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On the eve of The inauguration of newly elected President Donald TrumpA multi-million dollar network of socialist and Islamist organizations has scaled back its plans for a massive citywide “resistance” and retreated to a quiet park in a corner of Washington DC called Meridian Hill. They are now predicting a crowd of 2,000 people, a far cry from the 50,000 originally planned for the National Mall, Washington Monument and Constitution Avenue NW.
But that’s what I call the network of well-funded organizations the Woke Armycontinues protests in 84 cities, under a new name in emails sent to supporters Sunday afternoon with the message: “STAND WITH THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE. WE FIGHT BACK,” following Israel’s ceasefire with Hamas . In the nation’s capital, the ANSWER Coalition, a self-proclaimed Marxist organization based in DC, a permit securedwhich I obtained, for the smaller Meridian Hill protest after withdrawing the application for the larger city demonstration.
THE PROFESSIONAL PROTEST MACHINE BEHIND THE ANTI-TRUMP ‘PEOPLE MASS’
Despite the media portraying these protests as grassroots movements, they are anything but. The ANSWER Coalition’s activities are highly coordinated and funded by professional activist networks, as was Saturday’s ‘People’s March’, which my reporting revealed was organized by a professional for-profit protest logistics company, Movement Catalyst LLC, which executes events with military precision.
An email sent Sunday by ANSWER Coalition shows how the protest plan focused on the war between Israel and Gaza. (REPLY Coalition)
These professional organizers create a polished veneer of grassroots spontaneity for protests that are in reality meticulously designed political theater and not grassroots but rather AstroTurf. They sent out almost identical emails on Sunday around 4 p.m., calling on followers for their Monday protests.
I have been following these organizations for years as part of my reporting for the Pearl Project, a nonprofit journalism initiative named after Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was murdered in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2002 in the name of identity politics. and sectarianism. Democracy thrives on transparency, and the public deserves to know when protests are driven by ideological agendas masquerading as grassroots movements.
After September 11, members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation founded the ANSWER Coalition, short for ‘Act Now to Stop War and End Racism’. The country has consistently defended authoritarian regimes, including socialist governments in Russia, China, Venezuela, North Korea and Cuba. Brian Becker, the ANSWER coalition leader who got the permit for the Meridian Hill protest, is an outspoken supporter of Marxism and socialism.
An email sent Sunday by The People’s Forum is identical to an email sent by ANSWER Coalition, showing careful coordination between the groups. (The People’s Forum)
The organization’s history includes incendiary anti-American incidents, such as a protest last summer against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where Zaid Mohammed Mahdawi, president of the Richmond chapter of American Muslims for Palestine, wrote “HAMAS IS COMIN” on a statue at Union Station. The National Park Service revoked ANSWER Coalition’s permit after the protest turned violent, with demonstrators burning American flags and clashing with police.
Michael Litterst, a spokesman for the U.S. National Park Service, told me today that the ANSWER Coalition has “canceled” its application for the citywide protest. He asked questions of the ANSWER Coalition about why it withdrew its application. The ANSWER Coalition did not respond to a request for comment.
The permit reveals the intricate planning behind this supposed protest that the media will likely dismiss as spontaneous:
- 7am: “Equipment loading to the upper level of Meridian Hill Park.”
- 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.: “Speeches and possibly acoustic music.”
- 12:30 to 12:45: “Organizing for March.”
- 12:45 p.m.: “March dismounts (southbound on 16th Street to H Street at Black Lives Matter Plaza),” near the White House.
- 12:45 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.: “Remove equipment from Meridian Hill Park.”
The equipment list reveals the professionalism behind these protests: one stage, twenty tables, forty chairs, two hundred portable signs, banners, a sound system, a stage and propaganda materials, including literature and bumper stickers. The ANSWER Coalition Permit said it plans to include an “opaque, secure bucket for collecting donations.”
Behind the banners and megaphones lies a well-financed operation aimed at transforming the narrative of grassroots resistance into one that serves its own ideological goals.
The Park Service permit reminded organizers in bold text: “It is prohibited to climb, remove or in any way damage any statue, chair, wall, fountain, light poles, lift towers or other architectural feature” in the park.
The history of the ANSWER Coalition raises questions about its ability to maintain order. But Litterest, the spokesperson for the U.S. National Park Service, told me, “DC courts have previously indicated that denying or limiting First Amendment permits for demonstrations based on intended acts of violence is appropriate only when and where the threat is real, substantial and beyond the reasonable control of law enforcement.”
Last week, op a website The protest organizers, who formed just days after Trump’s election, said they had about 50 “endorsing” groups. Now that number has increased to 205 groupsand it is clear from the names on the growing list that their origins are far from basic. I added the new names a Pearl Project public databaseAnd according to my new analysis, 58 of the groups are self-proclaimed socialist organizations, 25 are Islamist, Muslim, Arab or Palestinian, and the remaining 122 are socialist and Islamist-adjacent. They consistently seek to destroy Israel as a state.
The “red” in tomorrow’s alliance includes well-financed protesters: the ANSWER Coalition; Code Pink, an anti-Israel group funded by Neville Roy Singham, a Shanghai-based American billionaire linked to the Chinese Communist Party, according to the New York Times; the Party for Socialism and Liberationadvocating the dismantling of capitalism and aligning the US with socialist regimes; the People’s Forum, a socialist group that serves as a proxy for Singham’s pro-China agenda, as also documented by The New York Times; and Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in the US
It now also includes the ‘Project for a Revolutionary Marxist International’.
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The “green” of this axis includes: Students for Justice in Palestine, founded by University of California at Berkeley academic Hatem Bazian, and now a booster of many of the anti-Jewish campus protests, which are now banned on many campuses; Palestinian Feminist Collective, dedicated to “Palestinian liberation and beyond“; Palestinian Youth Movement, committed to a “strategy of mobilization, agitation and confrontation“; the American Palestinian Community Network, which organized days of protests in Chicago to disrupt the Democratic Party convention; and the Muslim American Society, which is a ‘Survival kitWith a source from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose co-founder, Nihad Awad, said he “Cheerful” about the Hamas raids on October 7 in Israel.
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The ANSWER Coalition’s stated goal for the Washington protest is to “present a popular resistance to the Trump administration,” but its real agenda is more insidious: dismantling American democracy and promoting authoritarian socialist ideologies. From Beijing to Caracas, the ANSWER Coalition and its Woke Army allies are inspired by regimes like Hamas, which suppress dissent and restrict freedoms.
As the Woke Army marches from Meridian Hill Park to Black Lives Matter Plaza, it is critical that Americans remain vigilant. Behind the banners and megaphones lies a well-financed operation aimed at transforming the narrative of grassroots resistance into one that serves its own ideological goals. Understanding these forces is the first step toward protecting democracy.
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