logo
Trump's Titushky

Trump's Titushky

Yahoo28-02-2025

Once a government becomes a dictatorship, the regime has a full range of repressive instruments at its disposal, including the police, the courts, the military, and domestic intelligence services, among others. All of these institutions act in the name of the state and its leaders, and ordinary citizens resist them at their peril.
But aspiring authoritarians, those who are still trying to cow the public and consolidate their power over other movements in society, sometimes rely on volunteers—thugs willing to do violence while denying any link to politicians. Such people are useful in creating a sense of ongoing threat while the actual leaders they support can pretend to deplore their activities.
In the 2010s in Ukraine, these men were called Titushky. Named for Vadim Titushko, a Ukrainian who was part of a group convicted for assaulting two journalists in Kyiv, they were supporters of the pro-Russian president at the time, Viktor Yanukovych, and their aim was to intimidate Yanukovych's opponents in Ukrainian society. Analysts at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in 2013 described the Titushky as 'burly guys dressed in sports gear who act as agents provocateurs,' and who 'crack down on protesters or provoke clashes with the aim of tarnishing peaceful protests.'
The Titushky were generally lower-class toughs, and many were recruited for pittances. Some of them ended up in prison. Today, the United States has a homegrown version of its own Titushky: the Proud Boys and other far-right groups that have declared their willingness to engage in vigilantism, some of which include people who were pardoned or had their sentences commuted by Donald Trump for participating in the January 6 insurrection.
One of these now-freed J6ers, the former leader of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, showed up last weekend in Washington, D.C., to crash a conference hosted by a group called Principles First, a nonprofit organization that holds annual gatherings of disaffected conservatives who oppose Donald Trump. I have been a speaker and participant at most of these events over the past five years, and I was there to moderate a panel on foreign policy with Bill Kristol and Garry Kasparov.
[Read: Who will stop the militias now?]
As we returned to the greenroom after the panel, we were told that Tarrio had arrived with some other men and proceeded to confront four well-known figures of January 6: Michael Fanone, Daniel Hodges, Harry Dunn, and Aquilino Gonell, all of whom were police officers during the attack on the Capitol. (Gonell was there to receive an award from Principles First on Saturday afternoon.)
Tarrio's people filmed the moment as they harassed the four men, insulting them and yelling at them, clearly trying to draw the foul and see who would lash out first. None of these experienced law-enforcement officers took the bait, and eventually, the interlopers left before things got out of hand—a smart play by Tarrio, who had been arrested the day before and charged with assaulting a female protester in front of the Capitol. (Tarrio says that she made contact first and says he is sure the charges will be dropped.) At Principles First, he didn't cross that line, but his group's attempts to intimidate other Americans was in the same tradition as the goons in tracksuits who were sent to Ukrainian pro-democracy rallies.
You may wonder, in a busy city full of conferences, how Tarrio and his associates zeroed in on this one particular gathering. Of course, the meeting was hardly a secret: It was a sold-out event attended by more than 1,200 people. Perhaps it was serendipity. Perhaps someone was keeping tabs on the J6 cops or other prominent attendees and panelists (such as Mark Cuban, among others).
Or maybe they were simply following one of the White House–affiliated social-media accounts.
Four days before the conference started, Trump's communications director, Steven Cheung, quote-posted an announcement from Principles First, which had pictures of the featured speakers and a link to the schedule, with the comment: 'Aka the Cuck Convention.' (If you are unfamiliar with the online right-wing-troll vocabulary, many on the far right call conservative anti-Trump apostates 'cucks,' referring to men whose fetish is to watch their wives have sex with other men.)
Cheung then later reposted his, uh, wry observation, in case anyone needed a reminder that the conference was soon to take place. In other words, a Trump administration official, on his official account, pointed to a gathering of the White House's political opponents and applied a label to it that is beloved to its most fringe supporters. A few days later, a group of people led by Tarrio—a man who owes his freedom from his 22-year prison sentence to President Trump—showed up and harassed other Americans in a public venue.
[Read: Trump's pardons are sending a crystal-clear message]
When I told my friend, the journalist and Russia expert Michael Weiss, about the incident, he saw the parallel immediately. 'Yanukovych used state-sponsored thugs to intimidate his opponents in Ukraine,' he said. 'Trump is using pardoned putschists to intimidate his in America.' I'm sure everyone involved can claim that it's just a coincidence, and maybe it was. But the Principles First meetings have been taking place since 2020, and the organization's founder, Heath Mayo, told me that they have never had a serious incident at any of their other events. 'We've had peaceful arguments and outbursts in the room,' he said. 'But this targeted harassment in the hallways from people without tickets was a first.'
The next day, neither Tarrio nor any of his pals returned, but someone using Tarrio's name emailed a bomb threat that specifically mentioned Fanone—the message included his mother's address—as well as other targets. (Tarrio denied any involvement.) After security and the Secret Service, who, according to Mayo, responded because they had a K9 unit nearby, sounded the all clear, the proceedings continued and the conference ended without violence.
During the ceremony for Gonell, Fanone told the crowd that what they had experienced was a small taste of what his life has been like for four years. In the audience, much of what I heard was anger that these January 6 heroes are still being tormented, but, by the evening, the sense I found among most of the speakers and some of the attendees was something more like resignation, a recognition that such moments, with the inherent threat of violence, are now part of daily political life in Trump's America.
Article originally published at The Atlantic

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

There's nothing ‘spontaneous' about radical ICE protests — here are the groups behind them
There's nothing ‘spontaneous' about radical ICE protests — here are the groups behind them

New York Post

time20 minutes ago

  • New York Post

There's nothing ‘spontaneous' about radical ICE protests — here are the groups behind them

The same media who told you in 2020 that the violent Black Lives Matter riots were 'fiery, but mostly peaceful' are at it again, pretending that your eyes are lying to you: No, they claim, there are no rampaging throngs or marauders waving foreign flags and attacking the forces of order. And the peaceful protests in Los Angeles are spontaneous. Nobody is organizing them. Advertisement Or so pretends the media. 'The Trump administration's immigration raids in the California city prompted mostly peaceful protests,' blared the leftwing British paper The Guardian. Of course, these supposedly perfectly serene public gatherings then 'escalated when the president sent in the National Guard — and then the US Marines,' added the Guardian. So, no, the scenes of mayhem and invasion that played on TV for days before the first National Guard unit arrived in the City of Angels didn't prompt Trump to act — don't believe your lying eyes. Advertisement It's like Guardian writer Chris Michael has no idea of the mockery that CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez has succumbed to since August 2020, when he went on air in front of a building engulfed in flames and complete chaos behind him, and a chyron with the 'mostly peaceful' claim. One other key thing that the left-wing media is not telling you is who is organizing the disorder, and who is funding it. Ignoring this aspect leads the public to believe two things that aren't true: that the violence is spontaneous, and that it reflects true national discontent with the deportation raids. Advertisement In fact, the opposite is true. A Polling Insights newsletter that the pollster Scott Rasmussen sends out reports that, 'In the current stand-off, 57% approve of efforts by immigration officials to find and arrest illegal immigrants in Los Angeles. Fifty-two percent approve of President Trump's decision to send in the National Guard.' Other opinon surveys support this trend. So, if the American people largely support the deportation raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who is organizing the riots against them? Advertisement We can see, from the placards and signs captured in photographs, that one key group organizing the protests comes from what one can call the list of usual suspects: the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). The PSL, a communist party, has been involved with BLM and pro-Hamas terrorism violence. The PSL has organizational ties with the ANSWER Coalition, which the Network Contagion Research Institute says has ties with the Chinese Communist Party. ANSWER was involved with organizing a rally in sympathy with the Los Angeles rioters on June 10 in Columbus, Ohio. The PSL is an old-style communist party that will seize on any crises to try to dismantle the United States. It says that 'the United States today is a dictatorship of the capitalist class. This reality will not change without a socialist revolution.' It is funded indirectly by donations from Neville Roy Singham, an American millionaire with close ties to the CCP who lives in Shanghai. Advertisement Elias Rodriguez, the terrorist who shot and killed the couple at the Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, in late May, was a member of both the PSL and ANSWER. Another group involved in organizing the LA riots is the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a radical leftist American union with extensive overseas ties. It is a regular attendee at the conferences and workshops held by the Foro de Sao Paulo, a hemispheric network of Marxist parties founded by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and Brazilian President Inazio Lula da Silva. Advertisement The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights LA (CHIRLA), also an organizer, received $33 million in government grants in FY2023. Then there are the 'charities' helping the rioters, such as Mutual Aid Los Angeles Network, Operation Healthy Hearts, LA Poverty Department, and Mutual Aid/Social Therapy. These riots are sure to expand in the days to come, which means that it is a good thing that some congressmen are looking to investigate who these groups are, and why they are seeking to destabilize our streets. Mike Gonzalez is a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation and co-author of 'NextGen Marxism: What It Is and How to Combat It.'

Trump administration reviewing Biden-era submarine pact with Australia, UK
Trump administration reviewing Biden-era submarine pact with Australia, UK

CNN

time29 minutes ago

  • CNN

Trump administration reviewing Biden-era submarine pact with Australia, UK

US President Donald Trump's administration has launched a formal review of former President Joe Biden's AUKUS defense pact with Australia and Britain to allow Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, a US defense official said. Australia, which sees the submarines as critical to its own defense as tensions grow over China's expansive military buildup, said it remained committed to the project and looked forward to working closely with the US on the review. As well as causing alarm in Australia, the review could also throw a wrench in Britain's defense planning. AUKUS, worth hundreds of billions of dollars, is at the center of a planned expansion of Britain's submarine fleet. 'We are reviewing AUKUS as part of ensuring that this initiative of the previous administration is aligned with the President's America First agenda,' the US official said of the review, first reported by Financial Times. 'Any changes to the administration's approach for AUKUS will be communicated through official channels, when appropriate.' AUKUS was formed in 2021 to address worries about China's growing power. It envisages Australia acquiring up to five US Virginia-class submarines from 2032. Then, Britain and Australia would design and build a new class of submarine, with US assistance. The UK would take first delivery in the late 2030s, with delivery to Australia in the early 2040s. Before that, the US and Britain would start forward rotations of their submarines in 2027 out of an Australian naval base in Western Australia. Vocal skeptics among Trump's senior policy officials include Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon's top policy adviser, who cautioned last year that submarines were a scarce, critical commodity, and US industry could not produce enough to meet American demand. Submarines would be central to US military strategy in any confrontation with China centered in the First Island Chain, running from Japan through Taiwan, the Philippines and on to Borneo, enclosing China's coastal seas. 'My concern is why are we giving away this crown jewel asset when we most need it,' Colby said last year. Only six countries operate nuclear-powered submarines: the US, the UK, Russia, China, France and India. A spokesperson for Australia Defense Minister Richard Marles said the US had informed Australia and the UK of the review. 'AUKUS will grow both US and Australian defense industry as well as generating thousands of new manufacturing jobs,' the spokesperson said. A British government spokesperson called AUKUS 'one of the most strategically important partnerships in decades' that also produces 'jobs and economic growth in communities across all three nations.' 'It is understandable that a new administration would want to review its approach to such a major partnership, just as the UK did last year,' the official said, adding that Britain will 'continue to work closely with the US and Australia … to maximize the benefits and opportunities' of AUKUS. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but one official told Reuters the Trump administration 'is regularly reviewing foreign agreements to ensure they align with the American people's interests – especially those initiated under the failed Biden foreign policy agenda.' US Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said AUKUS was 'critical to ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific' and the administration should work to strengthen it and the US submarine industrial base. 'Anything less would play directly into China's hand,' said Kaine, who represents Virginia, where US submarines are built. AUKUS is Australia's biggest-ever defense project, with Canberra committing to spend A$368 billion ($240 billion) over three decades to the program, which includes billions of dollars of investment in the U.S. production base. On Tuesday, Britain announced plans to invest billions of pounds to upgrade its submarine industry, including at BAE Systems in Barrow and Rolls-Royce Submarines in Derby, to boost submarine production as announced in Britain's Strategic Defence Review. Under this, it will build up to 12 next-generation attack submarines of the model intended to be jointly developed by the UK, US and Australia under AUKUS. In the US Congress on Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said 'we're having honest conversations with our allies' and added in reference to Australia: 'We want to make sure those capabilities are part of how they use them with their submarines, but also how they integrate with us as allies.' Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who signed a previous agreement to acquire French submarines shelved in favor of AUKUS, told CNBC last week it was 'more likely than not that Australia will not end up with any submarines at all, but instead, simply provide a large base in Western Australia for the American Navy and maintenance facilities there.' AUKUS expert John Lee at Washington's conservative Hudson Institute think tank said the Pentagon review was aimed at determining whether it could afford to sell up to five submarines when it was not meeting its own production targets. Kathryn Paik, a Biden White House official now at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, said providing submarines to Australia would not sacrifice US readiness but instead boost collective deterrence. 'This review most definitely makes our allies in Canberra and London concerned, and could cause them to doubt US reliability as an ally and partner,' she said.

Trump Says He Will Set Unilateral Tariff Rates Within Two Weeks
Trump Says He Will Set Unilateral Tariff Rates Within Two Weeks

Bloomberg

time30 minutes ago

  • Bloomberg

Trump Says He Will Set Unilateral Tariff Rates Within Two Weeks

President Donald Trump said he intended to send letters to trading partners in the next one to two weeks setting unilateral tariff rates, ahead of a July 9 deadline to reimpose higher duties on dozens of economies. 'At a certain point, we're just going to send letters out. And I think you understand that, saying this is the deal, you can take it or leave it,' Trump told reporters Wednesday at the Kennedy Center in Washington where he was attending a performance.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store