They sentenced anti-ICE protesters to 50 years in federal prison. Fifty years.

Zachary Evetts. Autumn Hill. Savanna Batten. Elizabeth Soto. Meagan Morris.

Five anti-ICE protesters sentenced to half a century behind bars in a case that the Trump administration has framed as an “Antifa” terrorist attack. The Justice Department itself has publicly described the defendants through that terrorism narrative.

And that is exactly why Americans need to pay attention.

Because since the left does not have enough radicalized people as the right does, they are trying to manufacture and propagandize a false narrative in the style of Vladimir Putin.

Because this isn’t simply about five people receiving extraordinarily long prison sentences. It is about the manufacturing of a political enemy—the same way Fox News manufactures nonexistent immigrant invasions for its low-IQ viewers, or the way Putin claims Ukraine is filled with Nazis and then uses that manufactured narrative to portray Russia’s invasion as a fight against Nazis and justify its actions.

The Trump administration is taking people who oppose ICE and propagandizing them into “Antifa terrorists” through the government’s official narrative. It is taking anti-ICE activism and presenting it as part of a vast far-left terrorist threat that does not exist, while desperate Republicans try to manufacture one to paint the people who oppose them as being just as dangerous as the right-wing radicals who support them.

And it is trying to place protests against Trump’s policies in the same political category as the domestic terrorists who violently attacked the Capitol on January 6.

But anti-ICE protesters are not the same as Republican January 6 terrorists.

The people who violently attacked the Capitol were Trump supporters who participated in an assault on the seat of American government.

Anti-ICE protesters are protesting ICE brutality against human beings.

Those are not the same thing.

Protesting your government is a constitutional right and an American value.

You can oppose ICE brutality. You can oppose Donald Trump. You can oppose Republican immigration policies. You can organize with other Americans and publicly demand that your government change its policies.

That is what freedom of expression is supposed to protect.

And that is precisely why the government’s narrative matters.

Because when the government repeatedly describes a political movement as terrorism—with no real criminal evidence against the protesters themselves, but simply because it does not like what they say or what they scream in the streets—it attempts to change the way people view those who oppose the corrupt Trump administration.

With the help of fake-news propaganda outlets like Fox News, they try to turn the protester into a terrorist.

The activist stops being an activist.

They become an extremist.

The political opponent stops being an American exercising constitutional rights.

They become a threat to national security.

That is how you manufacture an enemy without real evidence.

And the Trump administration isn’t doing this only through Trump’s social media accounts or Republican campaign speeches.

It is happening through official government channels.

The White House is promoting a national campaign against what it calls “far-left terrorism.”

The Justice Department is using the Antifa and terrorism narrative in federal prosecutions.

And the Department of Homeland Security has been conducting surveillance operations targeting anti-ICE protesters and progressive organizations.

That is no longer just political rhetoric on Fox News.

The far-right propagandists have turned their extremist propaganda into government policy.

And then there is Marco Rubio.

Rubio isn’t some random political commentator screaming into a microphone.

He is the Secretary of State of the United States.

In July, Rubio convened representatives from more than 60 countries for a State Department meeting focused on what the Trump administration calls the resurgence of “far-left terrorism.” Rubio told foreign officials that the United States would refocus counterterrorism efforts on what he called “far-left terror.”

Think about the significance of that.

The American government is taking false Fox News-style political narratives about the American left and presenting them to foreign governments as an international security problem.

That is an official channel.

Republicans are trying to give their false far-right extremist narratives the authority of the United States government.

Are we surprised this is happening, though?

They have brought people from the world of right-wing propaganda into government, and they are clearly trying to use official government channels to spread the far-right propaganda that has been pushed through networks like Fox News for decades.

And once a government gives a political accusation that official stamp, that accusation can become the justification for the crimes that happen next.

This is a strategy fascist and corrupt governments have used throughout history.

This is exactly what Putin has done many times.

This is how far-right governments propagandize their supporters.

Fascists manufacture the threat.

They exaggerate or distort the threat.

They repeatedly tell the public that the people they are targeting are dangerous.

They associate ordinary people with extremists.

They label the entire movement a security threat.

And then actions that would otherwise look completely unacceptable can be presented as necessary for public safety.

Russia has repeatedly used this type of propaganda strategy when constructing narratives about countries and populations it wants to attack. It portrays its targets as existential threats, extremists, Nazis, or agents of foreign powers, creating a narrative in which aggression can be presented as defense.

The United States is not Russia.

But the propaganda technique is recognizable.

Manufacturing an enemy is manufacturing an enemy.

And that is why the official narrative being constructed around anti-ICE protesters deserves scrutiny.

Because once you convince enough Americans that protesters are terrorists, you can begin justifying things that would otherwise be politically and constitutionally unacceptable. Republicans were never able to convince Americans that the January 6 terrorists were simply protesters exercising their constitutional rights. So now they are trying to do the opposite: take left-wing protesters who are exercising their constitutional rights and manufacture a narrative portraying them as terrorists.

Privatized Surveillance becomes “counterterrorism.”

Political organizing becomes “extremist activity.”

Protesting becomes evidence of radicalization.

And decades-long prison sentences become something the public is expected to accept because the people receiving them have already been branded terrorists.

That is how propaganda prepares the public for abuse. At least, that is what Trump and the Fox News propagandists he has brought into his administration are trying to do—and so far, it doesn’t appear to be working outside of their already-brainwashed base.

First, they are manufacturing the enemy by putting propagandists to work in the government.

Then they manufacture the justification for what they want to do to that enemy through their far right propaganda networks like Fox News and extremist far right propagandist influencers.

And this is where I believe Republicans are thinking beyond the Trump presidency.

They know they are not going to control the government forever even thought they are trying.

Trump will eventually leave office or be forcefully be kicked out.

Republicans will eventually lose elections.

The administration’s political power will eventually disappear.

But the narrative they are building can survive.

When a future Democratic president eventually reviews these cases and decides that people should be released, sentences should be reduced, or protesters should be pardoned, the far-right propaganda networks will already have the story prepared.

“Democrats are pardoning terrorists.”

“Democrats are pardoning Antifa.”

“Democrats are releasing domestic terrorists.”

The same government narrative created today can become the political ammunition of tomorrow. But we are aware of what they are doing so it’s not going to work.

That is the political calculation.

The exaggerated 50-year sentences are happening now.

The propaganda consequences can be used later.

And that is why the Trump administration doesn’t necessarily need to remain in power to benefit from what he is doing.

Trump and his propagandist team is trying to leave behind an enemy, leave behind a narrative, leave behind government policies and investigative frameworks.

And it can leave behind a far-right media ecosystem that will spend years repeating the same manufactured accusations after Republicans are no longer running the government.

That is why this isn’t just about ICE protesters.

It is about our constitutional rights.

It is about freedom of expression.

It is about whether peaceful Americans can organize against their government without being transformed into a national-security threat.

And it is about whether a government that is losing political power can use the machinery of the state to manufacture enemies and punish the people it portrays as those enemies.

A facsist government does not have to remain in power forever to damage democracy.

It can spend its final years building the narrative that will justify its actions long after it is gone.

And if the only thing the extremist republicans behind this political movement have left when they lose power is their far-right propaganda networks, they will still have a powerful weapon: the ability to keep propagandizing Americans that the people they targeted were terrorists and that anyone who frees them is protecting terrorists.

That is why we need to recognize what is happening now—so when they start spreading these lies, we can recognize them for what they are: manufactured propaganda, and refuse to let them manipulate or influence us.

Because this isn’t simply an argument about immigration.

It isn’t simply an argument about ICE.

And it isn’t simply an argument about five people receiving 50-year sentences. They will likely be freed sooner rather than later, because these are clearly politically motivated attacks by a fascist administration that is desperately losing its grip on power.

It is an attack on the right to dissent.

It is an attack on freedom of expression.

And it is the dangerous normalization of a government manufacturing political enemies through its own official institutions without real evidence to back up their actions.

Once the government can decide that political opposition is terrorism, none of us should assume our constitutional rights are safe.