Trump spoke to nation’s fears of violent overthrow

FPI / July 8, 2020

In a new Rasmussen Just the News poll, half of American voters fear it is at least "somewhat likely" there will be a violent bid to overthrow the U.S. government within a decade.

At least 18 percent think it's "very likely." Among Republicans, 58 percent said it was "very" or "somewhat likely," and Democrats were not far behind at 45 percent.

In his July 3 address at Mt. Rushmore, President Donald Trump addressed those fears.

"Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities," Trump said.

"Many of these people have no idea why they are doing this, but some know exactly what they are doing. They think the American people are weak and soft and submissive," the president said. "But no, the American people are strong and proud, and they will not allow our country, and all of its values, history, and culture, to be taken from them."

Trump said the "radical ideology attacking our country advances under the banner of social justice. But in truth, it would demolish both justice and society. It would transform justice into an instrument of division and vengeance, and it would turn our free and inclusive society into a place of repression, domination, and exclusion."

Bill Gertz noted in a June 3 report for The Washington Times that the Antifa movement "began planning to foment a nationwide anti-government insurgency as early as November 2019 as the U.S. presidential campaign season kicked off in earnest, according to a law enforcement official with access to intelligence behind the shadowy group."

“Antifa’s actions represent a hard break with the long tradition of a peaceful political process in the United States,” said former National Security Council staff member Rich Higgins. “Their Marxist ideology seeks not only to influence elections in the short term but to destroy the use of elections as the determining factor in political legitimacy.”

Added Joe Myers, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official and counterinsurgency expert, “President Trump’s election and revitalization of America are a threat to Antifa’s nihilist goals. They are fomenting this violence to create havoc, despair and to target the Trump campaign for defeat in 2020.”

More generally, senior Trump administration officials and private analysts are warning that the radicals have rushed to exploit recent anti-police protests to set into motion a program of widespread civil unrest, a program that involves using the protests for looting and burning inner cities with the help of criminals and street gangs.

The name Antifa is derived from the Moscow-based Communist International that in 1933 directed the Soviet-led Communist Party USA to form the American League Against War and Fascism. That group was patterned after Germany’s Antifascist Action — or Antifa — formed in 1932.

CPUSA leader Manning Johnson testified to Congress in 1953 that the goal of the front group was never the abolishment of fascism, but rather “the subversion and subsequent overthrow of the United States.”

"Until the riots, the FBI paid little attention to left-wing radical groups and other subversive organizations because of the overwhelming focus of people and investigative resources on the Islamic State and Al Qaida terrorist groups," Gertz wrote.

Higgins noted that, additionally, the FBI has put a much heavier emphasis on investigating right-wing extremists even though these groups are smaller than those like Antifa.

Andy Ngo, a journalist who was beaten by Antifa activists last year, has closely monitored the activities of the group. He recently wrote that the riots around the country are “glimmers of the full insurrection the far left has been working toward for decades.”

Free Press International