All posts tagged "protests"

This horrific chaos kills any lingering doubts about America

The top news item about the president’s recent address at Fort Bragg was that the Army vetted the soldiers who appeared behind Donald Trump so that only his supporters were seen in video of the event.

The second news item was that none of them were fat.

All that is terrible enough, but it isn’t the worst part.

The worst part is what the event suggests about the enduring appeal of Trumpism, which is to say, the power of America’s totalitarian drift.

Is it temporary or permanent? Will it die with Trump?

The president’s public breakup with billionaire Elon Musk seemed to suggest it might. Writer Daniel Roberts told me recently that it exposed the fragility deep in the heart of the Trump coalition.

“Without Trump as a unifying figure (and, again, I use ‘unifying’ loosely), it has always seemed obvious to me that this coalition collapses,” Dan said. “They might all still vote Republican, but without Trump, it’s going to be constant internecine warfare between them.”

But then, less than a week later, Musk relented, saying that he went too far. The Trump coalition may be more resilient than we think.

Then there’s Fort Bragg.

It was basically a campaign rally featuring all the familiar gripes and grievances. The difference was the audience, men and women in uniform who enthusiastically cheered and jeered. Trump slandered Joe Biden. He smeared American cities. He railed against “wokeness.”

And they roared in response.

The backdrop, of course, was Los Angeles. The president had dispatched 700 Marines. He commandeered 4,000 of California’s National Guard. ICE and Border Patrol are acting like the president’s secret police, snatching people in the night, attacking citizens for expressing their right of free speech, wearing masks to hide their identity and prevent any attempt at accountability. And officials are using the language of warfare to describe their intended goals.

“We are not going away,” Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem said. “We are staying here to liberate [Los Angeles] from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.”

This is in addition to the hard-to-pin-down sense that politics is coming to an end and that disagreements will be settled by force. This sense has been ambient, but it snapped into hard focus yesterday. Instead of answering questions raised by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) during a press briefing, Noem had him thrown out and handcuffed.

Liberals looked on that moment in disbelief in the same way they disbelieve the regime can accomplish what it’s setting out to do, namely, making America white again. The country is just too diverse, liberals tell themselves. It can’t get rid of millions of people. For that reason, state violence in LA is really the outcome of its impotence.

Yet the president is reportedly planning to expand the use of the Guard in a broader immigration crackdown. In his Fort Bragg speech, he smears Los Angeles, calling it a “trash heap,” invoking the memory of “enemies within” that are, he has said, worse than enemies abroad.

And they whooped and hollered, like the president’s personal army.

Then there’s the fact that Trump is spending tens of millions of dollars on a military parade this weekend, on his birthday, in the wake of his regime’s illegal impoundment of congressionally approved money for everything from cancer research to public libraries. And if you have a problem with the parade, he said, forget about expressing dissent.

Any protest will be met with “a very heavy force,” he said.

If you think handcuffing Padilla was bad, just wait.

“Understand: Nothing Trump does with our military will be to protect the citizens of the United States of America,” D. Earl Stephens told me. “Everything Trump does with our military will be to protect himself from the citizens of the United States of America. Will he succeed?

Earl publishes the newsletter Enough Already and is a regular contributor to Raw Story.

“We are at the most dangerous juncture in America since the beginning of the Civil War,” he told me Thursday.

Trump's armed juggernaut is the final chapter of a horrifying old movie

Eventually, people in countries that are in the process of flipping from democracy to fascism figure out that they’re now living in a dictatorship. By then, however, it’s usually too late.

For people in Hungary, it was May 2020 when Viktor Orbán started arresting people for their Facebook posts. For folks in Russia it was when Alexei Navalny and his supporters were first assaulted in public and then arrested and sent to brutal gulags in Siberia. For Germans, it was July 14, 1933 — six months after Hitler became chancellor — when he outlawed all political parties except his own.

But at first, the steps from democracy to fascism and tyranny always seems like “just another thing the government has to do to deal with a very real problem.” Something that reasonable people would understand and can’t reasonably object to. Something that, even if weird, makes a certain amount of sense.

Until suddenly the mask is dropped and the twisted face of hateful fascism peers out at the country with laser-red eyes and a bloody mouth filled with threats and lies. Wearing camouflage, face masked, carrying handcuffs.

We’re there. Trump and his neofascist enablers started with quiet cat’s feet; now they’re holding a rifle and using a bullhorn.

How do we know that Trump is doing something very different from America’s past, something that inevitably leads somewhere other than democracy?

During the first three months of Barack Obama’s presidency, he deported 63,257 people for being in the country without documentation. Trump’s first three months of 2025 saw roughly 61,060 deportations.

Why is Trump getting headlines — and protesters — with his arrests and deportations while Obama didn’t, even though he deported even more people?

Because, for Trump, this isn’t about deportation or purging the nation of “illegals.” Instead, it’s about making Americans comfortable with authoritarian, police-state tactics. The immigrants are just props, albeit ones that appeal to the racist MAGA base.

Obama deported people based on so-called Morton Memos, also known as “enforcement priority memos,” which required ICE to focus entirely on those undocumented aliens who posed either “national security” or “criminal” threats.

While those arrested and immediately turned back at the border didn’t get a day in court, the people Obama targeted within the US were detained after warrants were issued based on probable cause they had committed a crime or were a threat to America, as the Bill of Rights and US law requires, and each had their day in court where they could claim that they’d been arrested and held without legal justification.

Obama also started Operation Cross Check, organizing coordinated raids across the country targeting aliens with established criminal records, and each arrest required proper legal documentation or warrants.

He also operated his immigration enforcement efforts equally well in Red states as Blue states.

The Biden administration also largely followed the legal structures — court hearings, due process, and enforcement priorities — established under Obama.

But under Trump, in complete defiance of the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th Amendments of the Constitution, ICE officers are arresting people without warrants and imprisoning or deporting then without an opportunity to contest their detention or removal from the country in a court of law.

Why would Trump do this, when both Obama and Biden were able to deport as many or more people while simply following the law?

Why has Trump put the National Guard and Marines in our streets with their guns turned on American citizens?
Why is Trump having federal police carry out high-profile raids in schools, hospitals, workplaces, and courthouses rather than simply showing up at people’s homes after hours and quietly detaining them like Obama and Biden did without all the fanfare? Why all this military theater?
Why is our Secretary of Homeland Security dressing up like an immigration agent to cosplay for the cameras, with the resulting videos being plastered all over social media?
Why is Trump giving a highly political, banana-republic-style speech to active duty soldiers, attacking the previous president and the governor of California with lies and partisan slurs, and none of the leaders of our military stepped in to point out what a violation it was of apolitical American military policy and tradition going back to George Washington?

Because it’s really not at all about undocumented aliens or deportation: Instead, it’s all fascism theater designed specifically and intentionally to get us ready to accept what’s next.

First, you see, they turn their guns and their violations of cultural and legal norms on the weakest and most misunderstood or even hated people in society. For Hitler that was trans people and immigrants. For Mussolini it was labor leaders and immigrants. For Putin it was rebelling Chechens and immigrants. For Orbán it was Roma people and immigrants.

In each case, “regular citizens” quickly got used to police kicking in other people’s doors without warrants, throwing “undesirables” in prison without attorneys or court proceedings, and having masked, out-of-uniform “officers” dragging folks off the streets without identification or justification. After all, it was only “them” who were targeted.

At the same time, each of these regimes began extensive intelligence-gathering operations to identify actual or even potential dissidents and ways they could be broken, whether through exposing secrets like homosexuality or affairs, by bankrupting them with libel suits for speaking against the administration, or even outright arrest on trumped-up sedition charges.

Think DOGE’s pimply-faced incels downloading every single bit of data the government has ever had on you and aggregating it into a massive database this administration can use against you when the time comes.

Next, wannabe dictators always open huge detention/prison facilities with the rationalization that they were for “those people”: the immigrants, Jews, Gypsies, protestors, and communists. Like Trump is doing right now with the multi-billion-dollar private prison contracts he just signed. And his reopening the Guantánamo offshore military prison.

And then, of course, in each case throughout history, the regime’s police, paramilitaries, and ultimately the military itself turn their guns and their new prisons on those same “regular people” who dared speak up, who challenged them politically, or who outed their crimes and corruption.

The first and most important key is always to get the police and the military on the wannabe dictator’s side, so there would be no resistance when the hammer drops.

Thus, on Tuesday, Trump spoke to troops at Fort Bragg, telling them how he was going to bring back the names of Confederate generals to American military facilities, even though those racist, slavery-defending men launched a murderous war against the United States.

“For a little breaking news, we are also going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort A.P. Hill, and Fort Robert E. Lee," Trump said as the soldiers cheered wildly at the name of the traitor Robert E. Lee, who killed more Americans than Hitler or any other single foreign enemy in history.

He then turned to the news media and, in front of these men and women who we have trained to use military arms to kill people, proclaimed to loud boos from the crowd:

“And for a little news for the fake news back there, the fake news, ladies and gentlemen, look at them, look at them all, what I have to put up with. Fake news.”

Author of The Third Reich of Dreams Charlotte Beradt lived through the rise of the Nazis in Germany. She wrote:

“The Nazi official who remarked that people had a private life under the Third Reich only while they were asleep actually underestimated the dictatorship’s powers.”

The data genius, the Elon Musk/DOGE of Germany in the 1930s, was IBM. They organized and kept the data on every German who was Jewish, gay, socialist, or otherwise offended the Nazi regime.

And now comes the beginning of the final stage — much like when Hitler opened Dachau on March 22, 1933, a mere three months after becoming Chancellor — with the announcement in yesterday’s Washington Post:

“The Trump administration is preparing to begin the transfer of potentially thousands of foreigners who are in the United States illegally to the U.S. military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, starting as early as this week, said U.S. officials familiar with the matter.”

Yes, this is an old movie the world has seen several times. That’s why Europe’s leaders are so freaked out about Trump right now.

Back in the early 1950s, Germans who lived through the Nazi era warned Chicago journalist Milton Mayer that they had “become used to being governed by surprise” and told him how each step toward Hitler’s eventual tyranny was incremental. As a college professor told Mayer:

“You see, one doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next.
“You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even to talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not? Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.
“Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. …
“Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.”

We’re already far down the road, step by step, to MAGA tyranny utterly destroying American democracy. Will we finally draw a line and stop this violent, armed juggernaut?

Or will we, like the Germans, Hungarians, Italians, Russians, Turks, Egyptians, and so many others, wait to act until the repression is so obvious it’s undeniable … and unstoppable?

The choice, at least so far, is still ours.

Targeting Trump is not going to crush MAGA — here's where we need to hit

This week saw the five-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd. It seems to have gone by without fanfare. Why? I think it’s because whatever gains were made after his death, in the name of equity, inclusion and justice, have been rolled back by the regime.

I think that’s because most Americans want it that way.

As Alma Rutgers wrote in the New Haven Register: “Now, five years later, George Floyd is all but forgotten. And the hope for change that followed his murder — the promise held by the massive rallies for justice throughout the country and in the heightened public understanding of Black Lives Matter — has been whitewashed away.”

The conventional wisdom is that the last election was decided by inflation, but I would argue it was decided by backlash. The protests that arose in the wake of Floyd’s death were some of the biggest in our country’s history. There was a feeling that something transformational was happening. Marginalized voices were suddenly getting platforms. Most important, respectable white people were taking them seriously.

But like all movements of progress in American history, it was met with reaction. No matter how criminal and constitutionally perverse Donald Trump is, it wasn’t as bad as Black and brown people — and women — getting a say in how the country is run. Sure, voters said they hated high prices. I believe them! I just don’t believe that was their reason for voting for Trump. There was something they hated more, something so normal as to be invisible. Indeed, it was hardly worth mentioning.

Because of the structural and historical power of white power, the political left in America has always been at a disadvantage, but the disadvantages seem greater these days. How do you move the country toward liberty and justice for all when a majority of Americans appears to be indifferent to justice or even hostile toward its administration?

I can’t say I know. That’s why I got in touch with Noah Berlatsky. As the publisher of Everything Is Horrible, a newsletter, Noah has what I don’t have: a sophisticated understanding of the state of the left. In the following interview, we talked about a range of issues relevant to the progressive project. How do we live in a constant state of regression?

JS: In your view, what is the left doing right? What is it doing wrong? Is Bernie Sanders the future or the past?

NB: I think there are a range of lefts doing a range of things, some of which seem like they’re working and some of which maybe less so. The Tesla takedown protests have been quite effective in making billionaire Elon Musk miserable and maybe prompting him to leave the White House, and I think a lot of people on the left have been involved in that.

Part of the putative left I’ve been most unimpressed with is cheering on Musk for gutting the US Agency for International Development. Nature estimates that’s going to kill 25 million people. I know that Ken Klippenstein distrusts all US foreign policy, but you should get it together to oppose fascists when they set out to murder 25 million.

More broadly, I think this is an opportunity for the left, since Trump is radicalizing a lot of people and since the left is generally the group leading the demands to fight — and fighting is very popular with Democrats, and I think in general. I think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has capitalized on this very intelligently, and has rallied a lot of her colleagues and the public to her, even those who might have been skeptical of her in the past.

Re Sanders — I think the rallies with AOC are a way of passing the torch. Which seems like a wise move: he’s 83! He still seems quite fit, but no one lives forever.

JS: Why are some progressives hellbent on overlooking bigotry and giving white working class folk endless benefit of the doubt?

NB: I think that we live in a very racist society, and people across the political spectrum are affected by that in a range of ways. The idea that the white working class represents true authentic Americana, or true authentic class struggle, is appealing to a lot of people, whether right, left or center.

JS: It seems to me that liberals don't talk about masculinity in ways that can counter the rightwing obsession with it. You might be the only one, Noah. Why is that? What needs to be done?

NB: I don’t think I’m the only one! I’ve learned a lot from writers like Kate Manne, Julia Serano, Tressie McMillan Cottom, Adam Jones … I don’t know. Just lots of folks.

I’m not sure the issue is that liberals or the left don’t talk about these issues in the right way, so much as the fact that a lot of people (definitely on the right, but not just on the right) have a lot invested in patriarchy.

So when people talk about issues affecting men, they tend to interpret the problem as being that men aren’t living up to their roles or privileges and rights in patriarchy, rather than thinking about the ways that patriarchy is a cruel system that harms people of all genders.

Just as one example, people talk about a male loneliness epidemic. But, you know, the people who are most horrifically affected by loneliness are people who are incarcerated. We are obsessed with solitary confinement in this country, and we use it to literally drive people insane. Most of those people are men. But they’re men who patriarchy has decided are worthless or don’t matter. We’re always wondering why cishet straight white guys aren’t model patriarchs, rather than looking at who patriarchy is grinding underfoot. Why isn’t mass incarceration seen as a quintessential problem for men in these discussions? It’s pretty clear why, but there are strong cultural and financial incentives not to address it in that way.

What’s to be done is kind of a frustrating question, because there are pretty obvious ways to help men. Stop preventing trans men from getting health care; better worker safety so working class men don’t suffer horrific workplace injuries; free health care so disabled men can get care, etc. There are lots of things we could do that would improve men’s lives, but instead we’re always diverting into talking about saving patriarchy, and then the left gets shamed for not cosigning Jordan Peterson’s hateful rants. We need to stop pretending that the way to help men is more patriarchy when it’s patriarchy that harms them.

JS: There is so much cynicism about public protest, even among progressives. Why is that? And do liberals understand that we're living in the shadow of the backlash against the George Floyd protests?

NB: Public protests have always been controversial. The current attack on pro-Palestinian protest is partly a backlash to the George Floyd protests, but I think it’s also the result of decades of bipartisan bad faith about Zionism and what it actually means on the ground for Palestinian people. There are a lot of liberal Zionists — Jewish and non-Jewish — who are very invested in an idea of Israel as a great triumph of human rights, and they do not want to hear the very ugly downsides.

That’s created powerful incentives to silence people pointing out those downsides. And unfortunately, the right has very adeptly seized on this liberal bad faith to target the students, professors and institutions that should serve as a bulwark against fascism here at home.

There are some signs that some people are beginning to see the evils here, both at home and abroad; like Dick Durbin has been voting against unlimited Israel aid, which is pretty stunning given his history with AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee). At the same time, you know, Chuck Schumer and Jonathan Greenblatt still provide Trump rhetorical cover when he goes after Palestinian protestors. So I just don’t know. It’s pretty bleak.

JS: Someone told me recently that the story no one is telling is the one about liberal resentment, as in: I will gladly suffer to see these Trump voters suffer. What do you make of that?

I’m not sure I’m seeing a lot of that. Or, I guess people are definitely angry, and there’s a lot of rage at the people who brought us to this. But I think in terms of an actual political wish-list or political policies, there’s not a lot of enthusiasm for, like, withholding disaster relief from red states — not least because the people you’d hurt most in those cases are the marginalized people who were least likely to vote for Trump in the first place.

I think we need accountability for MAGA leaders; like, not just Trump, but corrupt judges like Clarence Thomas, corrupt media figures like Jeff Bezos, Republicans who cosigned Trump’s assault on the Constitution, from Mike Johnson on down.

What that looks like, I don’t know. But I don’t know how we move forward if these people remain in power or suffer no consequences for the hatred and misery they’ve spread.

'It's alive!' CNN polling analyst says anti-Trump resistance is officially back

CNN's Harry Enten claimed that the "Hands-Off!" demonstrations that took place in all 50 states over the weekend were a sign that the resistance to President Donald Trump and DOGE's Elon Musk was alive and well.

Organizers told NPR that more than 1,300 rallies took place in what the outlet called, "the most widespread" protests of Trump's second term so far.

"Obviously, getting exact numbers is a little bit difficult, but we can look in the search interest online," Enten said Monday. "Weekly Google searches for 'protests,' — look at this — up 1,200 percent versus a year ago. And it's at, or even exceeding, the levels that we saw during the January 2017 protests, which, you remember, were everywhere...I feel like Frankenstein...saying, the monster, 'It's alive! It's alive!'"

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Enten concluded, "If the resistance was a little bit lacking at the beginning of Trump's second term, it is very much alive now."

Anchor Kate Bolduan asked, "What are you looking at, in terms of the polling on this, the polling on resistance to President Trump, maybe now versus before?"

Enten answered, "One of the best ways we can understand the quote, unquote, 'resistance,' is how strongly folks disapprove of the job that Donald Trump is doing as president."

In November 2018, Enten said voters who "strongly disapproved" of Trump sat at 42 percent, and on Monday, that number was at 43 percent.

"The level of strong resistance to Donald Trump now is matching what we saw back in November of 2018, when, of course, Republicans got swept out of power in the House of Representatives," Enten said. "It was a Democratic sweep. They crushed him — gained 40 seats."

Watch the video below or at this link.

Rudy Giuliani finds a new low: platforming a Nazi

Rudy Giuliani has fallen low in the four years since conducting a press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, which kickstarted the former New York City mayor’s inglorious era of election denialism, indictments, lawsuits, disbarment, debt and bankruptcy.

It’s hard to imagine how the man once widely admired for leading his city in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack could fall any lower. It would take something like hosting a Nazi on his YouTube channel.

Which is exactly what Giuliani did on Aug. 23 following the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where Vice President Kamala Harris accepted her party's presidential nomination.

Speaking on his show “America’s Mayor Live,” Giuliani introduced the 10-minute segment with Rachel Siegel, a woman who drew attention during the previous week for her racist actions, Hitler salutes and antisemitic protests outside the Democratic National Convention.

Rachel Siegel gives a Hitler salute in response to a pro-Palestine protester calling her a white supremacist during a rally on Aug. 20, 2024, in Chicago. (Jordan Green / Raw Story)

Giuliani said on his show that Siegel was 21 years old, suggesting that her youth gave her a unique perspective.

“Therefore, what we thought was we would ask Rachel her view of what’s going on in Chicago and in the United States, particularly with the influence now of this convention,” Giuliani said.

Siegel described herself in the interview as a “lifelong hardcore conservative.”

But four days earlier, in an interview with video journalist Ford Fischer at Chicago’s Union Park — where pro-Palestine protesters gathered to protest the DNC — Siegel had used another word to describe herself: “Fascist.”

Among a dozen or so far-right extremists who sought to infiltrate or otherwise exploit the pro-Palestine protests to promote their own agenda during the week of the convention, Siegel stood out.

On Aug. 19, the first day of the convention, Raw Story observed Siegel holding up a hand-written cardboard sign at Union Square that was replete with slogans attacking Jews, Black people and LGBTQ+ people.

Siegel’s sign read: “F--- n-----s. Go the f--- back to the s---hole you’re from. Jews f--- off. F-----s eat s---. Get AIDS and die!’”

Siegel’s sign also included a hand-drawn swastika.

The following day, Raw Story observed Siegel and another woman holding a banner outside the Israeli consulate in Chicago that promoted the white supremacist conspiracy theory known as the Great Replacement. The banner included the Telegram channel for a white supremacist group.

At least twice that night, Siegel was observed giving straight-arm Hitler salutes, one of which Raw Story witnessed in person.

Siegel’s racist and antisemitic actions were the subject of an article published by Raw Story on Aug. 22.

Ted Goodman, Giuliani’s publicist and spokesman, did not respond on the record to an inquiry from Raw Story about Giuliani’s decision to bring Siegel on the show.

But a video published on X by the @satireAP account shows Goodman walking over to Siegel after dozens of pro-Palestine protesters had been arrested near the Israeli consulate on Aug. 20. The owner of the @satireAP account can be heard in the video mocking Giuliani as “RICO Rudy” while calling Goodman “Nurse Boy.”

“Go hang out with the Nazis, Nurse Boy,” the @satireAP account owner says. “She’s a Nazi. Go get her. Go get her. Follow her. That’s just your type right there.”

The video then shows Goodman and Siegel huddling.

Siegel pulls out her phone as Goodman speaks, and she appears to punch in his number.

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“Did you not see her videos today, Nurse Boy?” the @satireAP account owner says. “Oh, you’re going to be in so much trouble. This is bad. This is a bad look. I’m gonna have the shot. Exchanging contact info with the Nazi…. Bro, you just gave your phone number.”

“That’s a bad look,” the @satireAP account owner continues, speaking directly to Goodman. “Did you see her videos from today?”

“Who is that?” Goodman asks.

“You should have found out before you exchanged info with her,” the @satireAP account owner says. “That’s so bad. She is viral like crazy today here. She’s a literal Nazi, bro. She has the worst racist Nazi sign.”

Goodman ignores the @satireAP account owner, a livestreamer known for trolling Trump associates involved in the effort to overturn the 2020 election.

Goodman turns his camera toward the protesters, and says, “I got friends! All right, guys. Guys! What is going on? Look at these guys.”

— (@)

That was three days before Siegel appeared on Giuliani’s show.

‘You are not colonized; you are conquered’

Siegel altered her message from the time she was protesting in Chicago’s streets to her appearance on Giuliani’s show.

Instead of holding a sign that read “F— off Jews” as she did earlier last week, she told Giuliani that she believes the treatment of the Jews by Hamas is “abhorrent.”

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“If anyone who is an American citizen thinks it is acceptable for a terrorist cell to invade a sovereign recognized nation with its own military, its own set of laws that has existed for decades, and say, ‘Well, we were here first.’ Are you 6 years old?” Siegel told Giuliani. “‘We were here first.’ You were not colonized; you were conquered. When a stronger society or civilization comes into an area, you are not colonized; you are conquered.”

Siegel’s rhetoric echoes Patriot Front, one of the most active white supremacist groups in the United States, which uses the slogan “Not Stolen. Conquered” to describe the relationship between people of European descent and the land of North America.

Siegel also used her appearance on Giuliani’s show to convey a watered-down version of the message on the banner she displayed during the protest outside the Israeli consulate on Aug. 20, the night she exchanged contact information with Goodman.

The banner stated, “Stop the white replacement. Deport them all.”

Siegel emphasized to Giuliani that she is an American citizen and her family members were born in the United States.

“I’m very proud to live here. I would never want to live anywhere else,” Siegel said. “And I feel very much to my core that people who are not grateful to live in this country should leave. If you are not happy, you go to Palestine.”

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Giuliani appeared to be charmed by Siegel, laughing at least twice in response to her remarks.

At one point, following a rant in which Siegel called her progressive contemporaries “hyper-opinionated” and “mentally ill,” Giuliani paused a moment, as if to take it all in, and then blurted out: “I think you’re absolutely right!”

Following Siegel’s guest appearance, one of her followers on X gave her credit for adapting her message to Giuliani’s more mainstream MAGA audience.

“I didn’t hear anything objectionable,” the X user commented. “Not really shilling for Israel. She did a good job considering the audience.”

“I would never!” Siegel replied, adding a smiley face.

Giuliani described himself on the YouTube show as “a very, very strong emotional supporter of Israel.”

Common ground on racist stereotypes about immigrants

It’s been a year for Giuliani.

A very bad year.

Last August, Giuliani was criminally charged in Georgia — alongside former president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump and 16 others — with racketeering and other alleged offenses to overturn the election.

Three months later, a federal jury found Giuliani liable for $148 million in a defamation lawsuit brought by two Black election workers in Georgia.

And last month, he was disbarred in his home state of New York for repeatedly lying about the 2020 election.

The conduct at the heart of the defamation case against Giuliani involves characterizations that play on stereotypes of Black criminality that are deeply rooted in American society.

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During a Dec. 10, 2020, hearing at the Georgia state legislature, Giuliani called attention to “two people” — a mother and daughter who were Black election workers — who he falsely accused of passing USB thumb drives containing manipulated election data “as if they’re vials of heroin and cocaine. I mean, it’s obvious to anyone who is a criminal investigator or prosecutor, they’re engaged in surreptitious illegal activity.”

Following Giuliani’s remarks, the women faced a deluge of racist threats. State investigators found that they engaged in no wrongdoing. And the incident Giuliani described as “surreptitious illegal activity” was nothing more than the two women exchanging a mint.

Prior to Siegel’s appearance on his show, Giuliani played a video clip showing protesters burning an American flag outside the Israeli consulate. He used the clip as a jumping-off point to convey a negative and false — in short, racist — characterization of Palestinian people.

“Don’t go soft on me on Palestinians or we’re going to have a terrible problem here,” Giuliani said. “Palestinians are taught to kill you at 2 years old. They’re taught to kill Jews. They’re taught to kill Americans.”

Noting that Israel’s neighbors have closed their borders to Palestinians seeking to escape Gaza and the West Bank, Giuliani continued: “But we’re supposed to take them. Is there a reason for this? We don’t have enough murder?”

Siegel expressed a similar view — also echoing Trump’s rhetoric — by falsely equating immigrants and refugees with criminality and violence.

“We are living in a death spiral in this nation,” she said. “We have an immigration problem that is murdering children, raping children, and there is no hold on it. There is no gauge on it. We have no idea how many of these individuals are even in our nation.”

During Siegel’s segment, Goodman, Giuliani’s publicist, can be heard speaking off camera as Giuliani asks him to adjust the shot.

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Later, Goodman joined the show as Giuliani lamented that his mayoral legacy has been erased. Giuliani also complained about the cost of housing migrants in New York City.

“It makes me feel exceedingly sad to the point of every once in a while wanting to cry,” Giuliani said.

Giuliani recalled that he recently told a supporter that “the only thing they haven’t ruined is the hope,” adding that someday in the future a leader might come along and pick up where he left off.

“There are men in this country’s history that cannot be replaced, and you are one of them,” Goodman replied.

One person who has not forgotten Giuliani: Trump.

In May, Trump recorded a video greeting that was played at an Italian restaurant in Manhattan where Giuliani was celebrating his 80th birthday.

“You’re a very special guy, Rudy,” Trump reportedly said to the man who for years served as his personal attorney. “Just keep fighting. There’s nobody like you.”

Last September, Trump hosted a fundraiser at his Bedminster, N.J., golf club to help Giuliani cover his legal bills.

Giuliani also still enjoys elevated standing at five colleges that — unlike several others — have declined to rescind honorary degrees they bestowed on Giuliani prior to his current legal troubles.

The schools include Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.; Syracuse University in Syracuse, N.Y.; The Citadel in Charleston, S.C.; St. John Fisher University in Pittsford, N.Y.; and Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore, Md.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Nazi infiltrators lurk at Democratic National Convention protests

CHICAGO — While hundreds of hard left, pro-Palestine activists faced off against Chicago police officers in riot gear outside the Israeli consulate on Tuesday night, agents of chaos lurked nearby.

Nazis and white nationalist provocateurs tailed the protest, along with right-wing media performers seeking potentially violent content for MAGA audiences that support Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

One of the Nazi provocateurs, a woman with purple hair identified by her LinkedIn profile as Rachel Siegel, drew immediate attention before the protest by unfurling a banner before the start of the protest that read, “Stop white replacement. Deport them all.”

ALSO READ: Inside the Democratic National Convention corporate moneyfest

After the police arrested several pro-Palestine protesters by wading into the crowd and grabbing them — sometimes with nightsticks swinging — Siegel stood with a group of right-leaning onlookers observing as uniformed officers led the zip-tied activists into the back of a prisoner wagon.

An unidentified, left-wing woman confronted the group.

“You can shut the f--- up, white supremacist,” she said.

Siegel called the woman a “fat b----” and covered her mouth to stifle a laugh.

“Is that all you have to say?” the left-wing woman asked.

“Filthy old f-----,” Siegel rejoined, and then threw up a straight-arm Hitler salute, waving her arm slightly as if to turn the military salute into a light-hearted gesture of mockery.

One of the right-wing men standing nearby taunted the left-wing woman.

“Blame white people for all your problems,” he said.

“Yeah, blame white people for all your stupid, insignificant problems,” Siegel agreed.

The others in the right-wing group mostly avoided any overt gestures of support for white supremacy, giving them a thin shroud of plausible deniability.

When another woman confronted the man about “hanging out with a literal fascist who hates Jews,” he protested that Siegel was just “making fun” of the pro-Palestine protesters.

Rachel Siegel gives a Hitler salute in response to a pro-Palestine protester calling her a white supremacist. (Jordan Green / Raw Story)

The provocateur playbook

The exchange here in Chicago’s streets illustrates the often murky circumstances surrounding Nazi provocateurs who insert themselves into left-wing protests, especially when they attempt to graft their antisemitism onto pro-Palestine protesters’ opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza.

And while pro-Palestine protesters often let Nazis know they’re not welcome, the aim by the more militant left-wing faction to cause maximum disruption to the Democratic National Convention means they don’t always have much bandwidth to police their own ranks.

The protest, organized by a group called Behind Enemy Lines — a militant alternative to the more moderate Coalition to March on the DNC — named the protest outside the Israeli consulate “Make it great like ’68.”

The term is a direct nod to the troubled legacy of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, when street violence marred the city and doomed the Democratic Party’s prospects ahead of that year’s general election.

ALSO READ: ‘Stop the Steal’ organizer hired by Trump campaign for Election 2024 endgame

“We’re here to make it great like ’68,” one of the protest leaders shouted, as rows of Chicago police flanked the protesters at either end of the 500 block of Madison Street. “In 1968, thousands of people marched on the DNC. Thousands of people made history.”

That 1968 is historic isn’t in dispute. But the allegory today’s anti-war protesters are making doesn’t foreshadow a promising outcome. That year, Republican Richard Nixon won the presidency, which led to an expansion of the war in Vietnam, which would drag on for another seven years.

What these protesters think about that is unclear: Two protesters approached by Raw Story curtly declined to talk.

Separately, a protest leader expressed frustration with “the failure of the left to mount any offensive against this bullshit, to mount any offensive against these pigs.” The goal, he suggested, was not to sway Vice President Kamala Harris to adopt a more even-handed policy on Israel and Palestine, but to “bring the war home.”

“Make the DNC feel what Gaza feels,” he raged. “The f---ing empire has got to burn to the ground.”

Militant pro-Palestine protesters gather in front of the Israeli consulate on Tuesday. (Jordan Green / Raw Story)

The militant, far-left insistence on tearing down the system or entertaining support for a third-party spoiler candidate — as they did when they listened to Green Party nominee Jill Stein at Chicago’s Union Park on Wednesday — creates a magnet for far-right provocateurs looking for openings to inject their ideas into the national discourse.

“White nationalists have a long history of inserting themselves into left-wing spaces in an attempt to provoke conflict and also gain media attention,” Stephen Piggott, a director at the Bridging Divides Initiative dedicated to tracking and mitigating political violence, told Raw Story. “Their presence at the DNC is just the latest example of this tactic.”

‘Get AIDS and die!’

For all the shouting and scuffling, the pro-Palestine protests this week have created minimal disruption for the convention itself.

The protest outside the Israeli consulate on Tuesday took place about two miles from the United Center and likely made next to zero impression on Democratic delegates participating that hour in a ceremonial roll call to nominate Kamala Harris for president.

During a march on Monday, protesters briefly removed a section of security fencing on the outer perimeter, but police officers — there are thousands of law enforcement officials patrolling and guarding the convention facilities — quickly responded and sealed the breach. Other protests throughout the week have remained largely peaceful.

ALSO READ: ‘Absolutely essential’: Son of Oath Keeper Stewart Rhodes is all in for Kamala Harris

That hasn’t stopped Nazis and other far-right activists from nevertheless using the protests to seek attention for themselves.

Siegel, the Nazi who threw up a Hitler salute on Tuesday night, had strolled around Union Park on Monday holding a cardboard sign with messaging lifted from the most vile, abjectly racist, antisemitic and homophobic corners of the internet.

The incendiary slogans on the sign included, “Jews f--- off,” “F--- n------,” and, “F—s eat s---. Get AIDS and die!”

Siegel explained to a reporter that her presence at the protest was meant as a response to both the pro-Palestine protesters’ insistence that Americans care about the suffering in Gaza and a “globalist, interventionist agenda” that sustains U.S. support for Israel.

“I see that this is kind of like an insult to being an American and being an insult to being proud of who you are and having integrity in your nation,” she told a reporter, referring to the pro-Palestine protest. "And I feel personally as a white person that things are kind of getting out of hand for my race. I feel that things are kind of going down the toilet. I feel that we are not being taken seriously as individuals of this nation.”

By Wednesday, the ranks of oddball far-right provocateurs at the pro-Palestine protest at Union Park had expanded to more than a dozen, including one man who carried a swastika flag. While their ideological signaling may have varied, they demonstrated a common affinity for trolling leftists by mingling with one another.

One faction included three men who paraded around with a National Bolshevism flag representing an ideology that blends Nazism with Bolshevism, a political ideology inspired by the communist government of the 1917 Russian revolution.

Paul, one of the men who would only identify himself by his first name, said none of them were actually National Bolsheviks. “It’s a meme ideology,” he said. “I don’t take it seriously.

They were joined by a group of young men from New Frontier, which openly supports fascism and excludes Jews. The five men followed Williams around the park as he carried an American flag.

Williams, who is Black, confronted protesters wearing kaffiyehs — scarves that represent Palestinian national pride — and T-shirts displaying the Palestinian flag.

“America first,” he said. “Put your nation and your people first…. My nation, and my people first.”

Some of the protesters were visibly angered by Williams, and a Black protester called him a “disgrace.” A speaker from the stage urged protesters to not engage with Williams, and eventually, the police escorted him away from the rally.

Nick Sortor, a right-wing video journalist who has been interviewed by Tucker Carlson and Tim Pool, quickly circulated a video clip of the confrontation to his nearly 500,000 followers on X that cast the protesters as unpatriotic.

“NOW: This Army veteran is being HARASSED by ‘protestors’ at Union Park in Chicago simply for flying an American flag and saying ‘America First,” Sortor’s post reads. “These people aren’t just anti-Israel. They’re ANTI-AMERICA.”

Making the issue of Nazi provocateurs even more murky, some Nazis have claimed that Siegel is a Jew, notwithstanding the fact that her sign on Monday included the invective, ‘F— off Jews.”

The banner that Siegel displayed promoting the false Great Replacement conspiracy theory included an address for a Telegram channel of a white supremacist group that calls itself “White Lives Matter.”

On Wednesday morning, the white supremacist group disavowed Siegel. A post on the channel read: “You will never see a jew throwing a roman salute at a legit WLM event. We have no clue who Rachel Siegel is, nor have we ever engaged with her.”

Siegel told Raw Story that she’s Persian-Russian, and not Jewish.

“That’s false,” she said. “Absolute smear campaign.”

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

Protests have hundreds of Democratic National Convention delegates stuck in buses

CHICAGO — The Democratic National Convention kicked off Monday afternoon to rows and rows of empty seats — at least in part caused by pro-Palestine protests that stranded some delegates attempting to travel from downtown Chicago to the United Center, several miles away.

Pro-Palestine protesters, some of whom attempted to break through security barriers ringing the United Center, clashed with law enforcement officers in the hour before the convention was scheduled to begin.

At least 20 buses filled with members of Democratic National Convention state delegations stopped about a half mile short of the United Center and idled.

"Officer Boyer" with the Kankakee Police Department told a Raw Story reporter, who was traveling with the delegates, that the delegate buses were delayed due to a “barricade."

“They said buses can’t come back yet until they get that under control,” said Boyer, who was providing security on a bus for delegates and declined to give his first name.

Boyer told about 10 delegates on one bus, some from Minnesota and Michigan, that they were “free to go” if they wanted to start walking instead of waiting — but that they couldn’t get back on the bus once they got off.

Three Texas delegates wearing “Ceasefire Delegate” buttons said they got caught up in the "tail end" of the traffic jam. The delegates, who declined to be named, said they weren’t aware of the protestors rushing security barricades.

“We’ve just been shuttling around, enjoying the energy, here, but now I am hungry I will say,” one female delegate said.

Some delegates began to bail out and formed a long line walking toward the United Center — although at least one person in a wheelchair, along with others, stayed put.

A long line of delegates and others who abandoned protest-delayed buses make their way to the United Center in Chicago, where the Democratic National Convention begins today, Aug. 19, 2024. (Alexandria Jacobson / Raw Story)

Mariyana Spyropoulos, an Illinois delegate and commissioner for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, decided to walk down Jackson Boulevard toward the United Center instead of waiting on a bus.

She didn't want to miss any more speakers — Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and President Joe Biden are scheduled to talk tonight — than necessary.

“Who knows how long this will take?” she said. “I know there’s some protesting going on but they didn’t say anything specifically about it, at least to us. I thought gavel time was 5:15 or so, so we’re cutting it close.”

She said she wasn’t concerned about getting into the United Center — eventually.

“Security’s important, and they’re doing their thing. I appreciate that," she said. "We want to make sure everyone is safe and that people are entitled to protest because they have that right as well.”

The Democratic National Convention was scheduled to kick off at 6:15 p.m. ET.

But a delay ensued. Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison and Democratic National Convention Chairwoman Minyon Moore did not take the stage until 6:33 p.m. ET, and after brief remarks, did not officially gavel the convention in until 6:38 p.m. ET.

Hundreds of delegate seats, including many reserved for the delegations of Alabama, Washington and Hawaii, remained empty well into the 7 p.m. ET hour.

‘Make it great like ’68’: Threat of violence looms over Democratic National Convention

CHICAGO — Protests are already underway as the Democratic National Convention begins today, with most of the energy coming from grievances over the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel’s sustained assault on Gaza.

Left-wing protesters promoting an array of causes marched up Chicago’s Michigan Avenue on Sunday and massed outside hotels where delegates are staying. Pro-Palestine protesters disrupted a convention delegate welcome party at Navy Pier.

Much bigger demonstrations are likely today.

Protest leaders expect 30,000 to 40,000 people to show up for the marches against the Democratic National Convention starting this afternoon and concluding on Thursday when Vice President Kamala Harris accepts the Democratic presidential nomination. Security in Chicago is significant in anticipation of violence.

The Coalition to March on the DNC, the umbrella for the left-wing groups, insists that ending Israel’s siege of Gaza will be accomplished by — as a protest spokesperson put it to Raw Story — “building a mass movement outside of Washington” rather than working within the two-party system. More than 40,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza to date, according to Associated Press, and the Israeli bombardment continues to take civilian lives, including 11 children recently.

Other demonstrators are even more confrontational: A group called Behind Enemy Lines calls the Democratic gathering a “genocide convention” and is promoting a protest on Tuesday under the headline of “Make it great like ’68.”

The protesters’ unreserved embrace of the 1968 convention protest precedent, when unrest in the streets marred the Democratic convention in Chicago that year, casts an ominous cloud over the week ahead.

The 1968 convention was a disaster not only for the Democratic Party, which went on to lose that year’s election to Republican Richard Nixon, but also for the anti-war protesters, who would witness a dramatic expansion of the Vietnam war under Nixon’s administration, as one veteran of the 1968 protest has acknowledged.

Now in 2024, Democratic Party delegates representing voters who voted “uncommitted” during Democratic primaries in protest of President Joe Biden’s policies on the war in Gaza, are working inside the party to press Harris to support an immediate ceasefire and arms embargo against Israel.

Layla Elabed, founder of the Uncommitted movement; Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who has a coveted speaker slot at the convention; and Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a physician who has worked at a hospital in Gaza during the war, are among the panelists Monday afternoon at a side event taking place at McCormick Place in Chicago — an official Democratic National Committee venue — to to highlight Palestinian human rights.

Pro-Israel groups are similarly organizing programming to humanize the Jewish victims — about 1,200 people in Israel were killed during Hamas’ attacks on Israeli soil — of the war.

The Israeli American Council, for one, will host a “Hostage Square” — reminiscent of a similar gathering in Tel Aviv, Israel — at a not-yet-disclosed location Tuesday near the United Center.

The presence of right-wing provocateurs intent on playing up chaos by amplifying division around the convention is also a concern, although it remains unclear whether they — or any pro-Donald Trump protesters — will have a significant presence outside the Democratic National Convention.

Regardless, the right-wing backlash against pro-Palestine college campus encampments earlier this year gives cause for concern.

Among the provocations: Zionist extremists attacked an encampment at UCLA in late April, white fraternity brothers hurled racist abuse at a Black woman protesting at the University of Mississippi, and Proud Boys founder Gavin McGinnis showed up at a protest at Columbia University.

The sprawling convention in Chicago — split between two hardened security zones surrounding separate sites at the United Center and McCormick Place, along with hotels where delegates are staying scattered around the downtown Loop — provides numerous touch points for opposing groups of protesters and delegates.

In short, it’s a setup with ample opportunity for provocateurs intent on heightening tension to find targets for adversarial engagement. Still, it’s unclear whether right-wing extremists will mobilize in sufficient numbers to make an impact beyond the gadfly presence standard for political conventions.

A massive security apparatus is assembled in Chicago to grapple with potential threats and unrest.

One of the few far-right groups that has announced plans to be at the Democratic convention this week is New Frontier, a fascist group that is marginal even by the standards of the fractious white nationalist movement.

Andre Williams, the group’s co-leader, showed up at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee with a pistol strapped to his hip and heckled abortion rights activists.

Other far-right figures have talked about showing up at the convention, but they appear to be geared more toward performing media stunts or other low-stakes mischief than counter-protesting or propagating violence.

James O’Keefe, the ousted president of Project Veritas Action, publicly solicited applicants to do “undercover work at the DNC” in a likely effort to generate material for the purpose of embarrassing delegates and party officials.

In a more transparent media stunt, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a prominent election denier and conspiracy theorist, said he plans to show up “incognito” at the convention with Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who faces multiple criminal charges related to his efforts to help Trump overturn the 2020 election.

'Powder keg': Massive security presence on display in Chicago amid signs of trouble

CHICAGO — Local and national law enforcement officials are ready for battle ahead of this week’s Democratic National Convention, and their presence is, seemingly, everywhere on the ground and water and in the air.

While national party leaders, local officials and the thousands of delegates descending on Chicago are hoping for peace, everyone is braced for violence.

A technician adjusts a solar-powered security camera tower outside McCormick Place in Chicago on Aug. 18, 2024. McCormick Place is hosting many of the daytime events associated with the Democratic National Convention. (Dave Levinthal / Raw Story)

ALSO READ: Democrats compete with ultimate Trump billboard during national convention

Tens of thousands of protesters are expected in Chicago’s streets this week, ranging from far-left Gaza advocates to — potentially — far-right supporters of former President Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential nominee.

A fleet of tow trucks stand at the ready outside security barriers at Chicago’s United Center for the Democratic National Convention. (Matt Laslo / Raw Story)

“I'm seeing the signs of that being a powder keg right now,” John Booras — a former police officer in Chicago’s suburbs and current candidate for U.S. House Illinois District 3 — told Raw Story.

Powder keg or not, Chicago Police — aided by dozens of other local, state and federal law enforcement agencies — are making their presence known at most every turn.

On Saturday and Sunday, Raw Story reporters walked and rode their way through Chicago for a first-hand look at how police were preparing.

A half-dozen Chicago Police officers stand watch outside the Ashland "L" Train station on Aug. 18, 2024, near the United Center, where the Democratic National Committee's evening events are being conducted. (Dave Levinthal / Raw Story)

For the past couple days, tourists visiting the city’s iconic Magnificent Mile — a street that boasts the likes of Gucci, Cartier and Armani — have been greeted with large patrols of roving bicycle officers and a heavier police presence than what’s typical for the glitzy main drag.

Snowplows are being deployed as extra layers of security across Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. (Matt Laslo / Raw Story)

Joining the bike cops are motorcycle cops, horse cops and yes, boat cops on Lake Michigan and the Chicago River.

Overnight, while those tourists were sleeping — or clubbing — the city’s security apparatus quickly expanded, as concrete and steel barriers were erected in several key areas where Democratic National Convention activities are scheduled.

Chicago Police officers fill up their motorcycles during their patrol Sunday afternoon. (Matt Laslo / Raw Story)

Three miles south of downtown — just past Grant Park (home of Lollapalooza), the Field Museum (home of the largest Tyrannosaurus rex on record) and Soldier Field (home of da Bears!) — is the McCormick Place Convention Center where the party is throwing a public "DemPalooza" fest for those without official convention credentials.

It’s locked down, Chicago-style.

A Cook County, Ill., bomb squad truck is parked outside McCormick Place in Chicago on Aug. 18, 2024. McCormick Place is hosting many of the daytime events associated with the Democratic National Convention. (Dave Levinthal / Raw Story)

It’s off-season for the city’s expansive fleet of intimidatingly large, rusty and seemingly immovable snowplows, so they’re being deployed as an extra layer of security — on top of the other extra layers of security — on the city’s snowless summer streets.

All the seemingly makeshift security upgrades from the Chicago Police Department have an ominous feeling about them to Booras, who was working as a part-time police officer in suburban Chicago during the George Floyd protests in 2020.

A Mutual Aid Box Alarm System decontamination truck from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency drives around the perimeter of McCormick Place in Chicago on Aug. 18, 2024. McCormick Place is hosting many of the daytime events associated with the Democratic National Convention. (Dave Levinthal / Raw Story)

"When you have to create borders that are two blocks away … we didn't have these precautions, even back then. We weren't afraid of people the way that CPD and security is afraid of what's coming now,” Booras said. "Where there's smoke, there's fire. For them to do this, there are credible threats coming through."

Federal agents running a security checkpoint near the United Center on the afternoon of Aug. 18, 2024. (Matt Laslo / Raw Story)

But snowplows can only cover the square footage they occupy and law enforcement wants to be everywhere. And they will be with the assist of security cameras, drones, helicopters and air quality sensors.

While many delegates are staying downtown in and around McCormick Place, the convention itself is some three miles away from Chicago’s lakefront at the United Center — home of the Chicago Bulls and Blackhawks — which has also been fortified in recent days.

United States Capitol Police patrol the streets around the United Center Sunday. (Matt Laslo / Raw Story)

Sunday law enforcement officials were seen circling the United Center in a helicopter whose doors were ominously open.

With this year’s Democratic National Convention stretched across the city, there are also troops of bike cops out by the United Center, along with many long gun-wielding federal agents.

A law enforcement helicopter circles the area around Chicago’s United Center Sunday evening ahead of the Democratic National Convention. (Matt Laslo / Raw Story)

The attempt on Trump’s life last month ahead of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee is still fresh on the minds of all the officers assembled in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention, where Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to accept her party’s nomination on Thursday.

Chicago snowplow turned security barrier. (Matt Laslo / Raw Story)

President Joe Biden, who withdrew from the race in mid-July, is scheduled to speak at the convention Monday. Thousands of other dignitaries, government officials and state and federal lawmakers will be in attendance.

Local and national law enforcement officials and security contractors setting up concrete and steel barriers downtown Chicago at 2 am Sunday morning. (Matt Laslo / Raw Story)

"Now, those threats don't always materialize. Fewer are the moments of Butler, Pa., and what happened with Trump there. Way more often do they actually succeed, get it right, stop things before they happen. That's the standard,” Booras told Raw Story. “So, it's highly likely that you won't see the horrific violence that maybe is being threatened erupt, but again, that's not something that I would choose to be around if I didn't have to."

Democratic National Convention protesters win the right to pee

CHICAGO — Thousands of left-wing activists who plan to protest the Democratic National Convention next week won a court battle today, as the city government agreed to allow portable toilets where the protesters plan to march.

Previously, the City of Chicago had argued that portable toilets at Union Park, four blocks from United Center — where Vice President Kamala Harris will ceremonially accept the presidential nomination on Aug. 22 — posed a public safety risk.

The portable toilets, city officials said, could be used to launch terrorist attacks or fashioned into weapons.

“Regarding portable restrooms, these offer a space for concealment of weapons or unsanitary materials that can be used against other persons or law enforcement officers,” Bryan Gallardo, an assistant commissioner at the Chicago Department of Transportation, wrote in a letter to protest organizers on Wednesday. “They can be used as a base from which to inflict mass casualties. They may also be broken down into pieces that can be used as weapons against other persons or law enforcement officers or used to repel law enforcement.”

ALSO READ: How Gaza protesters plan to roil the Democratic National Convention

Gallardo added that “CDOT is not suggesting that your particular group will use these items in these ways,” but said the city was concerned that others might misuse the facilities “to harm members of the public or law enforcement officers.”

The left-wing protest groups are organizing under the umbrella of the Coalition to March on the DNC, which is primarily focused on opposing U.S. support for Israel's war in Gaza.

Faayani Aboma Mijana, a spokesperson for the coalition, told Raw Story that the city's concerns were "bogus," while citing the protest group's due diligence in securing permits, and training parade marshals to guide the marchers and deescalate conflict with counter-protesters.

"We went to great lengths to show that we can have a safe, family-friendly protest," they said.

But in a statement hailing the decision, the coalition described the fight for portable toilets as evolving into “an almost absurd dispute.”

The protest group had filed an emergency motion for a preliminary injunction in federal court to challenge the restrictions, and lawyers for the two sides had been expected to appear before Judge Andrea R. Wood for a hearing this afternoon.

But before that happened, the city agreed to meet the protesters demands, and Wood canceled the hearing.

The city confirmed the agreement on Friday.

“In preparing to host the Democratic National Convention as mayor of the city of Chicago, I have remained committed to upholding the diverse, multi-generational movements that brought me by exercising the right to protest and First Amendment rights,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a prepared statement. “We are focused on collaborative solutions and have extended this approach to our convention preparation to balance the need for security with our commitment to free expression.”

The city’s statement also included march routes for a handful of allied left-wing protest groups staging from Union Park on the first and last days of the convention, but Mijana said the city-approved routes do not meet the needs of the 30,000 to 40,000 people expected to show up for the protests.

The protest groups vowed “to keep fighting through other avenues to extend the length of the protest march route, to allow for more portable toilets, and to allow for tents in Union Park to house medics and media.”

Relatedly, the City of Chicago agreed to allow the protesters to use a stage and amplification system at the park where marches will begin on the first and last days of the Democratic National Convention.