Heritage Action, the political arm of the MAGA “think tank” behind the Trump administration’s Project 2025 policy agenda, is claiming that America’s city streets have been occupied by Marxist rioters to rally support for legislation that would empower President Donald Trump’s Justice Department to more aggressively wage war against the president’s political opponents.
“End the Marxist Occupation of our Streets,” reads a Heritage Action campaign message, which praises Trump's designation of Antifa as a "domestic terrorist organization." The message includes an illustrated graphic of a television “PUBLIC SAFETY ALERT” reading “MARXIST RIOTERS IN YOUR CITY AVOID PUBLIC AREAS AT ALL COSTS.”
The campaign by Heritage Action urges people to petition Congress to pass the Stop FUNDERS Act being promoted by Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Beth Van Duyne, and other MAGA Republicans. FBI Director Kash Patel endorsed the legislation at a congressional hearing last month.
Cruz told Fox News this month that his legislation would allow the Justice Department to “prosecute the money” that is funding “No Kings” protests and suggested without offering any evidence that the more than 200 organizations that have supported the overwhelmingly peaceful “No Kings” protests are part of a “criminal enterprise.”
Advocates warn that the Cruz legislation would, especially in the hands of the nakedly politicized Trump Justice Department, threaten freedom of speech and the right to dissent:
The legislation “would dangerously lower the bar for government investigations into Americans exercising their right to peaceful demonstration,” said Cole Leiter, executive director of Americans Against Government Censorship, a coalition of progressive and labor groups that launched late last year.
“By branding protest as a criminal activity, this bill threatens to intimidate people from engaging in peaceful, lawful advocacy and puts everyday Americans at risk of being dragged into sprawling investigations,” he added.
Trump has publicly demanded that the Justice Department deploy the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act – known as RICO – to prosecute his political opponents and progressive organizations and funders.
The Cruz bill would allow the federal government to, in Cruz’s words, “use the full suite of RICO tools against entities who fund or coordinate violent interstate riots.” According to Cruz’s office, those tools include “joint liability and group prosecution, conspiracy charges, asset forfeiture, and enhanced criminal penalties.” The Cruz press release claims the act would also “deter abuse of nonprofit status and expose hidden financial pipelines behind politically motivated violence.”
In his “war on the left,” Trump and his allies have repeatedly smeared and threatened philanthropists George and Alex Soros and the Open Society Foundations. The Guardian noted recently that Trump’s unsubstantiated claims “provided more specificity to a threat that liberal non-profits have been planning for since his election victory last year: a crackdown on their organizations and major Democratic funders designed to intimidate them from carrying out their work, waste their time with investigations and ultimately hobble the opposition.”
The Open Society Foundations recently responded to Trump administration attacks, saying in part:
Our activities are peaceful and lawful, and our grantees are expected to abide by human rights principles and comply with the law.
These accusations are politically motivated attacks on civil society, meant to silence speech the administration disagrees with and undermine the first amendment right to free speech. When power is abused to take away the rights of some people, it puts the rights of all people at risk.
Our work in the United States is dedicated to strengthening democracy and upholding constitutional freedoms. We stand by the work we do to improve lives in the United States and across the world.
Dozens of civil society organizations have condemned the Trump administration's attacks on the Open Society Foundations. In addition, People For the American Way has denounced “President Trump’s campaign to weaponize the entire federal government against anyone who stands in the way of his destructive agenda.”
Heritage Action is also urging the House to “establish — and dedicate adequate time, authority, staff, and resources to — a select committee to investigate the rise of left-wing terrorism.” In reality, there is evidence that “most domestic terrorists in the U.S. are politically on the right, and right-wing attacks account for the vast majority of fatalities from domestic terrorism.”
