I Need You to Draw a Line
You may lose friends, but you will preserve yourself.
Update 6/1/25: Shortly after I published this piece another terrorist attack against Jews was carried out in the United States. It’s still a developing story and details are slim. The attack was in Boulder, CO. He threw Molotov cocktails at Jews who were trying to raise awareness for the Israeli hostages. His name is Mohamed Sabry Soliman. He was denied a visa in 2005. He yelled “Free Palestine” as he did it.
“I enjoyed your budget summary, she said. “What’s your next piece about? Candace Avalos?”
“She’ll be in it. I’m writing something on the DC Terrorist manifesto and the violent rhetoric the DSA and allied groups have been propagating for the last few years.”
“Oh, okay. Who’s the DSA again?”
My eyebrow crept up. “The Democratic Socialists of America. We have four of them on Council.”
“Oh, right. And… which terrorist?”
“The communist shooter who killed a young couple in DC last week.”
She continues to stare at me blankly.
“Outside the Jewish Museum? The killer released a manifesto that mirrors the language DSA and other “Pro-Palestinian” groups have been using. He was one of them.”
Finally her expression changed, to mild discomfort.
“Oh,” she said, clearly looking for a way out of the conversation.
Being an asshole, I pressed my point. “Just one second. When George Floyd died, how soon do you remember knowing about it?”
She looked at me skeptically. “Almost immediately I guess. The news was everywhere.”
“And in the five years since, have you, even once, forgotten his name or the details of his death?”
Nervous laughter. “Obviously not. It was terrible.”
“Can you tell me a single thing about that young couple in DC?” I asked.
“They were Israeli ambassadors?” she suggested.
“Great,” I replied. “That’s all I wanted to know.”
I have nothing pretty or hopeful for you today, only ugliness. The subject itself is ugly, almost overwhelmingly so. I am asking you to read it anyway. It took me forever to write because every few hours, new bits of information emerged. The new face of progressivism is a machine that churns forth bile at an alarming rate. The Left’s response to MAGA’s ugly rhetoric has clearly been to say “hold my beer.”
I have often joked about how I love being right. I do not love this. It is terrifying and hard to hold onto. I wanted to publish this piece on Tuesday and it has taken me all week to refine it from a long howl of agony and rage into something other than fear and pain.
It is big because the threat is immediate. It is bloated because there is so much I want to say to you. I am desperate for you to hear what we have been screaming. We have to meet hate with a rejection of hate.
“Globalize the Intifada” is reaching its inevitable climax in the United States and it is no surprise. I have called this movement a cancer. I argued that it metastasized. It is time to begin an aggressive treatment protocol.
On May 21st, two young people were murdered in our nation’s capital by a terrorist who espouses the same beliefs as our local communist orgs and “Pro-Palestinian” activists; the same mottos and world view. Now, just like Luigi Mangione, he is being lionized.
You see, the murders took place in a context.
I used George Floyd in my example at the top because it was a national story, not directly connected to Portland, but felt everywhere. It was unavoidable; a collectively experienced tragedy. His death reignited the Black Lives Matter movement and kicked off the loudest and most contentious conversation around race and policing of our era. The wrongful death of a single man was a seismic cultural event.
The exact details of his case and our arguments matter less than the line we drew because of it. The Line We Shall Not Cross was the belief that he should still be alive today — that his death was a tragedy. No context changes that. No argument successfully opens it up for debate.
Now, I want you to imagine a popular group of Portlanders were busy arguing the opposite. That, instead, his death was “to be expected” based on global politics and his identity. Maybe it was even righteous or deserved. Imagine these ghouls worked for, or had connections to, City Councilors, unions, and political groups. Imagine these were groups you knew and previously liked or trusted.
Is this analogy too uncomfortable, so close to the anniversary of Floyd’s death?
Okay, let’s move things closer to home. Imagine, instead, that the infamous MAX Stabber, Jeremy Christian, was being defended — that his murder of two innocent men, attempted murder of a third, and the harassment of two young black women (one of whom was visibly Muslim) which incited that confrontation were being called “acts of resistance.”
How horrible would that be? What questions might we need to ask about local politics that were popularizing such sentiment? Lionizing a racist murderer or dehumanizing victims as mere collateral damage justified by a broader political context.
But that didn’t happen in 2017. We responded by asking who radicalized the killer.
At a May 27 memorial for the men killed in the MAX stabbing, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) described Christian's alleged actions as the logical end point of vicious rhetoric on the far right. "A message of hate leads to violence," he said, "and violence leads to tragedy."
Even Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys moved to distance themselves from Christian’s acts. To be fair, one of the organizations Elias Rodriguez (the DC Terrorist) worked with has publicly distanced themselves from his actions, but not from the rhetoric that animated him. They still share his beliefs about the world, who really controls it, and what should be done about that.
We understood there was a “logical end point” to “viscous rhetoric.” Or, at least, there was on the Right.
Now we have arrived at the destination many Zionist writers have been warning you about. The radical Left are no longer theorizing or joking.1 There is a movement to eliminate us, and it is building courage and support. Perhaps we could have stopped it together, but now it’s time to deal with our failure to do so.
Universities, public schools, political parties, non-profits, local politicians, businesses, and all manner of “peace/humanitarian” activists stood arm in arm with violent terror supporters because they were too weak or lazy to ask difficult questions. Too embarrassed to admit ignorance. Too feckless to do their own research. They were unable to say, with an ounce of conviction, that a movement “for Palestinians” could not be allowed to become a movement against Jews.
The terrorists and their fans told you who they were, repeatedly — as loudly as they knew how. You marched with them. You elected them. Now they are beginning to murder us in the streets and laugh about it.
Antisemitism is not just a Jewish problem. It is a societal disease, an intellectual rot, a spiritual collapse. And if history has taught us anything, it is that what begins with the Jews never ends with the Jews.2
I do not need you to care about Jews. I am past that. I feel some of your rolling eyes and barely controlled sighs of exasperation. The feeling of isolation that comes with that can be crushing, but I cannot control your hearts. I have abandoned the idea that you will ever understand, but they are coming for you too. They’ll never make it, of course. They will burn their movement out after killing who knows how many more of us, serve prison sentences for it, and then move successfully into academia.
As I have said before, they can’t actually take over. They don’t have anything like the German Nazi Party or the Chinese Red Guard, although they’ve already surpassed the Weather Underground in victims.3 They don’t have the courage of their convictions to join a Hezbollah cell or to hijack a plane. They will likely set themselves on fire and shoot us. Bombing is worth worrying about as well.
There is no headquarters. This is Antifa-style militancy. It “doesn’t exist” as a single, targetable entity. The “resistance” is thousands of mentally unstable, radicalized weirdos obsessed with death and revolution — occasionally getting help from terrorist organizations abroad.
Do you think I’m exaggerating? Does some part of you still believe that I live in a heightened fantasy world?
Well buckle up, buttercup. If you aren’t worried, you have no idea what’s going on.
The Act of a Coward
On Wednesday Night, May 21st, a young couple were murdered outside a Jewish Museum in Washington, DC.
Their names were Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky. They both worked at the Israeli Embassy. Sarah was from Kansas. Yaron was from Israel.
I could tell you many beautiful things I have learned about them: that they were attending a young diplomats’ event about humanitarian relief. That Yaron was Christian and Israeli. That Sarah was Jewish and American. That Sarah dedicated her life to peace initiatives. That they were in love. That Yaron was going to propose.
I won’t focus on these things because I don’t want to try and fail to memorialize two beautiful young people I never knew. I will instead bear witness to their murder, and so will you.
A communist extremist, Elias Rodriguez is their alleged murderer. According to witnesses, he walked up and shot them at close range. Yaron died quickly. Sarah tried to crawl away to safety. Rodriguez then shot her several times in the back.
I am sorry for that description but you need to understand who these people are. This was an execution carried out by a domestic terrorist, in public. He was not a “lone wolf” running on drugs and schizotypal theories. He had many friends. His views on politics, and violence in particular, are mainstream on the American Left.
He was there to “free Palestine”—the slogan he shouted after he executed them. According to several witnesses, after the shooting, he reached into a bag, pulled out a keffiyeh and said: “I did this for Gaza.”
There are many accounts of the event; all seem to agree on what happened. A beautiful young couple attending a Jewish peace event were murdered. Rodriguez was quickly identified as being connected to the Party for Socialist Liberation (PSL) in 2017. That group maintains that he is no longer affiliated. I’ve mentioned the PSL several times before.4 They often partner with the DSA and have an active presence in Portland.
Sarah and Yaron worked for the Israeli embassy. I have still not seen convincing proof that Rodriguez knew this. He probably knew that the event was for young diplomats. He likely assumed they were both Jewish, or at least Zionists.
This hardly matters for a moral calculation. If you get wrapped up in the “it was a peace/humanitarian aid event,” Yaron wasn’t Jewish, Sarah wasn’t Israeli of it all —you are missing the forest for the trees.
This little coward acquired a gun, travelled to DC, and waited outside a Jewish Museum to shoot attendees. Full stop. There is no further context needed to render judgment on the main point. If you start down the road of “well, what did Sarah and Yaron think about a two state solution?” you are collapsing your own morality. You have introduced the idea into your heart that there might be a context where they were more or less deserving of what happened to them.
They were innocent. They should not have been murdered. It was monstrous. If you are struggling with this, I want you to log off → walk to the nearest body of water → throw your phone into it → proceed to a church or temple of some sort and start working on yourself. Join a group. Start learning to love life and other people again.
A Common Enough Monster
Elias Rodriguez is a monster, but not just because he murdered two people in cold blood, at point-blank range. It’s actually so much worse. He was an extremely radicalized person who espouses the same views I have heard many times from leftists here in Portland.
Ken Klippenstein got ahold of Rodriguez’s leaked chats. He has a talent for getting access to leftist info, in part because he carries water for them so frequently.
Was Elias an antisemite?
“Unequivocally no,” a woman who knew Rodriguez told me when I asked if he ever made antisemitic remarks. “Everything I know about Elias leads me to believe he acted in protest of the Israeli State and Zionist ideology, not Judaism.”
“He never, ever said anything remotely racist about Jews or anyone,” said another woman who knew him, “not even in a joking way.”
“I would’ve sussed it out, too,” the woman, who identified as half Jewish, said. “People can pick up on stuff like that.”
Fuck off. No one is half Jewish.
There’s an old and crucial joke. Hundreds of versions exist but the construction always involves multiple types of Jews and a bar. I’ll give you an applicable version for today:
A Zionist Jew, an anti-Zionist Jew, and a “half” Jew who befriends communist terrorists all walk into a bar…
The bartender looks up and says “We don’t serve Jews here.”
You don’t get out of it. You’re a Jew.
Rodriguez’s views were extremely pro-violence and revolutionary. He was theoretically pro-genocide as well — it just needs to be the right kind of genocide.
“Lol you probably would have to actually genocide white people to make this a normal country,” Rodriguez wrote in one post. “Like even a very targeted and selective rehabilitation program would probably have to lead to the lifetime imprisonments of tens of millions of white people.”
That might shock you, but if it does, you’ve never spent time with communists. Re-education camps, mass killings, ethnic cleansing. It’s all on the table in pursuit of that better world.
His hatred of Israel was evident in posts he made the day of Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, including:
“Just saw an incredibly gory video of the aftermath of Israeli troops trying to get dressed for the ambush absolutely massacred by hamas [sic] fighters lmao.”
“Love checking back in with the news every few hours like, ‘Hm I wonder if Israel still exists?’”
Asked if he loved it, Rodriguez replied: “You don’t often get to credibly wonder if Israel is over yet today or not.”
Klippenstein is a fool for believing that Rodriguez had no special hatred for Jews, but I give him credit for publishing these logs. It’s important to expose exactly how deep Rodriguez’s hatred for “the Republican and Democratic parties, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, the right and left, the “bourgeoisie,” the United States, the West, and, of course, Israel” goes.
The important lesson to take away from these chats is not how uniquely hateful Rodriguez is. It’s how acceptable or even banal his friends considered these politics.
“It’s driving me crazy that people are calling it a false flag,” a woman who knew Rodriguez said. “This development is shocking but not completely out of character,” she remarked, echoing a sentiment expressed by others. They were at first shocked but not ultimately surprised that Rodriguez did what he did.
“He always had strong political convictions,” the woman said. “From the sound of the manifesto he’s the same as he was.”
In all his rage though, Rodriguez had an almost wide-eyed optimism about the global south, which as a self-identified Maoist Third Worldist, he believed alone had “revolutionary potential.”
“He was a big proponent of ‘the emerging resistance axis’ of Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, Assad’s Syria,” a friend recalled. “He seemed pretty vocally in favor of Hamas for years — way before 2023. He’d always hated Israel and would call it ‘The Little Satan.’”
Everything about those last two paragraphs mirrors rhetoric spewed by political streamer Hasan Piker: the revolutionary potential of the global south, held back by the existence of America and Israel. “Death to America” is so fucking lame, but here we are. It has never been about Palestine.
Piker is the radical left’s Jon Stewart, if you can imagine Stewart sitting at his desk on September 12th, 2001 and telling New Yorkers they had it coming — to rapturous applause.
Here’s a nice little bit of Hasan Piker comparing Rodriguez to Luigi Mangione… favorably. This guy is an unbelievable pro-terrorist scumbag. But hey, so are your kids’ teachers who watch him.5 Exciting times we’re living in.
To learn more about Piker, you can watch the video linked in Why I Tore Down a Women’s March Poster or read this piece from Julia Wald:
The short of it? Keep your kids away from Hasan. He makes Alex Jones seem almost thought-provoking.
There’s a midsized US city in the Pacific Northwest that Hasan Piker has an enormous audience in. It’s coincidentally a city that listens to a lot of Democracy Now!, also loves Luigi Mangione and was excited to read the manifesto of Elias Rodriguez in zine form…
Of course it’s Portland, OR!
Candace Avalos and the Cartoon Cat
I am writing up a report on Councilor Candace Avalos’s lies and manipulations around the police budget. While I was researching the piece, I came across this comment on her Bluesky post about “proportional representation.”
So, we’ve got a couple of talking points here from the armed cat mascot:
The Metro Chamber and Police Union controlled everything and now they don’t.6
People voted for what they believed and got it.7
“Even this system is a compromise.”
What kind of system would Pusheen-with-a-gun prefer? I think we know the answer.8 Avalos liked this reply, but that’s not evidence of anything except that her support network is rotted through with violent weirdos.
The cat’s followers list is a Rogues Gallery of local Portland shitheads: DSA members, assorted Antifa goons, Alissa Azar is there along with John Hacker, Kat Mahoney9, our old friend Piper, Avalos herself. It’s a pretty long list of people who have used political violence in our streets and/or have advocated for it.
In response to the comments about the Portland Public Safety Budget:
“Outside observers might be shocked to learn that the Portland Police Bureau, famous for gunning people down and even shooting them in the back, apparently has always had tazers at their disposal.”
“As someone who was repeatedly beat, shot at, gassed, and harassed by PPB from 2015-2022 I would love to suggest to Chief Day and the entire bureau a surefire way to earn back my trust. Quit your job. Stay in your suburbs. Hold the riot squad accountable. Unalive yourself.”
Hear that Chief Bob Day? The only thing that will make this forever-masking loser with an anonymous Bluesky account happy would be your suicide.
“But Max,” you may still protest. “These are just words from a troll who hates cops. Where’s the terror apologia and does this person even really exist?”
Yes. His real name is Javier Reyes and he was active from 2015-2022.10 Now he mostly trolls and spreads violent rhetoric when he isn’t loving up on our Progressive Caucus of City Councilors.
In response to an officer involved shooting in 2022, he posted on his (permanently suspended for some reason) Twitter account:
“Liberals will watch the video of what Portland Police did last night and say "would you rather they let him shoot them first?" Yes. Yes I would have. They probably escalated the situation, and he had every right to fight for his life.”
He would have preferred that Officer Mina Cavalli-Singer or her partner had died that day. Javier is very comfortable handing down these judgements. I have seen the video of that shooting and this police statement is accurate:
While attempting to arrest the male suspect, a shot was fired by the suspect, resulting in an officer returning fire. The suspect was declared deceased at the scene.
Nineteen year old Johnathan Worth attempted to resist arrest by shooting a police officer, point-blank. He was stopped with lethal force. The video is horrible and his death is heartbreaking. I have no idea what context led to the 9-1-1 call about the physical altercation he was allegedly having with a young woman. I don’t know what his state of mind was. I know that he tried to shoot someone and was stopped.
Javier would rather he had succeeded and lived; a crucial difference.
This is the soup of hate and violence Portland’s Radical Left swims in. The people who disagree with them deserve death. I won’t even start on Javier’s comments about Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis. Oh, and the only thing in his bio other than pronouns is “From the river to the sea.”
Here Javier is again, in response to the DC Shooting:
“They're going to accuse you of terrorism no matter how polite you phrase your support or how small your action is. There is no point adhering to rules that the other side doesn't acknowledge.
Every single action of defiance pushes our line forward. Zionists fearing for their lives is a good thing.”
In response to a Republican Congressman’s comments on the shooting:
Liberals will condemn you for using violence while they do literally nothing to contain or stop sadistic animals like this guy. Do what you're gonna do. They're going to call you a false flag or an antisemite anyway.
Some additional thoughts about destroying Israel:
No country has the right to exist. To call for a "two-state-solution" at this point is to call for further genocide and apartheid of Palestinian people. There is no scenario where Palestinians are free that includes an Israeli state in the levant. Israelis can go back to Europe. Free Palestine.
Reposting @caoineag.bsky.social
“If you are in ‘Ben gurion’ airport, you are a legitimate target and you fucking know it.”
Honestly, Javier reminds me of Elias Rodriguez and his friends in Chicago. That’s worrisome. What’s worse is that Portland has a lot of these people. Don’t forget our resident Antifa Super Soldier, obsessed with large knives and Zionists.
Tiffany Koyama Lane and the DSA
Councilor Tiffany Koyama Lane has cultivated a reputation for being Portland Nice. So, of course, she was the only DSA member who attempted a “thoughts and prayers” acknowledgement of the DC Terror Attack:
First off, Rabbis4Ceasefire can get bent. They’re hardly better than JVP. Teacher Tiffany only associates with “good Jews” who know their fucking place so of course that’s her source for anything like this. It falls flat because it’s empty hypocrisy.
Koyama Lane associates publicly with violent antisemites who match Rodriguez’s horrible energy and murderous rhetoric. She’s also a proud DSA member. Koyama Lane is still the only candidate for City Council who blocked me on social media for asking if she was okay with the DSA celebrating the anniversary of October 7th.
She also loves a nice ladies’ night out with DSA co-chair Olivia Katbi, who celebrated loudly during the actual massacre, and hasn’t stopped for the last 600 or so days. Katbi’s history with antisemitism and terror apologia goes back to at least 2016. I've covered her several times but here’s Stop Antisemitism’s feature on her from 2020.
As many other BDS promoters, Olivia Katbi-Smith successfully disguises her Jew-hatred and terrorists’ sympathizer under the mask of social justice activism. It is only a matter of time before we see more and more antisemitic activity from DSA thanks to its leaders like Olivia Katbi.
Then there’s Koyama Lane’s former campaign manager Lydia Kiesling, who testified in favor of cutting the police budget at city hall last week. She couldn’t bear to leave her terror blankie at home for this one, which did undercut the whole “mom of two kids in PPS” energy she was going for. So what did Jihadi Linus have to say?
Measure 110 Good, Cops Bad; incapable of doing anything meaningful like building sidewalks or houses. Scrap ‘em.
When the DSA’s Sarah Milner ran for National Political Committee (NPC), she listed, as a platform point: “We will put Palestine solidarity at the center of our work. We are firmly committed to a real ceasefire, an end to all arms shipments to Israel, and a single, socialist state as an end to the apartheid and exploitation of Palestinians.”
Essentially, From the River to the Sea - Palestinian Communism. Wonderful.
So we’ve got plenty of local DSA members who hate Israel and spread the same sorts of conspiracy and hate that Rodriguez consumed, but do they have a broadly stated position I could reference on the attack itself?
Some of them do. The DSA Liberation Caucus added their support to the Unity of Fields statement.
Excellent statement that we are proud to add our name to. Free Elias Rodriguez and all political prisoners.
Unity of Fields is the domestic terror group who published Rodriguez’s manifesto. From the ADL:
The manifesto, titled “Escalate For Gaza, Bring The War Home” — slogans commonly used by anti-Israel activists, particularly in more extreme, militant spaces — was turned into a printable, distributable zine by multiple anti-Zionist groups. One such example was created and shared by Unity of Fields, a far-left anti-Zionist “direct action network” that supports the targeting of “Zionist” individuals and institutions, which reproduced Rodriguez’s words in a zine that also included prominent imagery of a gun.
Since that announcement, the national DSA have condemned the attack, likely because they want to avoid an ugly FBI investigation. This is a little trick they’ve played for years with their various caucuses. We aren’t all communists, we just have a Communist Caucus (or four). We don’t all support Maoism, we just have a Maoist Caucus. Oh silly, that’s just our North Korean Solidarity Caucus, it doesn’t represent the views of the whole organization.
It’s not very convincing, especially when you’ve had sitting members of Congress leaving your party over its embrace of antisemitism and terror.
Go ask Olivia Katbi how she feels about the DC attack. She’s been pretty quiet on it and her goons have been too busy harassing East Portlanders, but I’ll get to that story soon. An eternal reminder that the Portland DSA celebrated October 7th. There’s no chance they condemn the murder of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky.
So Tiffany Koyama Lane is sad two Zionists were murdered in DC, but she hangs out with violent terror supporters and belongs to a party that condones this type of terrorism. Add in the insane propaganda they echo and a pool of thousands of various online losers looking for a place to vent their frustration…
Eventually someone was going to kill some Zionists. Or someone they thought might be a Zionist. Or just someone standing too close to Jews.
Hands Off Dr Tammy!
Dr Tammy Carpenter is a longtime DSA member, OHSU adjunct assistant professor, and member of the Beaverton School Board. She was involved in the Beaverton Education Association (BEA)’s attempted takeover last month. They mostly failed.
Carpenter, along with DSA candidate Karin Stark (lost) and third grade teacher Rina Miyamoto-Sundahl were also involved in bringing Rethinking Schools to the union hall for their illustrative Palestine presentation.
Now Carpenter has a complaint (or several) filed against her. Hidden at the very end of the School Board Session video from May 29th, you can watch the board vote to refer the complaint to a third party investigator. Only Ugonna Enyinnaya voted with Carpenter against the referral.
Carpenter has been sharing antisemitic conspiracy theories on her personal account for well over twenty months. The post in question that brought the hammer down was this one:
I don’t want to get too lost in the gross content. I could break down every line and show you why this is particularly nasty work, but let’s be kind and just assume Carpenter is a moron; a celebrated, highly educated moron. I wonder where she keeps the Luigi prayer candle in her house… Is it right by the bed or in a strange meditation room where she focuses her stupidity before breakfast each morning?
The source of her post: US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, has a nasty history. They are a primary source of BDS organizing in the US, the forced association of “Palestinian liberation” with socialism, and the promotion of the idea that police brutality in the United States is a byproduct of our relationship with Israel. Oh Omnicause, there you are again. The Jews killed George Floyd, sort of.
The DSA don’t normally react to being labeled toxic and hostile. But this complaint had teeth. From The Oregonian:
“Ms. Carpenter’s attacks on Israel, Israelis and Zionists have no place on a school board. It creates a hostile climate in [the Beaverton School District]. Her activism and posts make Jewish families and students, especially those who are Israeli-born, feel marginalized, alienated, and unsafe,” Horenstein wrote.
At least six others filed similar complaints, leading to the board’s actions.
So parents and Jewish orgs complained about the blood libels and radicalization of students. How did the DSA respond?
They called Jews “a lobby” and used their “Hands Off” language. Trump, Israel, those fucking Jews in Beaverton — it’s all the same. Hold on! Maybe someone should “do something.”11
So far the “something” is protesting Jews (again) and recruiting teachers to mass report the only Jewish member of the school board, Susan Greenberg, for a “bias incident.”
That’s Claire Reneau, a high school French teacher and parent. She’s been a supporter of the DSA takeover and thinks the bigger issue in Beaverton is lying about antisemitism to win elections. Damn Claire, why are so many of your fellow teachers and parents coming to me to share horror stories about their experiences with antisemitism on campus?
It’s really no surprise political violence is ticking up. The DSA is promoting it and the teachers are joining the DSA. It used to be college-level radicalization but they are bringing “the resistance” all the way down to second and third grade.12
Who Else is Radicalizing Them?
Other than their teachers, professors and propaganda from foreign terror organizations?
A lot of DSA folks watch Hasan Piker. He’s very popular in the under 35 communist demo. Another favorite content creator, Noah Samsen recently used a very simple framing to imply Zionists need to be killed. It was cleverly called out by fellow Youtuber Lonerbox here.
Samsen claimed “If we want this ‘genocide’ to stop, we have to escalate.” He won’t say how because he doesn’t want to lose his income. Just… “escalate.” That’s exactly what Elias Rodriguez thought he was doing. It’s what he named his manifesto for.
Even more mainstream progressive journalists like absolute-human-parody Taylor Lorenz got in on the political violence trend. Her YouTube video ‘Somebody needs to do it.’ covers the popular meme of the same name where posters on TikTok and other platforms allude to the need for “somebody” to assassinate President Donald Trump. Lorenz is a mentally broken forever-masker who also fantasizes about a possible future held in the arms of a shirtless Luigi Mangione. She does the journalistic-distance schtick with only a little sincerity. She is pro-Luigi and seems very pro-“it.” She is, of course, a fan of Hasan Piker. The feeling is mutual. They both celebrated the news of Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis. These are ugly motherfuckers. If I get one thing across I hope it’s that.
Now that’s a lot of YouTubers, but I haven’t forgotten TikTok. There’s always your daughter’s favorite, Guy Christensen. (He’s team ‘fully justified’ by the way) He just got permanently banned from all Meta apps for praising political assassinations and encouraging kids to kill Zionists. Dope.
Can you understand the tension I am feeling watching a political party argue to defund the police while many of their members along with the content they consume advocates for my extrajudicial execution?
There is no escape?! That’s a Disney villain line. I want you to remember this when you are nervous to speak up in public about a controversial topic. We are hedging and throat-clearing in private conversations around urban camping bans and these people are having public conversations about who it’s okay to murder.
It’s Cowards All the Way Down
Elias Rodriguez looked up to (was obsessed with?) Luigi Mangione and Aaron Bushnell, who you may remember Councilor Mitch Green eulogizing as “brave.”
They are, all of them, cowards. Mangione is a murderous creep, adored by weak and mentally unstable people. Bushnell died very badly by his own hand. Green probably looks up to both of them, or at least stands aside while his friends do.
That’s the big conversation. What are your comrades doing while you stand aside? What are they promoting? Here are just some organizations that endorse all of the above garbage or happily work with the people who do:
Portland Association of Teachers
Beaverton Education Association
50501 Portland
ACLU of Oregon
Latino Network
APANO
Rose City Indivisible
PDX Renter Power (literally just the DSA)
Renters Action Network
Portland Jobs with Justice
Multnomah County Democrats
Rose City Justice
Portland Japanese American Citizens League
Rising Tide PDX
350 PDX
Oregon AFL-CIO
KBOO
Dyke March Portland
The Marie Equi Center
PDX Queer Meetup
That’s Rose City Justice. You might follow them. The image above contains one fact (in the ugliest form possible) and two lies — blood libels in fact. That is mainstreamed antisemitic conspiracy theory pumped out by one of the largest Black Lives Matter content creators in Portland. The local BLM scene is filled with this trash.
On the anti-Trump end, if you have friends who are attending the No Kings March on June 14th, they will be marching with groups who support killing Zionists. Very similar to the Women’s Day March a few months ago.
The environmental scene is no better. Neither is the cycling community. Every single one of Portland’s progressive communities seems to be occupied by people who have been radicalized to hate Zionists, and now we’re getting shot.
What about LGBT groups? Fully infested. I had a very sad time at Pride last year watching hateful losers scream at Jewish children.
Portland Progressives: you had no fucking moral hygiene or standards, and now Zionists are unsafe in your spaces. It will not stop at us. They also want “the rich” dead, and as we covered last time: “the rich” is just business owners of any size. You are the “capitalist class” to them.
I want to be clear that I am not personally afraid of being killed. It’s just that I have to go out into a world every day and see little red triangles on jackets, “Globalize the Intifada!” sprayed on the side of buildings, keffiyehs around the necks of losers outside in KN95s. ‘I AM LUIGI’ stickers will soon be replaced by ‘I AM ELIAS.’
I have to walk past businesses that went out of their way to be added to a list of anti-Zionist establishments.13 (Fuck you Sports Bra) I am called a Nazi; maybe even worse than a Nazi, so often that it becomes like a hateful tinnitus.
That’s the average Jewish experience in Portland, and everyone is fucking tired of hearing about it. Y’all aren’t hiding it well.
Someone sent this to me last week. I don’t know the original source, and I’m paraphrasing.
“To be a Jew in 2025 is to know that if you were murdered, your family and friends would be forced to watch crowds celebrate your death globally, while millions did nothing at all.”
Not even the empty gesture of a colored square on Instagram. It is a heavy feeling.
A client recently asked if I had the courage to forgive these people. They want me dead, and anyone who thinks the way I do, but do I have the strength of character to forgive them?
I want to believe the answer is ‘yes.’ I think it’s sad that Aaron Bushnell is dead, for example. He chose that fate, but I wish someone had seen something and said something before that point. Elias Rodriguez deserves prison, just like Luigi Mangione. It’s not a matter of hating them. It’s a matter of punishing the brutal assassination of innocent people and setting standards for society. You are not allowed to decide who lives and dies by yourself.
As far as my District’s Councilor Mitch Green and his DSA friends who back all of these monsters and spread this hate? They are clearly fine with my death. Some would cheer for it. Personally, I want them to die years from now, of old age — completely forgotten because we ousted them from power. Perhaps only a historical footnote to guard against this happening again.
The DSA is a hate organization. The American Left is rotted through with dehumanization, violence, and antisemitism. It is time to start drawing some very bold lines and cleaning house. In fact, it is past time, but that is even more reason to begin today.
Additional Reading
Swaths of Anti-Zionist Movement Legitimize Killings of Israeli Embassy Staff at D.C. Jewish Museum - ADL
Murder in the Capital - The Radicalist
Murder by Philosophy: The Peril of Revolutionary Ethics - Elder’s Substack
The Moral Collapse of Hasbara - Philosophy: I Need It
They Globalized The Intifada - The Saulstack
Inside PSL: The Pro-Terror Group Connected to Suspect in Israeli Embassy Shooting - Jewish Onliner
The Democratic Socialists of America Don’t Know If They Should Condemn Murder - The Free Press
Jewish Blood Is Spilled, and the Obamas Stay Silent - The Algemeiner
A Warning - Window Before Death
The Palestinian “Liberation” Movement That Never Was - Inside the Mind of Neurotic Jewish Gay
The Progressives’ Terrorism Problem - Future of Jewish
Three communists accidentally blowing themselves up doesn’t count.
If the teacher is under 35, queer, and radical — they watch Hasan Piker.
The Portland Left’s favorite myth.
We will examine that in the upcoming Avalos piece.
Sisters of the Road scammer, Portland litigant, lawyer. Probably a good friend to have if you’re a fucking terrorist.
Just kidding… unless?
From 17th Annual Northwest Teaching for Social Justice Conference (Sponsored by: Seattle Education Association, Washington Education Association, the Portland Association of Teachers, and Rethinking Schools magazine)
Why Are Schools, Parks, and Libraries Free? Young Learners Critically Analyzing Capitalism
Participants will view examples of lessons and student work in which primary grade students are guided in critically analyzing the basis of capitalism using visuals, storytelling, manipulatives, and role playing, and hands on activities, and connecting to the history of the Portland Black Panther Party and contemporary local mutual aid organizations. Participants will have access to more example lessons to view asynchronously, and have time to discuss with grade-level colleagues how to use similar strategies to make abstract concepts concrete for their learners.
Rina Miyamoto-Sundahl is a 2nd-grade Dual Language teacher in Oregon who strongly believes that young students are capable of understanding the issues that are shaping their lives and futures.
If you think that group is about ending the war, you’re stupid enough for me never to shop with you again.
Great column, Max. (And no f-bombs--inside joke.)
Portland has a very large, very quiet, very intimidated, very outraged, very tired of the same old shit crowd; if they ever rouse themselves to organize and push back at the local thugery, Max will be one of the reasons they saved their city.
Things are moving...slowly (it was designed that way by, among others, the man whose name was erased from one of our high schools). But move it will.
I'm heartbroken and extremely pissed off. I'm reading this after just seeing a video of the psychopath in Boulder, Colorado, shouting "Free Palestine" after launching multiple Molotov cocktails into a crowd. Some were severely burned and are now fighting for their lives. We are in a very dark place in this country.