By Noah Rothman
Monday, December 15, 2025
According to Donald Trump’s Justice Department, a left-wing terrorist
cell calling itself the “Turtle Island Liberation Front” was in the final
preparatory stages of what could have been a horrific bombing campaign. What is
“Turtle Island” and who must it be liberated from, you ask? That’s the name
radical “indigenous” activist groups give the whole of the North American
continent — a moniker supposedly derived from a Lenape (Delaware) creationist
myth. Turtle Island’s occupiers are, well, all of us.
Attorney General Pam Bondi called Turtle Island a
“far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government, and anti-capitalist” organization.
None of this is as contradictory as it may sound to rational observers. The
potentially violent talk themselves into a variety of rationales for political
violence, and many of them subscribe to what the FBI refers to as “salad bar”
terrorism. In short, the addled and violently inclined cobble their own bespoke
blend of ideologies together to craft an extremist doctrine that justifies the
violence to which they were already inclined.
It’s not unique or even remarkable to see a left-wing
terror cell evidence support for the narratives the Soviet Union promulgated in Moscow’s efforts to demonize
the Zionist project when that project was no longer typified by subservience to
Moscow. Likewise, the organization advocates “decolonization and tribal
sovereignty,” and the “liberation of all colonized people across the world” in
its fight against “fascist colonizers.” That’s the language used by the vandals
who commit “ecotage” — to borrow the portmanteau preferred by the violent left
— who conduct attacks on infrastructure in the name of radical primitivism.
It’s not even shocking to see anti-capitalism wedded to anarchistic
anti-government sentiments. These disparate philosophies have a long and
ignominious history of animating violent left-wing movements.
And that is what “TILF” was. “They were allegedly
planning coordinated IED [improvised explosive device] bombing attacks on New
Year’s Eve,” FBI Director Kash
Patel wrote of the four suspects arrested in California, “targeting five
separate locations across Los Angeles.” Separately, a fifth individual
allegedly linked to TILF was arrested in New Orleans while reportedly planning a separate attack.
“Free Palestine. Free Hawaii. Free Puerto Rico,” read a
missive associated with one TILF account. “Freeing the world from American
imperialism is the only way to a safe and peaceful future.”
An FBI
law-enforcement graphic showing the four suspects taken into custody in the
alleged plot. (FBI)
There is remarkable symmetry between the actions in which
this alleged terror network planned to take, the language it uses, and the
disparate causes to which it is attracted, and the left-wing domestic terror
groups of the early and mid-20th century. Their likeness is so eerily reflected
in the reemergence of organized left-wing violence in America that we cannot be
sure it isn’t a conscious homage. The correspondence would be obvious to those
who can connect the historical dots. Unfortunately, there is a cottage industry
abroad devoted to retailing the notion that left-wing political violence is, if
not a mirage, at least so rare as to be a subject unworthy of study.
My forthcoming book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence in America,
minces no words about the nature of this reemergent threat. It aims to give
policymakers the tools and, importantly, permission to recognize what a
wave of left-wing political violence looks like before it crests. The
book debuts on May 19, and I hope you will consider pre-ordering it.
In certain circles — some of which control the commanding heights of American culture and academia — it is popular to dismiss the heightened threat posed by the violent left as though the menace was a “myth.” But the danger is real and present, and it will get worse until the public summons the courage to confront it.
No comments:
Post a Comment