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praeyesright.bsky.social
Political Research Associates
@praeyesright.bsky.social
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Political Research Associates. Social justice research and strategy center since 1981. Publishers of The Public Eye magazine
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praeyesright.bsky.social
Following our recent IYR episode, here are some additional resources for further context on the role of local law enforcement in immigration: politicalresearch.org/2025/11/20/n....
REsources: The New Frontlines of Trump’s Immigration Crackdown The Insurgence: Sheriffs, 2024 PRA Presents, wherever you get your podcasts Florida Is the “Tip of the Spear”: How 287(g) Expansion Fuels Mass Deportations, 2025 Jessica Pishko, The Public Eye Image: Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 30, 2018. About 10,000 people gathered downtown and marched through the streets to protest against immigrant children being taken from their families. The protesters called for ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to be abolished. Credit: Fibonacci Blue via Wikimedia Commons
November 21, 2025 at 5:12 PM
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This week marks the start of COP30, the UN’s 30th Climate Change Conference, with notable absences from several U.S. leaders. In this 2024 excerpt from The Exhausted of the Earth, @materialistjew.bsky.social examines the reality of right-wing climate realism. Learn more at https://ow.ly/fKm950Xrkoe.
November 13, 2025 at 7:43 PM
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Following Dick Cheney’s recent death, it’s worth reflecting on his harmful legacy. As a chief architect of the USA PATRIOT Act, he helped expand government power and mass surveillance. In this 2006 article, Abby Scher examines how unlikely coalitions pushed back: https://ow.ly/byuO50Xo0BQ.
When Adversaries Become Allies The Fight Against the Patriot Act and the Surveillance State From the Archives
November 6, 2025 at 7:03 PM
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In the latest episode of Inform Your Resistance, @hialy.bsky.social and Claudia Espinel examine how we can use narrative strategy to fight against authoritarian leaders and the economic system that enables them: politicalresearch.org/2025/10/09/c....
“Trump's second win didn't come out of nowhere. It's the result of decades of corporate backed policies that have really wrecked and configured the material conditions of the working class today … And both major political parties have been a part of this. They've been pushing economic policies that have been putting corporate profits over people's needs. And that's the exact environment that allows or that enables far-right actors to step in "
October 30, 2025 at 4:06 PM
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As ICE raids tear people from their communities, The Public Eye is in solidarity with all im/migrants. Our Fall 2025 issue looks at the movement driving attacks on immigrants from the White House: the anti-immigrant Right: politicalresearch.org/public-eye-m...
October 28, 2025 at 4:54 PM
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In this article, Anita Say Chan discusses how new surveillance technology used by DHS and ICE to track immigrants is rooted in a long history of eugenics. Learn more about the connections between immigration, eugenics and an authoritarian surveillance state here: ow.ly/Tm5t50XcKHs.
DHS’s Immigrant Tracking Tech Lays the Ground for Authoritarian Surveillance By Anita Say Chan The Public Eye Fall 2025 While eugenic disinformation allowed expansive gains in immigration bans at the turn of the century, it proved to be as powerful a tool for conditioning public tolerance for more overtly authoritarian containment measures.
October 16, 2025 at 8:18 PM
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The expansion of 287(g) agreements under Trump are fueling mass deportations and Ron DeSantis’s Florida provides a stark preview of what the future of these policies looks like in practice. @jesspish.bsky.social examines how the anti-immigrant Right is fueling authoritarianism: ow.ly/Hyiw50Xc5Yy.
The Public Eye Fall 2025 Florida Is the “Tip of the Spear” How 287(g) Expansion Fuels Mass Deportations By Jessica Pishko “There is no way to control people entering the country without also controlling those of us who live inside, because limiting immigration always has the effect of limiting civil rights and freedoms for everyone.”
October 15, 2025 at 9:02 PM
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PRA’s @benlorber8.bsky.social defines antisemitism and examines how it has been weaponized to disrupt social justice organizing, fuel White Christian nationalism, and support genocidal and authoritarian policies in this two-part series for @convergencemag.com: convergencemag.com/articles/wha...
What Antisemitism Is, What It Isn’t, and Why It Matters By Ben Lorber What Antisemitism Is Antisemitism has always been deeply interwoven with other types of social domination. It is both a form of bigotry and scapegoating against Jews, and a conspiracy theory that today is stitched into the fabric of white Christian nationalism and its authoritarian culture. What It Isn’t In this moment, antisemitism largely doesn’t manifest in the kind of structural disparities in income, housing, incarceration and the like that characterize systemic racism. But these conspiracy theories remain structural in a different way. They are built into the layer of social storytelling, the ideological fabric that holds public understanding in a country shaped by centuries of hegemonic Christian attitudes. Why It Matters In times of crisis like our own, authoritarian leaders draw on antisemitism as a distinct and powerful narrative tool to consolidate their base, name enemies, and advance their agenda. We must understand and combat antisemitism so that we can protect our Jewish comrades. But ending antisemitism is also crucial to getting everyone free. Antisemitism is a crucial weapon in the Right’s assault on justice movements.
October 14, 2025 at 7:40 PM
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Following our episode on building alternative economic systems, we’ve compiled a list of resources to help you better understand and combat authoritarianism. Learn more here: politicalresearch.org/2025/10/09/b....
REsources: Building Alternative Economic Systems to Fight Authoritarianism with Hialy Gutierrez and Claudia Espinel Media Justice, mediajustice.org Corporate Media Is Capitulating to Trump, 2025 Qasim Rashid, Esq., Let’s Address This with Qasim Rashid Corporatocracy: How to Protect Democracy from Dark Money and Corrupt Politicians, 2024 Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, NYU Press What Is Movement Infrastructure? How Movements Sustain Us Amid Rising Authoritarianism, 2024 Cloee Cooper, The Public Eye
October 10, 2025 at 4:51 PM
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In a Q&A with PRA, Silky Shah, author of ‘Unbuild Walls’, discusses why an abolitionist approach to immigration is needed to combat the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant authoritarianism. Learn more: politicalresearch.org/2025/09/23/w....
“We Must Fight for Everyone” for Immigrant Justice Author Q&A with Silky Shah on Unbuild Walls By Ethan Fauré “The strategy of ‘good’ immigrant versus ‘bad’ immigrant ultimately targets all immigrants. We knew that would happen: As abolition teaches us, that’s how the system works. If you accept that some people deserve such treatment, they’ll expand who’s deserving.“ — Silky Shah
October 8, 2025 at 9:00 PM
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Following our recent episode of Inform Your Resistance, we compiled a list of resources to give you more insight into how anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion organizing reinforce authoritarian norms and politics: politicalresearch.org/2025/09/25/i....
REsources: “It's Never Just About Gender”: Gender and Authoritarianism: PRA Analyzes Trump 2.0’s First 100 Days, Part 2 Authoritarians Must Break Your Will to Resist — So What Can You Do About It?, 2024 Steven Gardiner, Religion Dispatches Capitol Offenses: January 6th 2021 & The Ongoing Insurrection, 2022 Steven Gardiner and Tarso Luís Ramos, PRA Trump 2.0’s First 100 Days: Authoritarian Gains and Consolidation, 2025 Political Research Associates, The Public Eye One Year In: A Q&A with Tarso Luís Ramos on Trump’s First Year in Office, 2018 ,Tarso Luís Ramos and Kathryn Joyce, The Public Eye Authoritarianism, Criminalization, and Reproductive Injustice: A Roundtable Discussion, 2018 ,Annie Wilkinson and Mary Reynolds, The Public Eye The Women Disobey protest against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) "zero tolerance" policy separation children and families at the US/Mexico border. Credit: Sarahmirk via Wikimedia Commons
September 26, 2025 at 8:10 PM
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In this episode of Inform Your Resistance, researchers Annie Wilkinson, @ch4ncie44.bsky.social, and @maryrreynolds.bsky.social are joined by reproductive justice movement leader Norbese Flint to discuss how MAGA weaponizes gender to make authoritarian gains. Tune in now at bit.ly/4mMfgOA.
In this episode of Inform Your Resistance, research analysts Annie Wilkinson, Chancie Calliham, and Mary Reynolds are joined by reproductive justice movement leader Norbese Flint to discuss how MAGA weaponizes gender to entrench authoritarianism. Listen to the full episode at https://politicalresearch.org/2025/09/25/its-never-just-about-gender-gender-and-authoritarianism-pra-analyzes-trump-20s-first-100.
September 26, 2025 at 8:08 PM
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Kirk’s first attempt to fuse education and Christian nationalism was the short-lived Falkirk Center at Liberty University. Kirk and then-Liberty president Jerry Falwell Jr. started the center in November 2019 with the mission to reinvigorate American ideals and “Judeo-Christian values in all aspects of life,” explicitly rejecting Christian “peace” rhetoric to urge supporters to see themselves at war. In March 2020 TPUSA announced the launch of Turning Point Academy, which would “develop and distribute K-12 curricula focused on American history, our founding principles, the Constitution, and economics.” TPUSA under Kirk became a center for multi-platform right-wing content creation as a tactic to stay relevant with a younger demographic. While TPUSA was built around millennial attention and social media virality, in order to maintain that attention it has adopted increasingly aggressive stances, turning the organization into a sustained culture war machine.
September 25, 2025 at 1:38 PM
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Charlie Kirk took Turning Point USA from an organization advocating for free markets to a center for content creation pushing forward his Christian nationalist agenda. Read about the Kirk’s transformation from a free market proponent to a Christian nationalist here: bit.ly/42bPn35.
Who was Charlie Kirk? Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA (TPUSA) focused on conservative economic themes such as free markets in the initial years of its founding. But gradually, Kirk created a new larger “culture war” mission grounded in Christian nationalism. In a 2019 speech, Kirk invited his fellow Christians into a version of culture war tinged with antisemitism. He claimed that liberal philanthropist George Soros, not merely content with “winning at the ballot box,” was funding a program to put liberal pastors in churches across the country. At the February 2020 CPAC convention, Kirk offered his most public endorsement of Christian nationalism yet when he praised Trump as a president who understood the “seven mountains of cultural influence,” a term frequently used by Christian nationalists to refer to various areas of society they believe Christians are entitled to take “Dominion” over through culture and laws
September 25, 2025 at 1:38 PM
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Shanice Octavia McBean and @rachelshabi.bsky.social join us for our final episode of Lifting the Curtain On Antisemitism. Listen in as we explore how progressives can build alliances, challenge false framings around antisemitism, and deepen their understanding of the issue: ow.ly/k56950WZ1m1.
September 18, 2025 at 7:44 PM
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This episode of Lifting the Curtain takes a deep look into the role of antisemitism in the global far-right ecosystem, paying close attention to the U.S. and Germany. Tune in now to listen to the full conversation with @eladn.bsky.social and Dr. Stefanie Schüler-Springorum: ow.ly/zuLJ50WUOC0.
September 10, 2025 at 7:51 PM
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In this episode of Lifting the Curtain, guest host Natasha Roth-Rowland talks to scholars Valentina Pisanty and @jelenasubotic.bsky.social about the anatomy and function of conspiracy theories and the role of antisemitism within them. Tune in now at bit.ly/47v3Bj6.
Lifting the Curtain on Antisemitism episode 2: Conspiracy Theories, Antisemitism, and the Politics of Holocaust Memory with Valentina Pisanty and Jelena Subotić
September 5, 2025 at 10:00 PM
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Listen to the trailer for Lifting the Curtain on Antisemitism, a new miniseries on the weaponization of antisemitism and paths to collective liberation, created by PRA and Diaspora Alliance: politicalresearch.org/lifting-curt.... Tune in on September 3rd for the release of all episodes!
Lifting the Curtain on Antisemitism podcast art
August 29, 2025 at 10:34 PM
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Writer and feminist historian Angela Hume discusses how the anti-abortion movement is designed to inflict harm on women and LGBTQ people. Learn more at ow.ly/GpTZ50WJFtK.
Lessons from Bay Area Radical Abortion Defense From Countering the Ideology of “Violent Care by Angela Hume For five years, Angela Hume interviewed dozens of activists—lay abortion care providers and clinic defenders primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area—listening as they discussed their work from the 1970s to the 2000s. Their work included everything from building abortion clinics, to learning how to perform manual suction abortions and providing them in the community, to defending clinics against militant anti-abortion harassers (“antis”). Of antis, longtime abortion defender Laura Weide told her simply, “They wanted to hit women.” She recalled holding the clinic defense line in the early 1990s against mobs of White men who would punch and kick them. These antis were members of Operation Rescue, a national anti-abortion organization that obstructed clinics in the late 1980s and early 1990s. On any given day, hundreds of its members would blockade a clinic to shut it down. The anti-abortion movement claims that it protects women. But this far-right movement, and the broader Right, actually harms and exploits women. Grasping this contradiction—and how for the Right it is not a contradiction at all—is essential for resisting this fascistic ideology today.
August 21, 2025 at 4:03 PM
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Earlier this year, PRA and our partners hosted a roundtable with gender and reproductive justice activists and change makers to better understand criminalization during this period of authoritarian consolidation. Learn more at politicalresearch.org/2025/03/12/a....
“Everything about our politics and our policies in the reproductive justice movement has to be different. And as we think about what we’re centering, if we put abortion bans and the anti-abortion movement at the center of our organizing, then we aren’t dreaming of what we deserve.“ The Public Eye Winter/Spring 2025 What changes in our analysis if we put authoritarianism and criminalization at the center of attacks on reproductive justice, rather than the anti-abortion movement and abortion bans? Dr. jamila Perritt President and CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health
August 20, 2025 at 8:37 PM
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Following our recent episode of Inform Your Resistance, we have compiled a list of resources to provide you with more insight on how to focus your organizing, right-size the threat, and resist the Right: bit.ly/45vleMY.
REsources: “Do Not Let Grief Harden into Despair”: PRA Analyzes Trump 2.0’s First 100 Days, Part 1 Following our recent episode of Inform Your Resistance, we have compiled a list of resources to provide you with more insight on how to focus your organizing, right-size the threat, and resist the Right: http://bit.ly/45vleMY. Trump 2.0’s First 100 Days: Authoritarian Gains and Consolidation, 2025 Political Research Associates The Antidote to Authoritarianism with Jiva Manske, 2025 Political Research Associates What Is Movement Infrastructure? How Movements Sustain Us Amid Rising Authoritarianism, 2024 Cloee Cooper, PRA Q&A: Harnessing Our Power to End Political Violence: An interview with Scot Nakagawa and Hardy Merriman, 2024 Naomi Washington-Leapheart, PRA Book Review: Commune or Nothing! Lessons for Building Grassroots Power Toward Liberation and Democracy, 2024 Hialy Gutierrez , PRA
August 15, 2025 at 5:41 PM
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PRA’s @benlorber8.bsky.social dives into how Heather Johnston, a little-known Christian Zionist from Alabama, organized the recent congressional visit to the West Bank and why operatives like her shouldn’t be ignored by mainstream media. Read the full article @religiondispatches.org: bit.ly/3URGcRa
Who is Heather Johnston? From Media Fail to Note Christian Zionist Operative Who Organized Congressional Visit to West Bank by Ben Lorber Heather Johnston runs a number of pro-Israel organizations from her home base in Alabama, including the US Israel Educational Association (USIEA) and the National Leadership Center (NLC), a 130-acre ‘Biblical’ retreat center in Ariel visited by the elected officials. For Christian Zionists like Johnston, the creation (or as they would call it, the ‘re-establishment’) of the state of Israel in 1948 represents a partial fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. But it’s just the prelude. They yearn for a spiritual awakening among Israeli Jews, as a further sign of the fast-approaching Messianic End Times. Like many in the NAR, Johnston regularly charges Christian Zionists to be “intercessors” and “watchmen on the walls” in prayer and support for Israel. This Congressional visit was part of an internationally-coordinated Christian Zionist strategy long in the making whose connections are everywhere in the US pro-Israel movement. Unfortunately, since they’re often overlooked by major media their influence can be difficult to spot.
August 8, 2025 at 2:57 PM
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PRA discusses how the forced disappearances and state repression we've seen over the last several months are linked to Christian Zionism and the U.S.'s support for Israel's genocidal campaign and apartheid. Read our full analysis of Trump's first 100 days at politicalresearch.org/2025/06/12/t....
Trump 2.0’s First 100 Days Authoritarian Gains and Consolidation “As Israel annihilates Gaza with U.S. support, decades of White Christian nationalist policy and rhetoric has aligned with Zionist, Jewish nationalist ideology to render the figure of the “brown Arab Muslim terrorist” as an explicit political target to be removed and exterminated in the United States. But today’s targeting of dissidents is not new—it is part of a long tradition of U.S. state repression that has enjoyed bipartisan support while covertly targeting racial, ethnic, and religious minorities—especially those at the center of the Global War on Terror.” – Political Reasearch Associates
July 31, 2025 at 8:22 PM
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1970s Revelations of COINTELPRO and its impact on the broader Far Right led to an increase in hostility between the Far Right and the FBI. In a 1971 speech, the UKA Imperial Wizard Robert Shelton said “[t]he FBI ladies and Gentlemen is no longer the respected and honorable arm of justice that it once appeared to be, it is the pawn of the one-worlders… and we intend to fight them as long as they continue to fight us.” 1990s In 1993, the Waco siege further cemented the sense of betrayal and the anti-government animus that had become central to conservatism. Federal agents’ excessive use of force helped fuse a narrative of political repression and anti-government resentment with standard conservative critiques of government encroachment on gun ownership, federal land regulation, taxes, and religious freedom. Waco marked a pivotal moment for the nascent U.S. militia movement, galvanizing fears of a tyrannical federal government and sparking a militant response that would define the 1990s. Image of the Waco seige. FBI via Wikicommons. Present Now, MAGA denounces the FBI as part of the so-called “Deep State.” One clear example is Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who began selling “Defund the FBI” and “Enemy of the State” merchandise after the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Before his confirmation as FBI Director, Kash Patel promised to shutter the FBI headquarters and turn it into a “museum of the deep state.” Yet, Patel has recently boasted that he’s restored public trust in the FBI. The bureau, he says, is seeing a record number of applicants, allowing “good cops [to] be cops” again. Classified intelligence material found during search of Mar-a-Lago. On the left is a filing chest made by Sligh Furniture. On the right, the cover of the March 4, 2019 Time magazine. United States DOJ via Wikicommmons.
July 25, 2025 at 7:34 PM
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Faith Lazar details the history of the U.S. Right's relationship to the FBI and the security state, from the early days of the Red Scare to the raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Read the full article here: politicalresearch.org/2025/07/02/d....
The Love-Hate Relationship between the Far Right and the FBI A timeline The Public Eye Summer 2025 Communist vets at Turner’s Arena, circa 1947. Credit: Washingotn Area Spark via Flickr.com. 1940s The FBI initiated investigations into fascist groups during WWII, and continued to do so on a small scale. In 1947, during the Red Scare, the FBI passed a measure called the “Loyalty Order” enabling invasive investigations into Federal employees. Under J. Edgar Hoover’s leadership the FBI expanded its surveillance powers, identifying communism as a pervasive threat in American society. The Right supported the FBI in establishing a massive domestic surveillance apparatus, advocating for the agency’s right to act with little restraint. The Far Right legitimized itself through the FBI, blending anti-communism with virulent anti-statism. DURING BITTER CLASH—Sen. McCarthy, center, confers with Roy Cohn, chief counsel for House Un-American Activities Committee, during questioning of William Taylor. McCarthy indicated he may seek contempt citation against Taylor. At right is G. David Schine.Credit: Los Angeles Times via Wikicommons. 1950s Ultraconservatives viewed domestic subversion as a greater threat than foreign communist forces, and revered figures like Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover as defenders of American values against communism. Time magazine, Volume 70 Issue 15. Front cover is a photograph of a young U.S. Army paratrooper in battle gear outside the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, supporting the school's integration. Credit:Time via Wikicommons. 1960s FBI surveillance of right-wing groups ramped up in the mid-1960s and Hoover and his bureau became the central villain within the far-right imagination. Far-right groups opposed federally mandated integration with vigilante violence and terror directed at Black liberationists and civil rights advocates, leading the FBI to launch COINTELPRO-White Hate in 1964. The program was carried out until 1971.
July 25, 2025 at 7:34 PM