White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller looks on during the signing of executive orders by U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 25, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
JD Vance and Stephen Miller, speaking for the Trump administration, declared war on liberal groups doing the important work of fighting to save democracy, all in the name of avenging Charlie Kirk’s death. The exploitation of a political assassination has been sickening—and dangerous—as MAGA uses it to promote revenge, silence free speech and shut down vital organizations.
These are all the same people who decried “cancel culture” from the left—and we don’t even know the motive of Kirk’s killer!—but don’t expect consistency from fascists. They’re just out for power.
One condition that has set the United States apart from other democracies in which authoritarians have seized power is its strong civil society. The U.S. has been a democracy much longer than Russia, Hungary, Turkey, India and others, past and present, in which we’ve seen strongmen seize control and snuff out democratic institutions.
As such, the U.S. has built a strong, very organized and wealthy civil society that is not nearly as easy to destroy as it has been in fledgling democracies. Universities and colleges, both publicly and privately funded. An unfettered and robust free press. Legal organizations and private law firms doing pro bono work, all guaranteeing a fight for basic protections.
And foundations, often created by wealthy people who have continued to fund them along with average Americans sending in whatever money they can, which have for many decades backed groups fighting for civil rights, women’s rights, separation of church and state, freedom of speech, LGBTQ rights, economic equality and much more. These non-profit organizations help fund other non-profit aid groups and non-profit publications doing investigative reporting and commentary that have been vital.
As the fear that Congress, controlled by a subservient GOP, would do nothing to protect democracy from the authoritarian came into view this year, and as we’ve watched a Supreme Court Trump has stacked doing his bidding, the United States’ civil society has been an important pillar.
That’s why we saw Trump attempting to dismantle it from the beginning of this term, starting with the universities, law firms and the media. After ABC caved in to Trump’s extortionist lawsuit, we saw CBS do the same. Eventually Paramount, CBS’s owner, got its merger approved by Trump’s FCC in a quid pro quo deal in which Trump got a settlement on his frivilous lawsuit, which, like ABC’s settlement, paid Trump’s legal fees and funds his presidential library.
Now CBS’s new owner, Skydance, is under control of Trump supporter Larry Ellison, who is eager to please Trump. In the last week we learned CBS News has hired a MAGA “ombudsman”—an internal censor is a more apt title in this case—with no media experience, who will make sure the network doesn’t stray from the far right agenda.
Ellison is also in talks to bring in right-wing Bari Weiss, who built the conservative Free Press—which he will buy up in the deal—and put her in a top job at CBS News. This will be the first network among the big three broadcasting networks—which are still more watched than cable channels—that looks like its news division will transform into a new Fox News.
Regarding the universities and law firms, after seeing many initially bow to Trump, we finally saw Harvard and several important firms fight back in the courts and win big. That’s been encouraging, and it’s what we must demand.
That’s more important now as Miller and Vance signaled the Trump administration is going after non-profit groups as they use Kirk’s death. Vance hosted Kirk’s podcast yesterday—from the White House—and Miller and other Trump officials came on the program.
Vance was the epitome of the rising fascist, declaring war on “leftists.” He promoted a mass doxing effort to have people who have criticized Kirk fired from their jobs. He called on people who “see someone celebrating Charlie's death,” to “call their employer.” Vance went on: “We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility, and there is no civility in the celebration of political assassination.”
This is the same JD Vance who spoke at the Munich Security Conference in February, where he backed the neo-Nazi party in Germany, the afD, and fought for their right to promote hate speech, saying, “Under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree.”
So much for that.
We’ve already seen people, from TV pundits and newspaper columnists, to teachers and an airline pilot, lose their jobs after making comments about Kirk mostly focused on his hateful, racist, and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. Many were fired after MAGA politicians and groups brought attention to their words. This is a purge, and it’s just getting started.
The Guardian reports an “anonymous website that began collecting reports of anti-Kirk ‘political extremism’ said it had received more than 63,000 submissions.” The New Republic notes that the effort is already out of control, sweeping up people who didn’t even write about Kirk, according to a User Mag report:
Ali Nasrati, 30, said he hadn’t posted anything about Kirk but was still publicly doxed over an account using his name and photograph that made posts mocking the right-wing activist, User Mag reported. This set off a tidal wave of threatening messages and phone calls, sending his mother and sister fleeing from their home and resulting in Nasrati getting suspended (with pay) from his job.
Even more alarming, Vance suggested taking away the non-profit status of the Ford Foundation and George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, referring to an article in The Nation magazine, the renowned progressive outlet which he clearly wants to shut down. The Washington Post reports neither group actually currently funds The Nation:
Vance called out the “generous tax treatment” that George Soros’s Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation receive as he accused the groups of funding a “disgusting article” in the Nation magazine that he said was used to justify Kirk’s death. Neither group appears to have provided money to the Nation in the past five years.
'The moves underscore the extraordinary amount of time and resources the administration has dedicated to advancing the legacy of Kirk and the way officials have harnessed the emotions surrounding his killing to potentially suppress dissent.
Miller said the White House is promoting a list of “left-wing organizations that are promoting violence.”
“Thisis not happening for free,” Miller said. “And so under the president’s direction, the attorney general is going to find out who is paying for it, and they will now be criminally liable for paying for violence.”
As The New York Times reports, investigators believe the suspect in Kirk’s killing, Tyler Robinson, acted alone. But the paper noted the White House is implying some sort of coordination with progressive groups. This as Trump claimed political violence is coming from the left while he ignored the vast majority of political violence, which is directed at Democrats from MAGA killers, like the man who shot and killed Minnesota Democratic legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband in their home a few months ago:
But Mr. Trump and his top allies suggested that the suspect was part of a coordinated movement that was fomenting violence against conservatives, without presenting evidence that such a network existed. America has seen a wave of violence across the political spectrum, targeting Democrats and Republicans.
Mr. Trump, who has downplayed violence from right-wing or other supporters, said that he would like to designate a range of groups, including the loosely affiliated group of far-left anti-fascism activists, known as “antifa,” as domestic terrorists and bring racketeering cases against people funding protests.
Trump actually called for using the RICO Act against progressive non-profit organizations.
“We have some pretty radical groups and they got away with murder,” Mr. Trump said, without naming additional groups. He added that he was talking to the attorney general, Pam Bondi, about bringing charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act against “some of the people that you’ve been reading about that have been putting up millions and millions of dollars for agitation.”
Is all of this a lot of bluster that won’t get far, even if they intend it to? Possibly.
That they couldn’t find a connection between their first mentioned targets, the foundations and The Nation—and that The Nation, as a magazine, is protected by the First Amendment—doesn’t bode well for their crackdown. It’s doubtful they will find any group on the left supporting violent action of any kind. Those groups after all have been speaking against gun violence for decades, fighting for gun reform and backing efforts to stem gun violence, domestic abuse and brutality by law enforcement.
This may mostly be about using Kirk’s death to fire up the MAGA base for the mid-terms—as Trump’s numbers are tanking and he can’t get away from the Epstein saga—while setting up JD Vance for a 2028 run.
But with odious Stephen Miller vowing revenge, and seeing what he’s done on immigration, I wouldn’t put anything past them. Part of Project 2025’s plan is dismantling the grip of groups that fight for democracy, and Trump and his allies see an opportunity to damage that robust civil society further. This is when we all have to pay even more attention.