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Michael Shellenberger

@shellenberger

Mar 9, 2023 • 41 tweets • 8 min read • Read on X

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EXPOSED: America's Secret Censorship-Industrial Complex

U.S. government officials, agencies, and contractors are violating the First Amendment

My testimony to Congress

public.substack.com/p/exposed-amer…

Over the last three months, a small group of us have, thanks to the Twitter Files, exposed the ways in which social media platforms have, under pressure from U.S. government agencies, censored ordinary Americans and spread disinformation.

@mtaibbi

At 10 am ET, @mtaibbi & I will testify before Congress to share shocking new findings: a highly-organized network of government agencies and contractors has been creating blacklists and pressuring social media companies to censor Americans, often without them knowing it.

We have already reported on some of the actions by this complex.

But the extent of its censorship was unknown to us until very recently.

And, as importantly, we now understand the ways in which this complex simultaneously spreads disinformation and demands censorship.

My 68-page testimony to Congress lays out an effort by U.S. government intelligence and security agencies to wage “information warfare” against the American people.

(The full document can be downloaded here)

public.substack.com/p/exposed-amer…

I do not doubt that some people will try to justify the behaviors we have documented. They will say such censorship is necessary for “fighting disinformation.”

But there is no moral or legal justification for the acts of state-sponsored censorship we document, much less for the fundamentally unAmerican censorship-industrial complex.

I believe that any reasonable person reading our report, no matter their politics, will be horrified by what is taking place and demand an end to it.

With our testimony, we are calling on Congress to defund and dismantle the censorship-industrial complex immediately.

Democracy depends on freedom of speech. Both are under attack.

The Censorship-Industrial Complex

My verbal testimony to Congress

by Michael Shellenberger

twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower warned of “the acquisition of unwarranted influence… by the military-industrial complex.” Eisenhower feared that the size and power of the “complex,” or cluster, of government contractors and the Department of Defense… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

How? Through “domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money.” He feared public policy would “become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

Eisenhower’s fears were well-founded. Today, American taxpayers are unwittingly financing the growth and power of a censorship-industrial complex run by America’s scientific and technological elite, which endangers our liberties and democracy.

I am grateful for the opportunity to offer this testimony and sound the alarm over the shocking and disturbing emergence of state-sponsored censorship in the United States of America.

There is a large and growing network of government agencies, academic institutions, and nongovernmental organizations that are actively censoring American citizens, often without their knowledge, on a range of issues.

twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

I offer some cautions. I do not know how much of the censorship is coordinated beyond what we have been able to document, and I will not speculate. I recognize that the law allows Facebook, Twitter, and other private companies to moderate content on their platforms. And I support… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

But government officials have been caught repeatedly pushing social media platforms to censor disfavored users and content. Often, these acts of censorship threaten the legal protection social media companies need to exist, Section 230.

twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

“If government officials are directing or facilitating such censorship,” notes George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, “it raises serious First Amendment questions. It is axiomatic that the government cannot do indirectly what it is prohibited from doing… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Moreover, we know that the U.S. government has funded organizations that pressure advertisers to boycott news media organizations and social media platforms that a) refuse to censor and/or b) spread disinformation, including alleged conspiracy theories.

The Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, and Graphika all have inadequately-disclosed ties to the Department of Defense, the C.I.A., and other intelligence agencies.

They work with multiple U.S. government agencies to institutionalize censorship research and advocacy within dozens of other universities and think tanks.

It is important to understand how these groups function. They are not publicly engaging with their opponents in an open exchange of ideas. They aren’t asking for a national debate over the limits of the First Amendment.

Rather, they are creating blacklists of disfavored people and then pressuring, cajoling, and demanding that social media platforms censor, deamplify, and even ban the people on these blacklists.

twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Who are the censors? They are a familiar type. Overly confident in their ability to discern truth from falsity, good intention from bad intention, the instinct of these hall monitor-types is to complain to the teacher — and, if the teacher doesn’t comply, to go above them, to the… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Such an approach might work in middle school and many elite universities, but it is anathema to freedom and is an abuse of power.

These organizations and others are also running their own influence operations, often under the guise of “fact-checking.”

The intellectual leaders of the censorship complex have convinced journalists and social media executives that accurate information is disinformation, that valid hypotheses are conspiracy theories, and that greater self-censorship results in more accurate reporting.

twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

In many instances, censorship, such as labeling social media posts, is part of the influence operation aimed at discrediting factual information.

The censorship industrial complex combines established methods of psychological manipulation, some developed by the U.S. military… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

The complex’s leaders are driven by the fear that the Internet and social media platforms empower populist, alternative, and fringe personalities and views, which they regard as destabilizing.

Federal government officials, agencies, and contractors have gone from fighting ISIS recruiters and Russian bots to censoring and deplatforming ordinary Americans and disfavored public figures.

Importantly, the bar for bringing in military-grade government monitoring and speech-countering techniques has moved from “countering terrorism” to “countering extremism” to countering simple misinformation.

The government no longer needs a predicate of calling you a terrorist or extremist to deploy government resources to counter your political activity. The only predicate it needs is simply the assertion that the opinion you expressed on social media is wrong.

twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

These efforts extend to influencing and even directing conventional news media organizations. Since 1971, when the Washington Post and New York Times elected to publish classified Pentagon papers about the war in Vietnam, journalists understood that we have a professional… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

And yet, in 2020, the Aspen Institute and Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center urged journalists to “Break the Pentagon Papers principle” and not cover leaked information to prevent the spread of “disinformation.”

Government-funded censors frequently invoke the prevention of real-world harm to justify their demands for censorship, but the censors define harm far more expansively than the Supreme Court does.

The censors have defined harm so broadly, in fact, that they have justified Facebook censoring accurate information about COVID vaccines, for example, to prevent “vaccine hesitancy.”

Their goal, clearly, is not protecting the truth but rather persuading the public. That is the purpose of open debate and the free exchange of ideas.

twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

And, increasingly, the censors say their goal is to restrict information that “delegitimizes” governmental, industrial, and news media organizations. That mandate is so sweeping that it could easily censor criticism of any part of the status quo, from elected officials to… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Congress should immediately cut off funding to the censors and investigate their activities. Second, it should mandate instant reporting of all conversations between social media executives, government employees, and contractors concerning content moderation. Third, Congress… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Whatever Congress does, it is incumbent upon the American people to wake up to the threat of government censorship. “Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry,” Eisenhower noted, “can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

All of the above is just a summary

To read the full, 68-page report/testimony, please visit Public

public.substack.com/p/exposed-amer…

@mtaibbi

And stay-tuned for a bombshell up-coming TWITTER FILES thread from @mtaibbi

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More from @shellenberger

Michael Shellenberger

@shellenberger

Feb 17

The CIA said it could find no information on Epstein, but it did not deny that it has classified records. It must release them, says @RepNancyMace in a letter to @CIADirector John Ratcliffe. Mace cites evidence suggesting ties between Epstein and the agency going back decades.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) could find no information relating to Jeffrey Epstein, it told the financier convicted of child sex trafficking in 2011. “We searched for CIA-originated responsive records that might reflect an open or otherwise acknowledged Agency affiliation from 5 November 1999,” said the CIA in a letter to Epstein’s attorney, “to 25 July 2011… We were unable to locate any information or records.”

But there are reasons to believe that the CIA does have records on Epstein, says Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) in a letter she sent today to CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

“Epstein did business or had ties to individuals who were involved in the CIA’s Iran-Contra scandal,” noted Mace. “Epstein had contact with powerful diplomats, including former CIA Director William Burns, and representatives of foreign governments, including a UK official who recently was forced to step down after it was revealed that he gave Epstein confidential financial information.”

Mace is one of the four Republican congressmen who broke with President Donald Trump to force a vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which does not require the CIA or other intelligence agencies to disclose what they know. The other members were Thomas Massie, Lauren Boebert, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Public. We will update this story if we hear back.

It may be that the CIA has no information about Epstein, whose emails show him repeatedly contacting many powerful individuals, and it would be wrong to presume guilt simply through an association. In recent days, some figures have been forced to step down from prominent roles without any evidence of wrongdoing. Through a spokesperson, Burns said he recalled meeting with Epstein twice, “more than a decade ago as the Ambassador was preparing to leave government service… He never met with him again. They had no relationship.”
William Burns testifies before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on his nomination to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on Capitol Hill in Washington,DC,on February 24, 2021. (Photo by TOM BRENNER / POOL / AFP)

But Burns acknowledged that he was in a powerful State Department role at the time and did not say what they discussed. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2023 that Burns “had three meetings scheduled with Epstein in 2014, when he was deputy secretary of state, the documents show. They first met in Washington and then Mr. Burns visited Epstein’s townhouse in Manhattan.”

And Mace notes that the CIA’s National Resources Division (NR) “would likely have had extensive contact with Epstein over the years, given its focus on debriefing high-level business people and investors who travel frequently abroad, do business with foreign officials, and who have links to restricted areas, which Epstein appeared to have.”

Last September, Rolling Stone journalist Daniel Boguslaw reported in Unherd, “Two former CIA officers and one former intelligence official told me that the NR is conspicuously absent from the Epstein debate. This, even as the NR must have conducted interviews with the man going back decades. The NR should also have maintained records of those conversations, according to all three officials.”

The CIA formed NR, Boguslaw noted, in 1991 to recruit foreigners in the US to spy abroad and to debrief Americans who travel frequently overseas, thereby gathering intelligence.

“It is inconceivable, given Jeffrey Epstein’s travel record and associations, that he was not approached by the NR at some point before his death,” a former CIA officer told Boguslaw. “It would have left the New York NR division in the lurch not to have contacted him…Every walk-in, every contact, every handling, every meeting, every termination — you are supposed to document it in official cable traffic.”

None of this is proof that the CIA worked with Epstein. Some prominent figures have stepped down simply for an association with Epstein, which has given rise to concerns that the Epstein Files have turned into a witchhunt, like occurred during the “#MeToo” era, starting in 2017, and the baseless Satanic Panic of the 1980s and 1990s.

Recently, the Department of Justice, under pressure from Epstein Transparency Act co-sponsors Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, unredacted the names of private people who are not implicated in any crime.
Adnan Khashoggi (2nd left) at an evening event with Alfonso Prince of Hohenlohe Langenburg in Marbella, Spain, 1985. (Photo by Wolfgang Kuhn/United Archives via Getty Images)

And the CIA did not deny the existence of classified records, noted Mace. The CIA, in its letter to Epstein,” said it could “neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of responsive records,” noted Mace. “This amounts to a refusal by the CIA to acknowledge whether records existed to link the CIA to Epstein, going as far to say even acknowledging if they exist or is not ‘classified.’”

Epstein’s ties to CIA-linked people go back decades. “One of Epstein’s first clients was Adnan Khashoggi,” notes Mace, “the Saudi arms dealer who was the central middleman in the CIA’s illegal Iran-Contra operation. Epstein oversaw the repurposing of CIA front/contractor ‘Southern Air Transport’ for Leslie Wexner. Epstein worked for Douglas Leese, an arms dealer who introduced Epstein to Khashoggi. Epstein appears to have been an intermediary to Norinco, the Chinese state-owned defense company. and Epstein held ties with the cofounder and owner of US military contractor DynCorp.”
US Middle East peace envoy William Burns (L) shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, as Foreign Minister Shimon Peres looks on, before their meeting in Jerusalem 09 June 2001. As international diplomatic efforts to restore calm in the Middle East grow, Israel and the Palestinians prepared their answers to US proposals on a way out of their crisis after tense security talks with CIA chief George Tenet the previous day. AFP PHOTO/Menahem KAHANA (Photo by Menahem KAHANA / AFP)

Drop Site News reported in December, “investigators in both the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office and Ohio’s Office of Inspector General were looking into Southern Air Transport amid rising public scrutiny of the Iran-Contra affair—and sources in both offices identified Jeffrey Epstein as having a pivotal role in relocating the planes.”

Mace notes that one of Epstein’s attorneys, Kathryn Ruemmler, “who was also White House counsel under President Barack Obama, received the highest honor from the CIA from then-Director John Brennan, and told Epstein about it.”
Kathryn Ruemmler

Wrote Mace, “All of this suggests that not only does the CIA have information on Epstein, it should have a large amount of information, over several decades, and covering many issues…. We respectfully request the CIA search all records, classified and unclassified, to identify any records” and “to the maximum extent allowable by law, should be disclosed to the public.”

Here is @RepNancyMace letter to @CIADirector Ratcliffe.

Read 4 tweets

Michael Shellenberger

@shellenberger

Feb 13

The @NYTimes today notes that in one Epstein email there is "peculiar combination" of "pizza" and "grape soda."

In truth, on at least five occasions, Epstein’s urologist, Harry Fisch, uses the words “pizza” and “grape soda” in strange ways.

In making this observation, I am not endorsing any theory about what the words mean.

However, I think the author @DraperRobert should have noted that there are at least five and more likely at least six mentions of pizza and grape soda, and that in one case, the words appear to be about sex, since they come after discussion of erectile dysfunction pills.

Here the cases:

1. “After you use them, wash your hands and let’s go get pizza and grape soda.”

Their text messaging exchange begins with Epstein emailing Fisch to request Stendra, a fast-acting, second generation erectile dysfunction drug that was designed for "greater spontaneity."

The "them" Fisch is referring to are clearly the pills.

Then, in separate messages, Fisch writes:

2. “What time do you want to get pizza and grape soda tomorrow?”

3. “Pizza and grape soda… Nough said”

4. “Pizza and grape soda tomorrow for lunch?”

5. “First we get a slide of pizza with grape soda… Then the pop tart” to which Epstein replies, “Wow.”

6. And someone whose name is redacted, but is almost certainly Fisch, as he is sending an attached document from “Veru-Equity” which is Fisch’s company, appears to make clear that he is using a coded phrase when he writes, in an email to Epstein,” Let’s go for pizza and grape soda again. No one else can understand.”

I encourage people to read the messages themselves. In no case did I get the feeling that they were actually talking about pizza and grape soda.

Of course, it is easy to see things that aren't there, and so there is some non-zero possibility they are really into pizza and grape soda.

But if it's all a terrible misunderstanding then, given that the story is now in the New York Times, Fisch should be glad to clear up what they were talking about.

I emailed Fisch at several of his email addresses on Wednesday and did not heard back. The Times says it did too.

I believe it is reasonable that authorities should ask to interview Fisch to understand what it was that they were discussing.

I encourage people to read the emails in their full context and share your thoughts. They are easy to search for and find here:

jmail.world

Here's Fisch's Veru company:

verupharma.com/contact-us/

Below is the full message exchange that includes the reference to Stendra.

Here's a reference to the "spontaneity" claim:

withpower.com/guides/viagra-…

And here's the NYTimes story:

nytimes.com/2026/02/12/us/…

https://x.com/shellenberger/status/2021962729012310437?s=20

Here is the evidence that Epstein used code words and that "shrimp" is one of them.

There has still not been a proper investigation of the Epstein Files. That needs to happen. The American people are right to not let this go.

https://x.com/shellenberger/status/2021962729012310437?s=20

Read 5 tweets

Michael Shellenberger

@shellenberger

Feb 12

https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/2021713339932430593

Not all references to food in the Epstein Files are code words, but some definitely are, including references to "shrimp," as I explain here. We need an independent investigation and real reform as our Intelligence Community is operating outside of civilian control.

https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/2021713339932430593

The recently released Jeffrey Epstein files neither reveal a conspiracy to traffic underage girls to powerful men, nor a relationship to the Intelligence Community (IC), nor a client list, according to some in the media and online. None of the hundreds of CDs, videos, and photographs showed men with young women, notes the Associated Press. And the FBI “found scant evidence the well-connected financier led a sex trafficking ring serving powerful men,” notes AP.

But the Epstein Files do, in fact, provide even more evidence than we already had that Epstein trafficked underage girls to powerful men and that he had ties with both the IC and the Justice Department. The Files reveal that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick misled the public about his relationship with Epstein, which continued years after he had claimed, and included at least one business deal. And they reveal that a powerful UK diplomat, Peter Mandelson, the former ambassador to the United States, illegally shared confidential state financial secrets with Epstein, and appeared in his underwear in at least one photo. The new evidence forced Mandelson to resign, leave the House of Lords, and nearly brought down the Keir Starmer government.

To be sure, there is false and misleading information in the Epstein Files. There may not be any CIA files on Epstein. There appears to be no client list. At least one of the alleged Epstein victims lied. And there is no evidence for some sensational claims. Moreover, there are FBI reports of testimony from clearly unreliable people, attesting, for example, to witnessing mass murder and cannibalism. Some online are view nearly every food reference as a code word for pedophilia or worse, imagining evidence and seeing connections that simply aren’t there.

While there was an investigation, the files make clear that the FBI had a list of co-conspirators with Epstein, who are in the Epstein Files, engaging in behaviors to recruit women to engage in what is effectively prostitution, whom the FBI never investigated.

An FBI employee on July 7, 2019, emailed a colleague to ask, “When you get a chance can you give me an update on the status of the 10 CO conspirators?” The email named “Brunel” and “Maxwell,” references to Jean-Luc Brunel, a French recruiter of fashion models who was under investigation for raping minors, and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell.

Another FBI document lists all 10 co-conspirators, and they include the foudner of Victoria's Secret, and Epstein’s assistant, Lesley Groff.

We know that Epstein had installed hidden cameras, a surveillance room, and produced hundreds of videos spying on people on CDs and tape.

The CIA so valued Epstein’s attorney, Kathy Ruemmler, the White House counsel for President Barack Obama, that its Director gave her the agency’s highest award. The Director of the CIA under Biden, William Burns, met with, or was scheduled to meet with, Epstein at least three times when he was a State Department official. And, in the 1990s, Wexner and Epstein helped relocate a CIA front organization, Southern Air Transport, from Miami to Columbus, Ohio, where Wexner lived.

Epstein considered using a former “CIA plane to transport prisoners to Guantanamo Bay…called a Torture Plane,” according to Epstein’s pilot, Larry Visoski, in an email.

Ruemmler at one point emails Epstein to say, “Yes, I am really here,” to which Epstein responds, “it looks like a cia drop,” tradecraft jargon for an intelligence exchange.

Epstein, through his lawyer, tried to get information out of the CIA about himself, and the CIA responded, saying it looked and found nothing. But by denying an “open or otherwise acknowledged” affiliation, the CIA legally protected itself from having to confirm or deny covert, unacknowledged, or informal relationships, such as being a confidential informant, a foreign intelligence asset, or a non-official contractor.

These new revelations come at a time when even mainstream news media are reporting on more evidence that Epstein may not have killed himself in August 2019. Noted CBS, “investigators reviewing surveillance footage from the night of Jeffrey Epstein’s death observed an orange-colored shape moving up a staircase” toward his cell. An FBI memorandum describes the fuzzy image as “possibly an inmate.” And CBS reported that “Prison employees interviewed by CBS News said escorting an inmate at that hour would have been highly unusual.”

So what does it all mean? Who was Epstein and what was he doing?

To answer those questions, we need to take a closer look at the code words.

When Nicole Junkermann, an Epstein lover, says “Wow!” after he indicates he might be willing to have a baby with her, Epstein replies, “Is that a code word” to which she replied “No i am surprised.” In one exchange, a woman, whose name is redacted, but is almost certainly Nadia Marcinko (a.k.a., Naďa Marcinková), Epstein’s Slovak-born pilot, asks him to fly with her. He says, “Is that a code word?” And she replies, “I really meant fly… would your answer differ if it were a code word?”

While most of the Epstein Files emails that use the word “shrimp” appear to refer to the seafood, some appear not to. Someone whose name is redacted emails Epstein to say, “Call Talia, she will give you massage. And she looks better then ‘shrimp’ anyway. And good with Massages.” The person is using shrimp in the context of “massage” which in many emails appears to refer to massage with sex...

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https://x.com/RedPencilScript/status/2022145698385527070?s=20

Seems bad:

https://x.com/RedPencilScript/status/2022145698385527070?s=20

Read 4 tweets

Michael Shellenberger

@shellenberger

Jan 31

Calling anti-ICE riots an "insurrection" or "insurgency... poses dangers," says @nytimes. It "legitimizes the use of violence," says a CSIS expert.

Funny, then, how The Times labeled January 6 an "insurrection" and the same CSIS expert called J6 a "terrorist incident."

The Times uses the word "insurgency" rather than "insurrection" for its headline, even though not a single one of the people the article criticizes uses that word. Three use the word "insurrection" and one uses the word "revolution."

Perhaps that's because the Times knows that it led the charge to label January 6 as an "insurrection," and that it is now engaging in flagrant hypocrisy.

nytimes.com/2026/01/31/us/…

Even more disturbing is that the article quotes Seth G. Jones @SethGJones saying, “When you start using the language of warfare and treating someone that has an opposing view as a terrorist or as an insurgent, that legitimizes the use of violence against them."

Well, that's precisely what Jones and his coauthors did in a 2022 @CSIS report, "Pushed to Extremes: Domestic Terrorism amid Polarization and Protest," which labeled January 6 as "the most prominent instance" of a domestic "terrorist incident."

csis.org/analysis/pushe…

Read 7 tweets

Michael Shellenberger

@shellenberger

Jan 29

https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/2015446692611403840

It was already clear that Alex Pretti was interfering in a law enforcement operation. Now, new @BBC video shows Pretti kicking out the taillight of an ICE SUV and wrestling with ICE agents. His gun is sticking out of his waistband. He screams & spits. He is deranged & dangerous.

https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/2015446692611403840

In this clip, you can clearly see Pretti refusing to go to ground — just as he refused to do so when he was shot.

Congrats to @thenewsmovement and @BBCNews for their big scoop.

The news media irresponsibly downplayed or didn't properly report on how Pretti was deliberately interfering in a law enforcement operation on the day he was killed.

At a minimum he recklessly waved through traffic on the street and physically confronted ICE, as the image below clearly shows.
I shouldn't have to say this but some people need to hear it: I'm not defending the shooting. It was obviously a mistake. There should be a full investigation and people should be held accountable.

But it is also the case that Democrats, influencers, and the media are getting leftists killed by encouraging them to interfere with law enforcement operations and telling them that they are fighting Nazis.

Pretti showed exceedingly bad judgement in openly wearing a gun as he attacked an ICE vehicle. He showed similarly bad judgement interfering in the ICE operation on Saturday.

Pretti in the new video appears to be in the grip of that very familiar form of derangement.

Here is a link to the full @thenewsmovement video.

I saw some people have been trying to put Community Notes on this video. If you watch it, you will see that it is definitely Pretti, there is no evidence of AI manipulation, and the provenance of the video is known.

youtube.com/watch?v=CRWR13…

Read 8 tweets

Michael Shellenberger

@shellenberger

Jan 25

Most of the debate since yesterday has focused, understandably, on whether the ICE agent acted in what he perceived to be self-defense. Whatever the case, it’s clear that, by encouraging people to interfere in law enforcement operations, the Left is getting people killed.

A Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minnesota shot a second person dead yesterday. Most of the debate since then has focused, understandably, on whether the ICE agent acted in what he perceived to be self-defense.

Whatever the case, it’s clear that, by encouraging people to interfere in law enforcement operations, the Left is getting people killed. Videos show both victims, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, impeding law enforcement operations, which progressive nonprofits, Democrats, and liberal influencers have been encouraging for months.

Good drove her vehicle perpendicular to block traffic while her partner taunted ICE officers. Pretti intervened at least twice, first by waving traffic through on the street and again as an ICE officer sought to subdue another person interfering in the operation, triggering the agent to use pepper spray against him.

In saying this, I am not defending the decisions and behaviors of the ICE officers or anyone else. The killings are a tragedy. And there is a worthwhile debate underway over ICE tactics, separate from the specific behaviors of Good and Pretti.

We don’t know what was in the minds of Good and Pretti specifically, but Democrats, progressives, and anti-ICE activists have for years called ICE and the Trump administration fascist and compared them to the Nazis. On January 19, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called ICE “Donald Trump’s modern-day Gestapo.” Last year, in California, Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation to block ICE from hiding its identities. The Los Angeles mayor called them a “reign of terror.” And a few days ago, the Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota urged citizens to “put your body on the line” to block ICE protests.

Walz and other Democrats have blocked state and local law enforcement from working with ICE, which has contributed to increasingly risky behavior by anti-ICE activists like Good and Pretti, and thus growing danger to everyone involved. There were no Minneapolis police visible in the videos of the Good and Pretti deaths.

And many of America’s largest progressive cities and states are all openly defiant of federal law, declaring themselves “sanctuaries” that protect illegal migrants from the federal government.

California, New York, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and others are “sanctuary states”. At the same time, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, San Diego, Sacramento, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Madison, Milwaukee, Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Newark, Jersey City, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Chapel Hill, Durham, Asheville, Tucson, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Reno, are “sanctuary cities.”

The underlying problem is that for decades, schools, Hollywood, and the media have made clear that we should risk and even sacrifice our own lives to stop fascism and Nazism. And yet neither ICE raids nor Trump are fascist, and it is offensive to compare them to the Nazis.

The Nazis rounded up Jewish citizens and shipped them to death camps. ICE, by contrast, is detaining foreigners who the government believes committed criminal offenses beyond coming to the US illegally. No nation in the world has allowed more people to enter illegally. Nor has any treated them with greater due process than the US is doing.

The American people elected Trump president, like it or not, and the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause in Article VI establishes that federal law prevails over conflicting state or local laws. It ensures the Constitution, federal statutes, and treaties are the “supreme Law of the Land,” binding state courts and governments. The ICE raids may be bad politics, but there is no question that they are constitutional.

While some Democrats and progressives know their language is hyperbolic, half of the individuals surveyed told pollsters last year that Trump is a fascist. Such radical beliefs appear to have partly motivated two assassination attempts against Trump and the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

While the radical Left has for decades called its political opponents fascists, these views were until recently marginal views, even within the Democratic Party. Moreover, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton all spoke out against illegal migration until 2016. So what changed? Why did so many Americans come to view a democratically elected president and law enforcement operations as equivalent to fascism? What radicalized the Left?

Part of the answer is bad information. Many progressives believe ICE is simply sweeping up hard-working and law-abiding immigrants, and do not know that 64 percent of immigrants detained since Trump took office in January 2025 had criminal convictions or pending charges, in addition to having broken the law by entering and working in the country without a visa.

For some, labeling Trump as a fascist was simply a political tactic and not something they believed. But many others believe it, as the polling data shows.

Many people, both liberals and conservatives, believe progressives like Good and Pretti are acting out of empathy and sympathy for migrants. But if they are, it is purely ideologically driven, not from any real-world understanding of migrant communities. Few of the white progressives protesting ICE have ever spoken more than a few words to much less gotten to know illegal immigrants, even those who work for them as cleaners, cooks, and gardeners, much less come to understand their lives...

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