure he’s creating.
As the essay concludes,
The only genuinely surprising thing about the exchange is that it took this long for someone to ask the obvious questions Thompson asked. Antifa is not the KKK, the Proud Boys, or neo-Nazis. Those groups have leaders, structures, recruitment pipelines, and documented violence. You can investigate them because they exist.
Policing an invisible organization is MAGA’s roundabout way of policing thought. And when fear governs, democracy doesn’t last long after that.
It’s really worth clicking through and reading the essay in its entirety.
I saw that exchange on Facebook Reels; Thompson set him up, then nailed him. Left the FBI speechless. He was also sitting next to Pam Bondi or Kristi Noem; I can’t remember who was staring at him, but he did follow up on Thompson’s question by saying, “It’s still under investigation.” LOL
What are they “investigating?” He knew the answer but was being stared down by one of Trump’s henchmen. It was sad, but honestly, my past and current dealings with the FBI demonstrate a corrupt organization in decline. Kash Patel is only making it worse.
This statement above is so, so accurate: “fear lowers the standard of evidence….”
I’ve got FOIA requests out all over Utah and Arizona researching the murder of Charlie Kirk. The Treasury publicly dismissed that TPUSA was not under investigation for corruption – “there is no audit underway.” Charlie ordered a forensic audit when he noticed revenues were flat while expenses doubled. He suspected that someone was cooking the books, and he was right. That audit triggered his assassination. The FBI was first to arrive on the scene within 16 minutes, scooped up the “evidence,” and flew it back to Quantico. Why?
They cleansed all the evidence and then sent it back to the Utah prosecutor along with a neat tidy motive of “radicalized leftist Antifa murdered Charlie because of his hate towards transgender people.” Did they investigate any of the 11,000 leads Kash Patel received? Nope. The motive was declared, and the evidence was overwhelming. I am about 80% convinced the whole thing was staged.
This is not the FBI we grew up idolizing on TV. Almost the entire right-wing believes that Antifa is planning to murder them all, so their ecosystem is terrified that they’ll be next.
The inmates truly are running the asylum. I’m so sick of this bullshit, this idiot-level theater, Pam Bondi, the lies, the corruption, the grift, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel (Who dredged up this idiot?), Pete Hegseth, Kristi Noem, and … did I mention Pam Bondi?
Trump is creating the “Shithole” countries right at home. I read a piece, the other day, purportedly quoting a woman whose family can=me here from Pakistan , years ago, to get away from the endemic corruption there, who said that Trump is creating a new Pakistan here.
Was Kirk concerned about corruption in TPUSA? This is the first I’ve heard about that, but though I may be a bit biased, it does not surprise me to hear of such a thing: So many of the “Out,” and “righteous” Xtians are full of crap. But, Todd, I have learned to doubt some of your assertions.
Guess I’m one of those awful people who threaten the very foundation of America now. I’m very much ANTI-FACIST. Of course, anyone should be. How long before the pustule realizes the meaning of that term?
Mitch,
Yes, Charlie actually ordered a forensic audit on Sept 5, and he was killed on Sept 10th.
Once again, the FBI has created the “lone gunman Antifa theory” so they won’t have to look at any other people with motives. Kash Patel said the FBI had received 11,000 leads and tips and was chasing them all down. Yet, at a press conference a couple of days later, he said they were letting Utah County handle the case. Why did the FBI intercept all the evidence and send it to Quantico?
The two most damning pieces are the story about Tyler Robinson’s Mauser. They’ve got close-up pics of Tyler walking through the Losee Center carrying a backpack. But not one pic of a gun? When he jumped off the roof, there was no gun there either. He supposedly stopped in the woods along the way, reassembled the gun, wrapped it in a towel, and left it there while proceeding to his car. LOL Oh, and when he broke it down on the roof, he left his screwdriver there. So, how did he reassemble the Mauser? It’s not the easiest gun to break down because it isn’t meant to be taken apart.
And what we are working on now is the CCTV that captured Tyler jumping off the roof, which was supposedly fixed, pointing at the roof of Losee Center. How did it follow Tyler behind the campus and run across the street, and then stop? There had to be a person handling that camera, or a remote-access person operating it. We are checking the logs to see who manually signed in to manage that camera. If it was watching Tyler, why didn’t it follow him to his nest and fire the gun? Or, why didn’t the camera operator call security immediately?
Lastly, the barrel of a Mauser would stick out of Tyler’s backpack by at least a foot. There was no gun sticking out of his backpack when he jumped, either.
They thought it was the perfect open-and-shut case of a hate crime (Antifa) killing Charlie because he hated gays and transgender people. They didn’t bother tracking down any of the other 11,000 leads.
If this is Utah County’s case, Tyler’s attorneys will easily get him off. It was a staged event, right up to the Chaplain who drove him to the FBI office to surrender—almost the perfect cover-up. 😉
Thank you, Sheila, for providing such useful ammunition that is needed to publicly fight against senator jim banks’ lies.
Okay, now we know absolutely that the Right stands strongly against anti-fascists (antifa), so what exactly does that mean? Can they really think Hitler and Mussolini were good guys or wise leaders? I seriously doubt that. What it does seem to say is that they prefer easy. The American Right has mastered K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple, stupid). They have been trained to react to words like antifa and Soros, regardless of any reality that stands in their way.
If I’m being truthful, I admit that I’m a bit envious of the easy path until I realize that they’re on a path to Armageddon and they’re dragging us with them. If you think OJ is bad, imagine our country run by Peter Thiel (seriously evil), Stephen Miller (Satan) and their puppet, JD Vance (self serving twit)! Dear Lord, we need a blue tsunami!!!!