“What we really need to do is be willing to get shot.” Those words to a Democratic member are part of a chilling Axios story on the rising violent rhetoric on the American left. As alleged Antifa members are arrested in Texas for the attempted murder of ICE agents, Democratic members are beginning to express private concerns over unleashing uncontrollable rage after their election defeat.
Axios reported on conversations with Democratic members who admit that followers are turning to violence and rejecting messages of political reform.
One House member explained that there is a “sense of fear and despair and anger” among voters that “puts us in a different position where … we can’t keep following norms of decorum.” The member does not address how Democratic leaders are fueling the rising violent rhetoric and imagery (including the most recent posted picture of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) brandishing a baseball bat).
One House Democrat told Axios, “Some of them have suggested … what we really need to do is be willing to get shot.”
Yet another admitted that constituents have told them to prepare for “violence … to fight to protect our democracy.” Others reported that liberals are talking about the need “to storm the White House and stuff like that.”
One explained that “They’re angry beyond things.” Another said, “It’s like … the Roman coliseum. People just want more and more of this spectacle.”
Some are discussing triggering or staging violence. One member said, “What I have seen is a demand that we get ourselves arrested intentionally or allow ourselves to be victims of violence, and … a lot of times that’s coming from economically very secure white people.”
We have recently seen such performative acts with members like Sen. Alex Padilla (D., Cal.) heckling a press conference by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Democratic members storming an ICE facility.
In one encounter, a lawmaker told Axios: “I actually said in a meeting, ‘When they light a fire, my thought is to grab an extinguisher’. And someone at the table said, ‘Have you tried gasoline?'”
The answer is clearly yes.
Across the country, Democratic leaders are resorting to what I have called “rage rhetoric” in my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
We have already seen violent protests and planned assassinations directed against Trump Administration figures. Democrats ratcheted up claims of a “coup” and called for Democrats to “fight in the streets.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D, Mass.) declared, “Elon Musk is seizing the power that belongs to the American people.” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D, Md.) claimed on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” that Musk and Trump were conducting a “rapidly expanding and accelerating coup.”
Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) appeared to be working off the same talking point and declared that a “coup” was being carried out.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) warned that Musk was “taking away everything we have.”
Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Cal.) said, “We are here to fight back.” Sen. Cory Booker (D., NJ) called on citizens to “fight” and declared, “We will rise up.”
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D., TX) yelled, “We are gonna be in your face, we are gonna be on your a–es, and we are going to make sure you understand what democracy looks like, and this ain’t it.”
Rep. LaMonica McIver (D., N.J.) added: “God d—it shut down the Senate!…WE ARE AT WAR!”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., called for Democrats to fight “in the streets.””
Such rhetoric can inspire unhinged citizens who actually believe that this is a war against a coup. It is the type of rhetoric that can prompt anti-Republican Nicholas John Roske to try to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh or Sanders supporter James T. Hodgkinson to try to massacre Republican members playing softball.
This week, the Department of Justice announced the arrest of ten alleged Antifa members who are being charged in an ambush of ICE agents in Alvarado, Texas, on July 4.
Democratic members have long played a dangerous game in dismissing the violence or even the existence of groups like Antifa.
Despite the denial of its existence by figures like Rep. Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.), I have long written and spoken about the threat of Antifa to free speech on our campuses and in our communities. This includes testimony before Congress on Antifa’s central role in the nationwide anti-free speech movement.
We have continued to follow the attacks and arrests of Antifa followers across the country, including attacks on journalists.
Nevertheless, former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison, now the Minnesota attorney general, once said Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump.
Ellison’s son, Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, declared his allegiance to Antifa in the heat of the protests this summer.
Liberal sites have sold Antifa items, including baby outfits, to celebrate the violent group.
Now, Democratic leaders are privately expressing alarm that their followers are demanding violence and rejecting moderate language. Yet, many are fueling that rage and few of their colleagues are speaking out against them. The party is attempting to ride this wave of rage to victory. However, history shows that the enablers of the mob today often find themselves the enemies of the mob tomorrow.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the best-selling author of “The Indispensable Right.” and the forthcoming book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.
“violence … to fight to protect our democracy.” Others reported that liberals are talking about the need “to storm the White House and stuff like that.”
Kinda sounds like an insurrection??
Violence is very on-brand for leftists.
But wait! Joe Biden assured us that the real violent threat to America was white supremacist groups. Where are those groups? We haven’t heard a peep from them.
General Milley personally liquidated them. By looks of it, he might have eaten them, but that’s just a detail.
OldManFromKS,
Dont forget, parents who attend school board meetings and question what is being taught to their children or when some really sick and twisted “trans” boy commits rape and the school board tries to cover it up.
Upstate – and don’t forget those traditional Catholics who choose the Latin mass. Along with the concerned parents, they are the people whom the “Joe Biden” administration imagined to be domestic terrorists. And the most corrupt attorney general in American history – Merrick Garland – was “Joe Biden’s” hatchet man.
Civil War anyone?
No thanks. It’s the Dems who want violent revolution, and I say F that. What they don’t realize is, if that were to actually occur, what they would get at the end of it is far worse than what they, and we, have now.
OldManFromKS,
Agreed. And in that kind of conflict, there would be thousands who would die, not within ear shot of a shot taken in anger i.e. disruption of society, food and Rx delivery logistical system.
NotSoOld: Yes, it appears pretty obvious that the Left is building up resentment, stockpiling, prepping, propagandizing for the next Civil War. -But it is the “Reconstruction Era” that they are particularly pining for. So sad.
Lin,
Well, based on the reports of the Alvarado ICE attack where one shooter took 20-30 shots and missed, they might be prepping but they would lose after running out of ammunition.
New motto for ICE: “Hit Me With Your Worst Shot!” by Pat Avatar!
It is all very surreal. The Democrats are obviously urging their cult followers to engage in violence against anyone who has a different opinion than themselves. Sadly Americans have been taking note of the Democrats threats and actions against law enforcement, ever since 2020 with their Defund the Police mania, to now their shooting upon ICE officers including the eggregious Left wing app (e.g. ICEBlock ) that tracks ICE movements. So it follows that Americans are buying more weapons, more ammo, and as stated yesterday, locals are trotting down every weekend to their local relatives/friends vacant property lots to practice shooting. We have a large farm festival this weekend and I tried organizing a group of neighbors to attend. Some replied, “I’m going shooting to practice”.
I need to find more marmots to wood-chuck at ANTIFA because those whistlepigs are true ground hogs when it comes to inflicting damage when checked as a projectile. Yes, that was all my original punny content
Estovir,
Surreal is right. I have to wonder if some Democrats thought this was a good idea to look all big and bad, “We are fighting Trump!” Now that Their base has taken their words literally and now want more, are they regretting their decision? One would like to think so, but I think some of these people really do believe their own words.
Did those morons forget just who owns 99%+ of the guns in this nation and most of those owners really know how to use them quite effectively. I have been say for decades now that we are 2 distinct cultures attempting to inhabit the same piece of real estate and only one can survive while the other needs to be eliminated and/or subsumed. Anyone want to take bets on the outcome?
“who owns 99%+ of guns”. Does not matter one bit owning 100% of all guns; all it takes is a single shot to kill you.
And as they demonstrated in the one attack, 20-30 rounds and did not hit their target. Thankfully.
Using a sports metaphor. Any game with a set of fair unbiased rules, means that sometimes your team wins and sometimes the other team wins.
Everybody will end up on the losing side at some point, if the rules are fair not favoring any particular team.
So why would anyone temporarily on the losing side resort to violence? Run better elections next time!
But Kamalalalalala did run a perfect campaign according to MSDNC. She even got the coveted Queen Latifah endorsement, for crying out loud! It was perfect except for that pesky “winning the election” part.
I wish we’d stop referring to these people as the “democrat” party in an attempt to cover who they really are. Once they declare ANTIFA as a terrorist organization and Patel begins rounding up the prime movers the wannabes will run like roaches. The little suburban anarchist may be getting off tossing fireworks but can they handle a long stint in the can?
A complete package:
Alongside, and concurrent with, the “rage” is the more creeping, subtle, subsurface pressure to go with the flow and wipe out any vestige of a Free Republic.
I was driving yesterday (the only time I ever listen to NPR) and a host at NPR signed off at the end of a show with, “A Democracy-If We can Keep It.” (-an obvious distortion of Ben Franklin’s attributed famous quip, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”)
This is NPR’s latest propaganda:
(See, “If You Can Keep It’: The Future Of The Democratic Party,” at https://www.npr.org/2026/01/01/1263204095/zz-1a-bonus)
I almost swallowed my Fourth of July red-white-blue bubble gum. (It was berry flavored and turned my tongue purple, but fun!)
I am forced to question if elementary school kids have ever heard the word “republic” or learned the difference?
Should we be frightened that actual history can so easily be removed or altered by the “soup du jour,” “the medium is the message” (Marshall McLuhan) or the party in control? AI?
Will students even learn what Ben Franklin said–and why he and our Framers believed in a republican form of government over a pure democracy? By the time they grow up, will we have a country where every illegal immigrant gets to vote, where every non-registered person gets to vote, and where AI may be “educating” and explaining to them: for whom votes should be cast, i.e., why their (or your) vote should be cast for this particular person…?.
Lin – unfortunately, with the politicized left-wing public schools, the kids are not learning any real history. This is really eye-opening about that. It notes that even the entirety of World War II was relegated to a single side-note, and as for the Holocaust, only a link was provided, no text at all. All they are learning is race grievance and being left-wing radical political activists. I feel bad for their souls, which are clearly being starved, not to mention that their minds are empty.
https://freebeacon.com/campus/quite-shocking-to-us-local-parents-fighting-cesspool-of-anti-semitism-in-philly-schools-say-josh-shapiros-office-stopped-meeting-with-them/
Hello NotSoOld: I looked at your link. The last four or five paragraphs quote some of the things either being omitted or added to the curriculum at various grade levels. Yikes.
OldManFromKS,
That was disturbing. The real sick part is if there was some kind of mass violence, there are those who would take advantage of the situation and launch their own genocide against American Jews.
Ok. Now please present the case against the extremely violent rhetoric that has been coming from the right wing for decades now. You can’t very well cover one side using violent rhetoric recently while completely and utterly ignoring the other side of the spectrum which has been using that exact same violent rhetoric since the early 1980’s at the very least that I’m personally aware of. That’s not counting the psychological projection, practicing medicine without a license or any training or experience (declaring liberalism a mental illness among other things), the right’s painfully obvious delusions, their blatant lies & denial, etc.
Speaking of delusions…
Not accepting any bit of your ridiculous screed, but even if your garbage had any resemblance to reality, where exactly is the violence from the right commensurate with that from the left? Sorry bud, it’s just not there. You what-about-ism and both-sides-ism just doesn’t work.
These days the violent rhetoric is coming almost exclusively from the left, and so are the assassination attempts, whether they be outside Justice Kavanaugh’s house, against President Trump, or at a baseball field with Republican House members. Ditto for the violence in the streets of cities, especially near federal agents in Los Angeles, Portland, and Massachusetts. You notably failed to cite a single example of what you’re talking about.
But she’s “personally aware” of the violent rhetoric from the right! I’m sure she’ll remember some if it any minute now.
Sigh, where do we get these people. What’s really said is that she likely earnestly believes this crap, too. Probably been listening to NPR for all these years.
OldManFromKS,
Quite right. Not only is the violent rhetoric is coming from Democrats but real, actual violence is being committed by those on the left. The LA ICE riots, the two recent attacks on ICE and Border Patrol agents. In the Alvarado ICE attack, one person took 20-30 shots at the unarmed officers.
There is no restriction on you presenting a case. If you got one, bring it.
Nah, they get to throw out the unsubstantiated smears, you get to disprove them. Nice trick.
Agree. -Only, they will get the headline; you’ll get the footnote.
Alvarado ICE facility attack: 11 charged in ‘ambush’ on ICE officers, officials say
“12 sets of body armor, flyers, spray paint and a flag saying “Resist Fascism. Fight Oligarchy” were eventually found.
Other searches found masks, goggles, gloves, weapons, fireworks and more.”
https://www.fox4news.com/news/texas-ice-detention-center-attack-alvarado
Shooter killed after firing on Border Patrol agents in Texas, injuring police officer
“The gunman was armed with tactical gear and a rifle and shot at Border Patrol agents as they arrived at a Border Patrol annex facility”
https://justthenews.com/nation/crime/shooter-killed-after-firing-border-patrol-agents-injuring-police-officer
One officer was shot in the neck. I believe he was unarmed.
This is what Democrats rage rhetoric gets them.
I see after reading a few comments that many readers appear to support significant limitations on speech. Apparently Professor, they have not read your book.
I’m in the middle of a book I bought years ago – The Morality of Consent by Alexander Bickell (RIP), who was a law professor at Yale. While I agree with many of his points, his views on speech appear to be more restrictive than those of Turley. This line made me think the most “Where nothing is unspeakable, nothing is undoable.” Just another price we have to pay for living in a free country
If you are using undocumented immigrants’ tax records to find and kidnap them, then it was never about them not paying taxes.
If you are showing up at their place of employment, then it was never about them not working.
If you are showing up at courthouses, then it was never about getting them to “do it the right way”.
If you are kidnapping women and children, then it was never about criminals.
If you’re refusing to give them due process, then it was never about the Constitution.
If you are building concentration camps in Florida to KEEP them here in cages, then it was never about the border.
If you’re spending billions to do this, then it was never about the economy.
And if you’re doing all this in the name of a 34 time convicted felon, then it was never about following the law.
So what? Illegal aliens have no right to be here, round em up and ship em out. Why is this such a problem for you to understand? Most Americans, but especially hispanic Americans, don’t really care how it’s done. And spending billions is irrelevant because getting them out is going to save billions more. These illegals are a net drain on America. Another obvious point that you just can’t seem to grasp.
Also, it’s been almost a year, maybe now someone can actually explain what exact crime Trump supposedly committed, what exactly he was even convicted of, and why if the case was so important the punishment turned out to be exactly…. nothing. This whole mess is getting thrown out on appeal, everyone knows it. The point of the trial was to prevent Trump’s re-election, it failed, and now everyone has rightfully totally forgotten that it even happened. And when it gets overturned, most people will only express surprise that the trial even happened in the first place.
Right Anonymous. Showing up at a courthouse to arrest a man who beat the hell out of his wife, transported illegal aliens for a thousand dollars per head and not showing up for his immigration hearing in your book is somehow a bad thing. Maybe for just one moment you could untwist your brain. Thank you for sharing the ANTIFA manifesto.
Would love your descriptions of the 34 felonies
(I’m not _that_ anonymous) To this day I still have no idea. The whole trial was a joke. The worst part may have been the “choose your own adventure to guilty” jury instruction, which is totally against established Supreme Court precent that criminal trials must have a unanimous verdict. There were so many reversible errors. The whole trial was a travesty. Honest liberals would agree, if there were any left, other than Prof Turley.
If they are working what identification are they using? Is it yours or mine? Have you checked your social security account lately to see if someone else is using your #? Identity theft is a crime as is coming into the country illegally. Try doing this in Mexico and working and getting benefits. Their policies are far different than here as is the same in other countries and they do not care where, who or how they get you or how the prisons are maintained for your visit even if a short one.
“kidnap” meaning… the arrest of a criminal? It seems increasingly obvious that we’re not even speaking the same language anymore.
if you are using the words, kidnapped or concentration camp, you’re not presenting a serious argument,, just spewing rhetoric
if you’re throwing in the phrase due process,, you clearly, don’t understand that he deportations are result of people who already have been convicted of crimes or have standing deportation orders
And if the prior administration hadn’t let so many in,there wouldn’t be the need to build more facilities
LOL, “to storm the White House and stuff like that.” Do these morons understand what it would be like to have the full might of The United States Marine Corp and Special Operations Groups released against these demonic puppets? All those Democrates listed in this article should be arrested for sedition today and flown down to GITMO. They hate this great land we are blessed to be born in and do not deserve to be here much less make it’s laws.
Do these morons understand what it would be like to have the full might of The United States…?
Remember when sharp-as-a-bulb Pres. Biden said he had F-15s to go after white supremacists?
When a platform is based on hatred, with no alternatives presented, we begin to see the propensity to addictive thoughts and behaviors manifest. I believe this neural pathway exists in our brain and can activated not only by drugs, but anything that enhances the production of endorphins. I’m sober, many of us are, more of us are not. There is a power that can restore us to sanity, may we find it now
“Now, Democratic leaders are privately expressing alarm that their followers are demanding violence and rejecting moderate language.” Have the D leaders considered the degree to which their own actions and language have contributed to the hysteria and rage that seems to be consuming formerly rational Ds?
The Ds in charge these past four years supported an open border and open invitation to foreigners to come to this country, presumably to eventually get millions of votes for D leaders. The tortures, rapes, and deaths were just so much collateral damage on the way to unending power.
No one likes to lose elections, but that’s no excuse for violence. Part of growing up involves learning constructive (or at least not destructive) outlets for frustration. But when the Party leaders threaten to dox ICE agents, then ridicule them for wearing masks, they are inciting violence. The riots are basically giant, destructive temper tantrums by adults acting like two year olds (with apologies to two year olds, for whom temper tantrums are age-appropriate).
Don’t count your Chickens before they are Hatched. This is only year 1 of the new Admin, there will be more to come.
Jonathan, How soon do you think it will be until one of these Democratic Nut-Jobs becomes a Suicide Bombers?
I’m a scared just to go to the Post Office, for there might be some Democratic Ted Kaczynski Whacko gonna blow things up.
I’m to young to die in the streets by the hands of some Radical Democratic Extremist. How is this all going to end?
Soon enough President Trump is going to replace FNC’s AG Pam Bondi with someone who really will put a stop to this madness. Since words are now directly causing violence in attacks on conservatives and ICE, those politicians uttering those words need to be arrested and charged. Stop it now before it becomes a real CIVIL war.
Congress needs to expand the definition of domestic terrorism to include certain acts that are currently classified as hate crimes or civil unrest, if they are intended to intimidate or influence political or governmental actions within the U.S.
The Speech and Debate clause should not immunize any public official for comments that can reasonably be defined as supporting domestic terrorism.
Any support, including funding, large or small, that assists in any way these acts of domestic terrorism, should lead to asset forfeiture and prosecution.
Trump would have been charged.
Of course. But he would have been cleared due to lack of evidence.
The Speech and Debate clause only applies to Congress.
It would appear that the level of violence advocated by the prog/left is in direct proportion to their knowledge that their decades’ old grift on the American
people is at an end, along with the gravy train of government largesse/power.
These are dangerous and mentally twisted people and we should use every bit of government resources to feret them out and defend them.
These people pose a far greater threat to our nation than any foreign enemy and are instigating sedition and insurrection.
These are not good people and they must be rendered impotent.
It’s the old Democrap playbook: when you can’t win by lying, cheating or stealing—resort to violence.
By any means necessary. They literally have a group of nutters with that name.
Fools eventually reap what they sow. Let ’em reap.