A warning every American needs to hear

Jun 27, 2026

At 12:49 p.m. this afternoon, Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, stepped up to the podium and immediately lowered the microphone all the way down to his height before speaking. As he stood before a packed ballroom of conservative influencers, Republican donors, elected officials, and evangelical leaders at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s 2026 Road to Majority Conference inside the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C., he opened with a joke about his short stature. From there, he spent a few moments praising the conservative movement inside the room, quoted Scripture, and then launched into a drawn-out declaration that the foundations of America were under violent attack, and attempted to build the case that the American left was no longer a political opposition, but an internal enemy to be feared, one made up of Marxists and communists.

But Mike Johnson wasn’t there to lay out a vision for America. He was there to convince a room full of powerful people that if Republicans lost power, they would become the next targets. He was there to scare them into protecting the man in the White House from accountability by threatening their own sense of security.

Johnson only had a little over 13 minutes to speak, so he got to work. He warned the audience that “little mini Mamdanis” were “popping up all around the country running for Congress,” referring to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the wave of Democratic Socialist candidates who won primaries earlier this week. He called them “some of the most radical people who have ever run for office.” He said “the energy, the excitement, the grassroots operation, the money is on the side of the insurgent left, and they are openly running as Marxist communists for Congress.”

Then he made one of the most dangerous comparisons of the entire speech. He said, “When Ronald Reagan was in this very building, you know, decades ago, he talked about the threat of communism. He was referencing something happening as a threat overseas. It’s now on our own shores in our own homeland.”

He continued with what he called a “greatest hits list” of Democratic candidates, rattling off names and accusations, offering no evidence to support any of them. One refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance. One has “ties to al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.” One performed a “Satanist wedding.” One “apologizes for being white.” It wasn’t meant to inform the audience. It was meant to convince them that the people on the other side of the political aisle weren’t simply wrong. They were dangerous.

He cited a poll claiming only 29 percent of Democratic voters say they are proud to be American and that over half want to live in another country. Then the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, third in line to the presidency, paused and said, “Go, go, go. We can’t deport that many.” The room laughed. He was joking about deporting American citizens for their political beliefs.

And then came the moment that should define the rest of this election cycle. Johnson told the room that if Republicans lose the midterms, “heaven forbid, these Democrats, y’all, impeachment is not even the big concern. They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they’ll go after the president’s family, the cabinet, his donors and friends. Half of you in this room will be targeted. I run the protection program. I’ll take care of you. Okay? We’re gonna win. We’re gonna win the midterm.”

The Speaker of the House just told a ballroom full of wealthy Republican donors and political operatives that his job is not to legislate. It is not to conduct oversight. It is to run a protection program. That phrase, “protection program,” belongs to organized crime. It belongs to the language of people who know there is something to hide and are willing to use power to keep it hidden. And he said it out loud, on camera, at a podium, with pride.

This was the most revealing moment of his speech because it stripped away every pretense about what this fight is really about. The Speaker of the House did not describe Congress as a coequal branch of government charged with holding the executive branch accountable. He described it as a shield, one designed to protect the president, his family, his cabinet, his donors, his friends, and even the people sitting in that room from scrutiny if Republicans remain in power.

That is not how a constitutional republic is supposed to function. Oversight is not political revenge. It is one of the most fundamental responsibilities Congress has. When the Speaker openly promises to prevent it, he isn’t describing a legislative strategy. He’s describing a system where loyalty to those in power matters more than accountability to the American people.

What he described sits at the very top of the list of things that keep me up at night. Because we have known for a long time that this is exactly how Republicans have been using their majority. They have repeatedly shielded Trump from oversight, blocked investigations, and protected the people closest to him from meaningful accountability. But hearing the Speaker of the House say it this plainly, knowing the cameras were rolling and the microphones were on, takes it to an entirely different level. It means they are no longer trying to hide what they are doing. They are saying it openly. They are normalizing it. And when corruption no longer feels the need to disguise itself, that should concern every single American, regardless of political party.

Then Donald Trump took the same stage. And where Johnson had built the frame, Trump filled it with something uglier. In a Truth Social post before the speech, he had already written that Democrats were “ruthless Communists” who would “close your churches” and “kill your people.” He called them “animals,” writing, “In many cases, not smart but, in some cases, they are.” He said, “Assassinations of those who oppose them is a very important element of their Ideology.” And then, standing at the podium, he repeated it. He called the Democratic Socialist primary winners “the greatest threat to our country since its founding, in my opinion, 250 years ago.”

These are elected officials and a sitting president calling American citizens animals. Calling political opponents an existential threat to civilization. Calling democratic participation a form of warfare. And they are doing it deliberately, because they know exactly what happens when a government tells its people that their neighbors are the enemy.

And we need to talk about the word they chose. Communism. They reached for the single most emotionally loaded word in the American political vocabulary, and they are using it to describe ranked-choice voting, proportional representation, and rent freezes.

For those of us who grew up in a time when communism was not presented as an abstract political theory, this word carries enormous weight. It was the thing that could end the world. It was nuclear drills in school hallways. It was the understanding that somewhere on the other side of the planet, there were people who wanted to destroy everything we knew. That fear was real, and the threat was real. And the emotional scar it left on entire generations was real. That is exactly why they are reaching for it now.

What Johnson read aloud bears little resemblance to the Soviet Union he was invoking. There is no call for a one-party state, the abolition of elections, or the elimination of private property by the Democrats or those on the left. But he doesn’t care about facts. Because that doesn’t make a room full of anxious donors reach for their checkbooks. “Communism” does.

This is McCarthyism. Not as a metaphor. Structurally. In the 1950s, Joseph McCarthy used the word “communist” to destroy careers, blacklist artists, silence journalists, and criminalize political thought. He did not need to prove anyone was actually a communist. He just needed to say the word, and let fear do the rest. The House Un-American Activities Committee turned congressional oversight itself into a weapon against Americans whose only crime was holding unpopular beliefs. People lost their jobs, their reputations, their freedom, not for espionage or sabotage, but for attending the wrong meeting, reading the wrong book, knowing the wrong person.

And while Mike Johnson was standing in Washington promising a “protection program” for those inside his political movement, a federal courtroom in Fort Worth, Texas, was providing a glimpse of what life can look like for people outside of it.

On Tuesday, eight Americans were sentenced to a combined 450 years in federal prison for their involvement in protests outside the Prairieland ICE detention center in Alvarado, Texas, on July 4, 2025, during which an Alvarado police officer was shot and injured. The person convicted of that shooting, Benjamin Song, received 100 years. But the sentences did not stop there. Seven other defendants, none of whom were convicted of attempted murder or accused of firing a weapon, received sentences ranging from 30 to 70 years. Among them was Daniel Sanchez Estrada. Prosecutors did not accuse him of firing a weapon or assaulting anyone. He was not even at the protest. Instead, they argued that after his wife, Maricela Rueda, was arrested, he moved a box of political zines, small self-published pamphlets about anarchism and anti-government philosophy. For moving a box, he was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison. Rueda received 70 years, while five other defendants were each sentenced to 50 years.

The government’s case went beyond actions and into ideology. Another defendant, Elizabeth Soto, had her home searched by the FBI, which cataloged her printer, paper cutter, and book binder as a “printing press.” Prosecutors also pointed to her participation in a reading group called the Emma Goldman Book Club as part of their case. During sentencing, federal prosecutor Frank Gatto argued that “people with that kind of extremist beliefs need extra time in prison.” Judge Reed O’Connor then said he intended to “send a message to anyone who shares a similar ideology.”

He didn’t say people who committed similar crimes. He said people who shared a similar ideology. That is what makes this case so disturbing. It was not simply about punishing conduct. The government’s own arguments repeatedly returned to beliefs, associations, reading material, and political literature. That is exactly why the Freedom of the Press Foundation warned that the zines Sanchez Estrada moved were “no different from the pro-Revolution pamphlets this country’s founders had in mind when they drafted the First Amendment’s press clause.” That is what life looks like outside the protection program.

And that same day, it happened again. In Syracuse, New York, a woman named Paigelynne Gonyea was working as a poll worker at the Central Library during the state’s primary elections when she received a voicemail from a man identifying himself as a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security. He said agents had just been by her apartment and spoken to her husband about a post in which she “doxxed an ICE agent back in January.” The post in question was from January 8, the day after an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother and U.S. citizen, in Minneapolis. Gonyea had shared the agent’s name, which had already been published by the Minnesota Star Tribune, and written, “I think today is a great day for Jonathan to be indicted.”

Gonyea told the agents to come to her polling place because she did not feel safe meeting them outside. “I’ve seen the news, especially in Minnesota,” she said. “And I didn’t want anything to happen to me at all.” Her fellow poll worker, 70-year-old Sheilia Milledge, agreed. “There’s too many people being kidnapped by ICE and I can’t run behind her,” she said. “I use a cane.”

Two ICE agents entered the polling place. They carried a file on Gonyea that included her name, address, date of birth, height, weight, and eye color, along with printed screenshots of her Instagram posts. They handed her a form letter that read, “YOU MAY BE IN VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW.” The document warned she could face “both federal and state prosecution” if she did not remove her account. They asked her to sign it. She refused.

Based on publicly available reporting, Federal agents intimidated an American citizen over a social media post in which she called for the indictment of a man who shot and killed a mother in broad daylight. The name she shared had already been published by a major newspaper. She did not threaten anyone. She did not incite violence. She expressed a political opinion. And for that, two federal agents showed up at her workplace, at a voting location, carrying her biometric information in a file and a document designed to frighten her into silence. She described the encounter as feeling “very 1984.”

It is illegal under federal law for armed federal law enforcement officers to enter a polling place, although we don’t know if they were armed. But a recently enacted New York state law also bars immigration agents from entering voting sites. David J. Bier, the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, responded by saying, “ICE agents entered a polling place to intimidate a worker about her social media posts. Wouldn’t you quit before you carried out an order to do this?”

This is the system Mike Johnson is describing. This is the protection program in action. At the top, a Speaker who promises donors and officials that no committee will investigate them. At the bottom, a man serving 30 years for moving pamphlets and a woman confronted by federal agents for posting on Instagram. Protection flows up. Punishment flows down. And the word they use to justify all of it is communism.

So what do we do? We look at what was in that ballroom today. We look at the money, the influence, the media infrastructure, the donor networks, and the coordinated strategy that Johnson laid out from that podium. And we build our own. We do not have a lot of time, so we have to get on this now.

As the primaries come to an end, we need to start putting our resources behind our nominees. Our money, our time, our voices, and our energy. If your primary is already over and you know who your candidate is, start now. We have to take back both chambers of Congress. We need to start talking about these candidates, even in casual conversations. We need that name recognition long before the campaign signs and television ads begin to appear. We need to counter the influencers who were sitting in that ballroom today with people committed to telling the truth and helping others understand what is happening.

We are never going to match the money flowing through their donor network. It was one of the biggest advantages they had in 2024. But we do not have to match it dollar for dollar if each of us accepts that we have a role to play. One conversation. One post. One volunteer shift. One donation. One shared article. Individually those things may seem small. Together they become a movement.

As for me, I am more committed to this work than ever. I am finding more content creators, connecting with more people doing this work every single day, and expanding the ways I can reach people because I know how much it matters. I am deeply grateful to every one of you who has become a paid member because your support is what allows me to produce these nightly posts, record more podcasts, create more videos, and keep meeting people where they are. This is more than a full-time job for me. It is a calling. Because I believe, just as they do, that what happens over the five months will shape the future of this country.

The difference is that we have something they don’t. We have the numbers. People are frustrated. People are paying attention. Our job is to keep helping them understand why that frustration exists and why this moment matters. We need people to see that these problems are not solving themselves. They are getting worse. And the more Americans who understand that before Election Day, the better our chances of changing the direction of this country.

Thank you to everyone who supports this work through paid memberships and subscriptions, because that support is part of what makes nights like this possible. And as I always say, think beyond just my voice. Think about the people you go to for news, analysis, organizing, context, and truth. Think about the creators, journalists, researchers, and independent voices who are still showing up every day to explain what is happening, even as the risks of speaking out continue to grow. Check whether they have a paid subscription, and if you are able to support them without hardship, please do.

And if you cannot afford it, please do not stretch yourself to support me or anyone else financially. I keep my posts free for that reason. The truth should never be behind a paywall. This information will still be here for you, and it is able to stay here because the people who do have extra funds support this work with paid subscriptions. That is what solidarity looks like in practice.

Because here is what that speech today actually told us. Mike Johnson is scared. The Republican Party is scared. They are pulling out “communism” and “Marxism” to describe ranked-choice voting and rent freezes because they cannot argue against those ideas on their merits. They are running a protection program because they know what is in the files, what is in the records, and what happens when sunlight reaches the places they have been keeping dark. Johnson stood at that podium and told a room full of the most powerful people in conservative politics that when Democrats take back the House, every committee becomes an investigative body. Democrats have already said they are planning for exactly that. He is not wrong. And the fact that he is this afraid of it tells us everything we need to know about how much they have been hiding and how much our resistance is working.

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