My headline has a double meaning: first, there is the myth pushed by the media and Democrats that the "protests" in Minnesota are peaceful expressions of disapproval, as is rightly protected by the First Amendment, and second, that the "protesters" even intend to be peaceful in the manner that Martin Luther King was in the 1960s.
I have written several times about the level of actual violence in the "protests" actually embody, and it is considerable. And it is not the violence of an enraged mob, but more that of an insurgency that is using lower-level violent tactics to create an environment where violent confrontations happen.
There is the noise, and that noise is in itself violent, as it is high-pitched whistles at 140 db blown into the ears or close enough to cause hearing damage and constant physiological excitation of the "fight or flight" instinct—and there are rocks, bottles, snowballs (often with embedded rocks, and even attacks with weapons like shovels. There is pushing, shoving, and hitting, all in a context of death threats shouted and repeated endlessly.
The goal is to create viral moments, curate them, push them out as propaganda, and coordinate with media and politicians to create a Narrative™.
No doubt many liberals think this is an exaggerated description of what is happening, but it is not. First, a simple demonstration of how disorienting the attacks are. Gather a few friends, give them alarm whistles, have them blow them constantly for a few minutes and then start shoving you.
Even knowing they are friends, you will go mad with fear and rage because the human body and mind are designed to react in such an environment.
But at a more direct level, you need to know that this is all planned and trained before people go out to conduct these attacks. And the reason why is that the consensus on the left is that peaceful protest is, itself, a myth. It doesn't work, and activists need to give up on the idea and go straight to violence.
It's not just Antifa who teach this. Or, should I say, Antifa is just one part of the Black Bloc that uses these tactics. All these groups are intertwined both in their funding and organization, and have sophisticated structures that set up the trainings, move massive resources into targeted areas, and which target different segments of the general population with their messaging.
Different messages to different segments of the population, with some activists cosplaying terrorists, and others cosplaying reasonable advocates for the AWFLs.
I have 20 years of experience in the intelligence community, and yes, what we’re seeing in Minnesota is closer to insurgency than a protest.
— Rick de la Torre (@vrk_rick) January 26, 2026
A protest doesn’t feature thousands of people on comms, tracking law enforcement to sabotage operations, while armed, or using vehicles to… https://t.co/RvysPSVhRV
I have 20 years of experience in the intelligence community, and yes, what we’re seeing in Minnesota is closer to insurgency than a protest.A protest doesn’t feature thousands of people on comms, tracking law enforcement to sabotage operations, while armed, or using vehicles to ram officers.What we’re seeing is highly dangerous, coordinated, and risks escalating into something deeply damaging to the country. We need de-escalation now, and an immediate investigation into the funders and leaders behind this operation.
As a former Special Forces Warrant Officer with multiple rotations running counterinsurgency ops—both hunting insurgents and trying to separate them from sympathetic populations—I’ve seen organized resistance up close. From Anbar to Helmand, the pattern is familiar: spotters, cutouts, dead drops (or modern equivalents), disciplined comms, role specialization, and a willingness to absorb casualties while bleeding the stronger force slowly.
What’s unfolding in Minneapolis right now isn’t “protest.” It’s low-level insurgency infrastructure, built by people who’ve clearly studied the playbook.
Signal groups at 1,000-member cap per zone. Dedicated roles: mobile chasers, plate checkers logging vehicle data into shared databases, 24/7 dispatch nodes vectoring assets, SALUTE-style reporting (Size, Activity, Location, Unit, Time, Equipment) on suspected federal vehicles. Daily chat rotations and timed deletions to frustrate forensic recovery. Vetting processes for new joiners. Mutual aid from sympathetic locals (teachers providing cover, possible PD tip-offs on license plate lookups). Home-base coordination points. Rapid escalation from observation to physical obstruction—or worse.
This isn’t spontaneous outrage. This is C2 (command and control) with redundancy, OPSEC hygiene, and task organization that would make a SF team sergeant nod in recognition. Replace “ICE agents” with “occupying coalition forces” and the structure maps almost 1:1 to early-stage urban cells we hunted in the mid-2000s.
The most sobering part? It’s domestic. Funded, trained (somewhere), and directed by people who live in the same country they’re trying to paralyze law enforcement in. When your own citizens build and operate this level of parallel intelligence and rapid-response network against federal officers—complete with doxxing, vehicle pursuits, and harassment that’s already turned lethal—you’re no longer dealing with civil disobedience. You’re facing a distributed resistance that’s learned the lessons of successful insurgencies: stay below the kinetic threshold most of the time, force over-reaction when possible, maintain popular support through narrative, and never present a single center of gravity.
I spent years training partner forces to dismantle exactly this kind of apparatus. Now pieces of it are standing up in American cities, enabled by elements of local government and civil society. That should keep every thinking American awake at night.
Not because I want escalation. But because history shows these things don’t de-escalate on their own once the infrastructure exists and the cadre believe they’re winning the information war.
We either recognize what we’re actually looking at—or we pretend it’s still just “activism” until the structures harden and spread.
As conservatives are poring through the leaked Signal chats and discovering the network of interconnected groups, including prominent politicians, law enforcement officers, media figures, and even some moneymen organizing and propagandizing, Pravda has pretended the evidence doesn't exist. Zero coverage almost everywhere.
There are training manuals distributed at ICE Out and lots of other training Zooms and meetings where all the tactics are laid out, including explicit calls to violence because "peaceful protest is a myth," yet we get no coverage of any of it.
The media curates what the public sees, including fake "debunks" of proven facts. Academics write books and give lectures about these tactics (approvingly), teach them, often practice them, and there are countless websites explaining the principles and how to execute all this. As is so often the case, it is not hidden; it's just ignored, and if you show people you are a "conspiracy theorist."
As is so often the case, it's not difficult to find the basics; it's all laid out there. While there is operational security in the operations themselves, the strategies and tactics are lovingly described in much the same way that militaries publish their doctrines and teach them openly, while hiding as much of the tactical details of any particular operation.
The orange beanies and the orange whistles are imprints of "Refuse Fascism." That organization was created as a larger activist umbrella to bring into "the resistance" normie progressives (I have an east coast relative who even got roped into their network). But 'Refuse Fascism'… pic.twitter.com/J4AlKuHiEd
— Jeremy Lee Quinn (@jeremyreporter) January 28, 2026
Just as everybody knew that the US might take out Iran's nuclear sites, and in broad strokes HOW they were going to do it, by hiding the tactics and timing of the specific operation, they achieved success. But anybody who claimed the US didn't openly prepare, or that the basics of the operation itself were a shock, is gaslighting you.
The same here. You can figure it all out because the basics are easily available to you. The only reason that most people don't know is that the media collaborates with the insurgents. Propaganda works. I can't tell you how many people I know who were shocked that Biden was senile after the debate, despite all the evidence being clear from 2019.
Propaganda works. A few people break out of it, and they are punished viciously for doing so.
Chamath on the ‘Red Pill’ Moment That Made Him Leave the Democratic Party
— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) January 28, 2026
“I was basically like everybody else and pretty brainwashed … Then over the course of 6-7 years, I realized that some of the fundamental things that I was told about [Trump] were just totally false.” pic.twitter.com/1o6nZCitm2
The same is true here. People are fed a curated, illusory world where these are peaceful protesters viciously attacked by federal agents "occupying" the city. It is crap, and you can demonstrate it to people who are both curious and open-minded.
But propaganda works. Most people are neither.
