https://www.city-journal.org/article/will-the-left-disrupt-the-inauguration
Left-wing radicals have been mobilizing near the nation’s capital ahead of the January 20 inauguration, which has been moved indoors. Since summer, we have tracked D.C.’s radical networks—their movements, methods, and potential for violence. After George Floyd’s death in 2020, these groups learned that street protests could yield political gains. Now, with Donald Trump returning to the White House, they’re weighing their options.
This network is decentralized, adaptable, and steeped in organizing social unrest. Black Lives Matter messaging is fading, replaced by anti-Israel rhetoric. As Inauguration Day approaches, Communist militants and members of Antifa-aligned hubs have suggested storming the Capitol, bringing “direct action” to the streets, and obstructing law enforcement. If these demonstrations unfold, they will have been carefully planned and ideologically incited by professionals, some visible, others hidden.
The network spans college professors, nonprofit leaders, and masked and often troubled militants willing to engage in violence. Those less directly involved play a sophisticated inside-outside game, relying on prestigious NGOs to provide financing and logistics while maintaining arm’s length control over the more radical elements, which do the dirty work.
Key components of this infrastructure include legal organizations, violent demonstrators, street medics, propaganda specialists, and safehouses, indoctrination centers, and publications. Though some Antifa-aligned groups from prior riots have gone underground or merged, a core network of the most committed activists—veterans and new recruits alike—remains active and prepared.
This is their unmasking.
The militant Left organizes in the light and in the shadows. In the light, the Left has built a significant above-ground infrastructure that preaches abstract ideals—liberation, justice, equality—but operates with a sharper edge behind the scenes.
This upper level includes organizations such as the Open Society Foundations, the Drug Policy Alliance, and the National Lawyers Guild. These groups support a well-funded network that includes dozens of interlocking organizations, providing a level of legitimate infrastructure and cover for smaller nonprofits and other groups, which sometimes fraternize with street-level activists. (We reached out for comment to most of the groups named in this piece; unless otherwise indicated, they did not respond.)