Left Wing Failures Breed More Violence Before MidTerms
By John Kass
Sunday July 13, 2025
Wasn’t it just weeks or so ago when I warned that the left’s growing anguish over their loss of power would get worse?
Since then it has gotten worse, much worse with leftist rioting against federal law enforcement officers. They’ve told the left-wing news site “Axios” that their party’s base demands more violence.
“Some of them have suggested … what we really need to do is be willing to get shot” when visiting ICE facilities or federal agencies, a third House Democrat told Axios.
“Our own base is telling us that what we’re doing is not good enough … [that] there needs to be blood to grab the attention of the press and the public,” the lawmaker said.
They got their wish. There has been blood. With more to come.
But where is it going and what does it mean?
The angry cawing of the left is rather like a murder of crows, wheeling and attacking in some winter farmyard again and again. We can see the Democrat violence increasing from the left, the way that the neo-confederates must have felt in the 1850s, their anger, fear and powerlessness driving them toward Civil War.
And now their politicians refuse to condemn the violence lest they themselves are devoured. Democrats not only refuse to condemn the violence, they exhort their followers to commit violence. And America shudders at what’s to come.
So rather than scream or bark, let’s apply some reason and common sense.
Now the left is swarming its violence against I.C.E. officials just trying to do their jobs and enforce the law written by Congress with at least 10 so-called “transtifa” activists (pictured above) wearing full black battle gear and AR-15 style rifles. They were indicted for the attempted murder of a federal law enforcement officer in Alvaredo Texas.
Though the officer was shot, he survived.
And more violent riots in San Francisco, and elsewhere in California, with leftist activists throwing rocks and pulling guns and firing at I.C.E. agents trying to enforce federal immigration law at a marijuana farm employing illegal migrants, suppressing wages. The left and its legacy media mouthpieces framed all this as some sort of justified “action,” when it was nothing of the kind. It wasn’t justified, any more than the Jan.6, 2021 murder of unarmed Ashli Babbitt was justified.
It might be difficult for many of us to distinguish news from propaganda, especially since it is all being delivered on the cable and news networks in crisis mode and with loud, urgent and frenetic voices. I’ve sometimes referred to this as the barking dogs of politics. They tear at the American soul.
And for years I’ve asked you to search for what isn’t there, to tell you a more complete story. My wife Betty, an excellent modern dancer in Chicago and choreographer explained it once to me as defining that “negative space” between the dancers on stage. When you learn to train your eye to see the negative space, you begin to understand the dance.
This applies to the news of the day, too, as you search for what isn’t being said in left wing corporate journalism from the Los Angeles Times to the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times and those festering left wing taxpayer subsidized socialist propaganda pits of NPR and PBS, to train your ear to listen for the watchdog that doesn’t bark.
Photos provided by courtesy of the Johnson County TX Sheriff’s Office
If you’re a loyal reader of mine, you understand. It was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the Sherlock Holmes story “Silver Blaze,” about the disappearance of a famous racehorse the night before a race and the murder of the horse’s trainer. And in the story, there was a dog.
It would have been expected to bark but did not.
All the violence is being expressed by leftists who are out of power as President Donald J. Trump enjoys a remarkable string of successes and the best 20 or so days for any president in modern history.
For example, his orders to the U.S. Air Force destroyed Iran’s long-threatened nuclear program. He passed his landmark legislation, the “Big Beautiful Bill” that will transform the economy in the Republican favor, the stock market has hit record highs. Illegal immigration that once streamed across the border by the millions has dropped to zero under President Trump.
Recently, the president has targeted universities that do not support the Bill of Rights that are the hives from which leftist American revolutionaries are grown. All of Trump’s successes have driven the left insane.
And not only in America, but Socialist Europe is also experiencing a wave of Trumpian populism. Many Europeans have fought back against the elites that allowed unfettered immigration that flowed over the continent after the Bush/Cheney dynasty, fueled by neoconservative zealots, broke the Middle East and flooded Europe with Syrian and Iraqi and other Muslim refugees.
You could say that the great leftist European experiment, so beloved by people like leftist media darling Barack Obama has lost its mojo. And now the left gibbers and jabbers like a dangerous lunatic in the asylum.
What to make of the recent round of violence as at the California pot farm that hires illegals has bought the support of Gov. Gavin Newsome.
Thwarting Congress and the law allows unscrupulous employers to hire cheap labor and force labor costs low. It helps agriculture and meat processing plants, but does it help the workers? No. It lowers their wages. Democrats once formally opposed illegal immigration on these grounds, but no more.
The drug cartels benefit because farm workers won’t run away. They illegals owe the cartels money. In practical terms those farms serve cartels as slave labor plantations. And the Democrat Party relies on the corrupt legacy media to give them, and by extension, much cover,
According to an exclusive report at Fox News, the President of Glass House Farms, the cannabis farm that federal immigration authorities raided in California on Thursday despite protests, has donated thousands to Democrats in California.
According to that report, “Co-founder, president, and board director Graham Farrar, who self-identifies on social media as residing in Santa Barbara, California, has made numerous political donations to the Santa Barbara County Democratic Central Committee’s federal political action committee and Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Calif., according to Federal Election Commission records.
“According to California public campaign finance records, he also donated $10,000 to California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2018, and his most recent public political donation was to California Democratic Assembly member Gregg Hart in July 2023”
As Democrats feel increasingly impotent over policy, their tribal rage rises like a flooding river. They insist on demasking federal immigration officers, leaving them vulnerable to attacks by the Mexican drug cartels and those Democrat “transtifa” guerrillas. It’s always been about violence with the left, since the Bolsheviks clubbed the Mensheviks to the wintry ground.
And with the approach of the critical 2026 Congressional mid-term elections, the violence will increase. As we say in Chicago, ‘politics ain’t beanbag.’ It’s all about the mid-terms now.
Democrats lost the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White House in November. They are leaderless and rudderless. And they will reach for violence and more violence to intimidate conservatives as they hope to win the House in the mid-terms. The left has lost the American people, but the Democrats still do have the legacy media to work on their emotions, and as long as that twisted partnership continues Democrats will continue confusing violence with virtue.
In the past few days, they’ve already used firearms.
And the rocks they throw at I.C.E. agents would certainly crush a skull or two. Violence has worked before. The massive violence of the Black Lives Matter riots that battered the cities worked before. Democrats elected the corrupt meat puppet Joe Biden. And they used him to open the borders wide and usher in more than 20 million illegal migrants into our country.
Now, though, the post-war liberal project is dying in Europe. The left is desperate to survive here. They only way it can survive Trump is to take Congress in the mid-term, gut the MAGA agenda, raise taxes, impeach Donald Trump and put him in prison. And then they will open the borders.
But this is still your country, for now.
(Copyright 2025 John Kass)
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About the author: John Kass spent decades as a political writer and news columnist in Chicago working at a major metropolitan newspaper. He is co-host of The Chicago Way podcast. And he just loves his “No Chumbolone” hat, because johnkassnews.com is a “No Chumbolone” Zone where you can always get a cup of common sense.
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Comments 26
Democracy dies in darkness – Boy, Howdy! Out of nowhere comes Mandam, Mayor Brandon the Pinhead, Manbun McSoyboy, the twelve creeps pictured above and all of the concomitant blood on the streets,
The shade was provided by the clown opera at the Sun Times, the Tribune, NYT, WAPO, NPR, PBS and the other propaganda mills.
Get some sunlight here at John Kass News!
Sad that most Americans do not realize that the Left our Communists, and are out to destroy this once great Country. Americans better wake up before it is too late and they lose their Country and will be the Minority young one’s. So sad what the Democrats were allowed to do this Country. So sad.
Let the arrests begin and if there’s jail space shortage send them to Alligator Alcatraz!
“But this is still your country, for now” and will only remain our country if we stop watching from the sidelines. It’s time for all of us to roll up our sleeves and get to work to support those candidates who best represent us and the country we want to keep. We cannot allow the Democrats to regain control of Congress and the Senate.
For Illinois that begins with the Congressional seats that will be open in 2026 as well as Dick Durbin’s Senate seat. Those seats need to go Red and the only chance to make that happen is to get involved in local grassroots efforts to register voters, get the candidates message out, and ultimately to get out the voters to vote.
We can’t just depend on Donald Trump to do the work for us.
It would be interesting to see who is financing the protest operation. George Soros and the American taxpayer through government giveaways?
We can’t do anything about Soros, but the giveaways can be taken away. Then the protesters can go get a job at the cannabis farm – but that will not work since they will spend their time consuming the product rather than actually working. Follow the money trail – not only does the cannabis keep the population stoned, but the cannabis finances the Democratic Party. Connect the dots.
Your point about the cartels and slave labor is a good one. Reminds me of sharecroppers in the post Civil War south. Or, “Factory Towns”, where there was one store, you rented a home from the factory etc. I remember when Democrats were against that.
I must be stupid, but I do not understand the comparison to the Conan Doyle story. First, that the horse disappeared was an accident; the trainer wanted to injure the horse so it couldn’t run in the race. Second, as Holmes pointed out, the horse acted in self-defense. Third, the dog didn’t bark because it knew who came into the stables. Oh, and the crime happened several days before the race. I know all this is picky, but I was taught (many, many years ago) in writing class to be precise with details.
Mr. Kass, are you trying to make the point that we don’t bark because we “know” who are attempting to destroy us and therefore, like the dog, are comfortable with that? If so, I think you could have done a better job.
Mr. Chiven, I’m not Mr. Kass – but I think I do know what he was getting at with that analogy. It’s not about the horse but about the dog that didn’t bark.
And, in the analogy, the dog that didn’t bark is the media/news that didn’t report or that misreported or that downplayed the seriousness of what the left is doing. It’s not that WE don’t bark, it’s that those who are expected to, essentially, bark at danger do not – leaving us in danger.
The horse that didn’t bark is the key clue that it was an inside job. The media doesn’t bark because they are inside the Left.
And don’t forget the hacks in black , the judges, that use all their tricks to keep these illegals in the US . They are as much a part of the Biden/Obama move to flood the Republic with these 12 million migrants . They spin due process out of whole cloth and keep the courts and ICE bogged down, when they should get out of the way and let ICE do what the Law requires and needs to be done.
Mr. Hoenemeyer, just take a look at Judge Hannah Dugan in Wisconsin: claiming that to assist an illegal alien in her courtroom on a charge of domestic violence to be escorted out of her courtroom via a back stair to avoid ICE agents outside her courtroom waiting to arrest him is fine, because she’s a judge and so anything she does in her courtroom is legal.
Fortunately, the alien was arrested, and the courts have decided that her case will NOT be dismissed but will be heard.
But really – an illegal alien already under a deportation order who stays here and who is accused of domestic violence should just be let go? She is an idiot.
In no way, shape, or form can true Americans be complacent. The extreme Left will stop at nothing to seize power. Fortunately there’s been the growth of alternative media, which grew further with the last election cycle. However, the Democrats being the party of almost all that is evil will stop at nothing.
John, when it comes to pols encouraging violence, you missed the most obvious loud mouthed gluteus maximus there is, right here in Illinois.
None other than Commodius Maximus himself. Let’s not forget it.
Where were these idiots when Obama was president? In 2013, he deported nearly 200,000 criminal aliens alone. During his presidency there were over 3 million formal deportations and millions more self-deported.
All of a sudden it’s an issue because Trump is president after more than 10 millions staged an invasion in the four years Biden was president?
Fact: Trump is enforcing the law that Biden and the Democrats flouted. Biden claimed he was powerless against the flow of illegals barging into the country when he was tacitly making it easier for them to come and stay in perpetuity.
Well, now perpetuity has come to an end and Trump is enforcing laws that were always on the books and available to anyone who cared to apply them.
To ICE employees under fire: the vast majority of Americans fully support what you are doing!
As the midterms approach the Democrats with their assist from the media are starting their voter suppression campaign. Threats of violence have been amplified by the media in an effort to discourage Conservatives from voting. A large part of Trumps voting base are baby boomer Republicans. During the last two election cycles the media parroted ” credible threats of violence ” at the polling place. All designed to discourage that senior who fears for their safety from voting on that day. Democrats needn’t worry since it was their brownshirts doing the threatening. The Saint George Mostly Peaceful Rioting was permitted to occur to allow the media it’s needed talking points. All done to suppress conservative voters. The party that supposedly defends “our democracy” is the one that aims to destroy the democratic process. Along with its media assist they are now pouring gasoline on the wood to get the bonfire started. Take notice of the media all using the same phrase ” credible threats of violence ” at the polls in the next few months prior to the midterms. I can guarantee you’ll hear it again and again.
John, you wrote, “And they will reach for violence and more violence to intimidate conservatives as they hope to win the House in the mid-terms.”
And they will.
I fear that this has come down to an us-or-them scenario. We are reaching critical mass.
If conservatives and rational thinkers do not fight fire with literal fire, we might all be doomed.
Kamala lost, but not by all that much. If it had gone the other way we would all be doomed by now.
We had better keep our powder dry.
Great column, JK. Appropriately scary.
The subtext of the anti-I.C.E. violence should be obvious. When the Biden Handlers Administration waved in 10 – 20 million illegals, they knew exactly what they were doing. Why is the Democrat-Media Politburo exercising violence and threats now to fight every single warranted deportation? Because they see those illegals as one thing: population gains in distribution of congressional districts plus Democrat votes, legal or otherwise.
The “undocumented migrants” euphemism is phonier than it might seem. Democrats see those many millions of people strictly as political leverage.
It began with “I’ve got a pen and a phone.” Then from 2021 to 2025 it became “I’ve got a catspaw president and Autopen.” The illegal alien invasion intentionally fostered the destruction of our economy and attempts to subvert our electoral integrity.
Leftists and their media cohorts intend to beat the illegal alien victimhood drum loudly in hopes that voters’ sympathy will propel them in 2026. It’s all they have.
Once again, the so-called anti fascists have gone and acted like what they are – true fascist. Their spin on words and situations is sickening. But we overlook a big factor that these scums enjoy: the cartel money, not only Soros money. Those attacks in Texas ICE centers are more likely funded by the cartels. From what I read on the attacks the terrorists were using military grade arms and equipment-cartels use that. Their MO is to attack police centers and try to kill as many enforcement agents as possible in order to intimidate civilian authority to follow the cartel will. That tactic works well in Mexico where the cartels are in control and civilian authority is corrupt.
Those ten scum pictured? Khrushchev had a word for them: useful idiots.
You are right Mr. Kass it will only get worse. What we’ve seen thus far is an initial probe to see our reactions; a warm up if you will for something bigger.
We the able bodied must work to insure that the midterms steer right. The left will be out in force to vote. Democrats are exceptionally tribal and will. It is TDS in the polling booth. ANYTHING Trump espouses is lockstep bad. Even looking at History during Obama. The numbers he deported – there was nary a peep from his supporters.
Pritzger has anointed Stratton as Durbin’s replacement and anointed another solid Democrat for Lt Gov and if his fondest dream comes to pass and he got elected as 48 wound slide right into the Governors seat (might need to downsize it a bit however). It will be an interesting 28 primary with likely, Whitmer Hochul, Newsom, Toilets and maybe even Cackles trying to convince the country their vision exceeds Vance or Rubio.
The videos of Dearborn Michigan’s recent “religious” commemoration should send chills down the spine of any American right OR left. Many of Our kids and grandkids will be unwilling to fight. They have been lulled by CTU and other leftist teachers.
Freedom (to say the stupid things you want) isn’t free. It was paid for with the blood of your father’s grandfathers etc.
Cmon down for a visit John…well not now, when it cools off. I left Illinois in 2010 for
Florida. Listen to the vocal naysayers who dis us former northerners but, we have a big
Ole swamp down here and know how to use it. Don’t even think about tinkering with
The 2nd amendment. We got some “chinks” in our armor but…at least we don’t have
Governor Golden Toidy and that beanbrain mayor
John, great article and while reading it this caught my attention: “. . . the left is swarming its violence against I.C.E. officials just trying to do their jobs and enforce the law written by Congress. . .”
One point I’ve never seen made about U.S. immigration law is the fact that it was “written by Congress.” That has meaning because that law reflects the will of the people through their representatives – including Democrats and Republicans – who express the will of the citizens, deemed fit to adopt immigration law that the left including Democrats now say they are free to disregard. Witness the rantings of Mayor Johnson inveighing against cooperating with I.C.E. So much for honoring the “rule of law” and not of men.
John, great column but you and your readers are pointing out the symptoms of a corrupted political system. I’m interested in a cure.
I absolutely believe that most people in America believe in freedom and the liberty afforded by our Constitution. You are right to point out that certain powerful forces – mainly in the media or who fund the media – don’t value that freedom and liberty. In most cases, it’s because they want money or power or both. That’s why the American experiment is so strong and threatening to others – it was meant to disempower government and centralized power, which through all of human history has been to elevate small groups of power seekers at the expense of all others. The Constitution, with its checks and balances and diffusion of power, was thoughtfully created by men who saw the tendencies of other nations and were dead set to create a system that wouldn’t fall prey to what happened elsewhere to limit freedom for someone else’s benefit.
Now we come to that point in American history where we are in danger of losing the essential characteristics that defines American freedom – the voice of the people and diffusion of power. Due to the explosion of media and the large populations, including, yes, many immigrants who have come to America but have not had, like we had, sufficient exposure to the essentials of American freedom. Further, other Americans have grown either fearful or lazy, content to be supported by government or have essential goods and services supplied by government, to the point where they are willing dependents on an increasingly powerful central government – not just the federal but several large and socialistic states such as Illinois and California.
What do we do about it? Change the system to put people in charge again. The past 50 years or so have seen the media explosion and its benefactors control the information flow and bend it mostly to their whims. Fox News and Newsmax and you are fine to a point but the major mainstream news sources are 90%+ of what the public absorbs. It’s too much to overcome in time.
We need a fundamental change. Make political campaigns so small that campaigning and information flow has to be personal engagement not mass media. It’s time to stop playing their game. Once there’s an opportunity to meet every voter and make personal arguments on each doorstep, we can rightly and effectively communicate the essentials of the American experiment and its success.
The mass media and its funders don’t want this. They like power and money. They will fight any change to their hegemony. Change has to bubble up from the people, just as it did in 1776.
http://www.hearthepeople.org.
Hard to fathom that not one Dem anywhere has the grit to call out this violence against lawful federal agencies doing law enforcement duties as mandated by their oaths of service. Why are they all so silent? Why are these lemmings, these cowardly mealy mouthed Dems so quiet. An obvious response would be to condemn this violence against lawful federal employees. The sanctimonious, dripping with mock-sincerity, voiced senior senator from Illinois, is silent. The junior senator from Illinois also silent. Pelosi, Schumer, Booker…all of them silent. They call this unity. I call it treasonous dereliction of duty.
“Those who think they can trade away essential freedoms in order to gain a bit of additional security neither deserve, nor will long possess, either.”
– Benjamin Franklin
6, maybe 6.5 (upper right photo difficult to tell) of them are women. AWFLs.