x04 Spotlights

By Joshua Bontrager, Political & Cultural Correspondent

Originally published April 25, 2025 for our End-of-Month Issue of Mindful Intelligence Advisor.  Subscribe to get semi-monthly issues.

“… Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.’ Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.” – Genesis 4:4-8

“Power depends ultimately on physical force. By teaching people that violence is wrong (except, of course, when the system itself uses violence via the police or the military), the system maintains its monopoly on physical force and thus keeps all power in its own hands.” –Theodore Kaczynski, “The Unabomber”

“It is a world not of angels but of angles, where men speak of moral principles but act on power principles; a world where we are always moral and our enemies always immoral.” –Saul Alinsky

“The left is being whipped into a violent frenzy. Any setback, whether losing an election or losing a court case, justifies a maximally violent response. This is the natural outgrowth of left-wing protest culture tolerating violence and mayhem for years on end. The cowardice of local prosecutors and school officials has turned the left into a ticking time bomb.” –Charlie Kirk

“What was formerly taboo culturally has become acceptable.” –Joel Finkelstein on the rising “assassination culture”

ED.NOTE: The spirit of Cain is the root of all authoritarian ideologies, be it left, right, “Christian,” “Muslim,” etc. (which we’ll see in our report on the Igbo on pg. xx, in which a prosperous, righteous people are targeted for death by people less unrighteous and less prosperous than them).

It is the notion that you can kill your way to salvation, which is what, essentially, Cain was doing here. Abel brought the best of his “fruit,” his firstborn, while Cain brought the lowliest of sacrifices, one can assume. When Abel prospered through righteous action, Cain’s response was not to correct his own bad behavior, it was to kill the righteous Abel and usurp his place through murder.

The ”American” left justifies murder through a promise of a utopia here and now, that they can end racism and hate and bigotry and the patriarchy and the very idea of the “white race” itself. Wherever success is found, the answer is not to mimic it, it’s to murder it, to take its place through force.

This is why such movements appeal to the young, who are offered a moral justification to shortcut their way to the top, not through right action, but through murder. This report by Joshua Bontrager reveals the fruit of the spirit of Cain become the central driving force of the “American” left (which are no Americans, in spirit, at all). – Editor Paul Gordon Collier

INTRODUCTION

Alarmingly, a growing minority of leftist Americans believe that murdering their fellow Americans is both justifiable and necessary.

A shocking 55% of left-leaning Americans believe assassinating President Donald Trump would be “somewhat justified,” according to a bombshell survey from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI). 48% said the same of Elon Musk.

The “emergent assassination culture” is “grounded in far-left authoritarianism and increasingly normalized in digital discourse,” according to the report.

The NCRI said the uptick in the legitimization of assassination and vandalism (i.e., Tesla burnings) began with the December 7 assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Following Thompson’s killing, leftists celebrated, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) saying, “People can be pushed only so far.”

Several months later, another unhinged radical murdered a California Walgreens employee.

Consider additional examples:

• Ukrainian-linked Wisconsin teen Nikita Casapallegedly killed his parents to “obtain the financial means and autonomy necessary” to kill President Trump and overthrow the U.S. government.
• The mentally ill Cody Balmer was arrested after setting the Pennsylvania Governor’s mansion on fire. Balmer had a criminal history, supported BLM, and targeted Gov. Josh Shapiro(D) “based upon perceived injustices to the people of Palestine.”
• Muslim Aliakbar Mohammad Amin was arrested after threatening DNI Tulsi Gabbard and her husband with messages including this one: “Prepare to die, you, Tulsi, and everyone you hold dear. America will burn.”
• Alabama manJacob Couch died after being violently attacked by a hatchet-wielding man in Tucson, Arizona.
• A cult of transgender vegans called the Zizians has “been linked to a string of murders across the U.S.”
• A Soros-funded Minnesota DA refused to charge a state employee who vandalized six Teslas, causing around $20,000 in damages.
• Support for African American Karmelo Anthony surged after Anthony stabbed the white Austin Metcalf to death over a seating dispute at a Texas track meet.

This article will examine (1) The Austin Metcalf murder, (2) The disturbing history of left-wing violence, (3) The primary driving factors behind today’s alarming escalation, and (4) What this all means for America’s future.

A. LEFTISTS JUSTIFY AUSTIN METCALF MURDER

“But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion.” – Jude 1:10-11 (ESV)

“The comments on Karmelo Anthony’s fundraiser are truly horrifying. They make it very clear that these people don’t care whether he has a valid self-defense claim or not. They see Metcalf’s murder as an act of racial vengeance.” –Matt Walsh

On April 17, black 17-year-old Karmelo Anthony stabbed white 17-year-old Austin Metcalf to death at a Frisco, Texas, track meet.

According to witnesses, the altercation began when Metcalf asked Anthony to leave his team’s tent. Anthony reached into his bag and warned, “Touch me and see what happens.”

From Human Events: “When Metcalf stood up and pushed him, Anthony pulled out a knife and drove it into Metcalf’s chest. He fled the scene as Austin collapsed, bleeding out in his brother’s arms. Later, when confronted by police, Anthony didn’t deny it. ‘I did it,’ he said. This wasn’t self-defense. It wasn’t a scuffle gone wrong. It was a boy bringing a weapon to a school event, threatening to use it, and then doing precisely that.”

1. THE SHOCKING RESPONSE – Within hours, support from the black community and the far-left poured in:

• Post on X (750,000 views): “Karmelo Anthony is an exceptional, upstanding, suburban, young teen boy. He is an honor roll student, works an honest job, and he’s a hero! If we allow them to paint this teenage boy as some Thug or reckless ‘YN,’ we failed, and no Black boy in America is safe!”
• Post on X (330,000 views): “Kyle Rittenhouse can be 17 with an AR-15, Karmelo Anthony CAN’T be 17 with a knife. Make it make sense.”
• Post on X (2.2 million views): “A suspected white supremacist named Austin Metcalf…allegedly demanded honor student Karmelo Anthony give up his seat – like it was the Jim Crow era. Karmelo defended himself from the alleged threat. The Daniel Penny case set this precedent.”
• Viral video on X (5.2 million views):“Y’all not gonna make me believe or feel any kind of sympathy for Austin Metcalf at all… Austin Metcalf got exactly what he deserved – point blank, period… Austin Metcalf should’ve kept his d*mn hands to himself – point blank, period.”

2. THE SAGA CONTINUES – Anthony was released from jail pending trial, after a judge lowered his bailfrom $1 million to $250,000.

As of this writing, Anthony’s family has raised $510,000 on GiveSendGo. They reportedly purchased a new car and moved to a $900,000 rental home in a gated community. Auron MacIntyre warned, “It turns out people respond to incentives. You will get more of this; people will celebrate it.”

Jeff Metcalf, father of the slain teen, was escorted out by police, after he showed up at a press conference held by Anthony’s friends and family members. Dominique Alexander, a convicted felon and spokesman for the Anthony family, claimed that Metcalf’s presence at the press conference was “a disrespect to the dignity of his son.”

Hours later, Metcalf’s home was swatted.

Anthony’s advocacy group said the teen was moved to an undisclosed location following “death threats” and harassment “fueled by organized hate, systemic racism, and intentional misinformation.”

Attorney Alan Dershowitz concluded, “If the racial factors were reversed, if a white man had killed an unarmed black man, everybody would be on the reverse side of this.”

B. THE TROUBLING HISTORY OF LEFT-WING TERROR

“Not a single problem of the class struggle has ever been solved in history except by violence. When violence is exercised by the working people, by the mass of exploited against the exploiters – then we are for it!” –Vladimir Lenin

Since Cain’s murder of Abel, violence has plagued the human race.

1. ISLAMIC JIHAD – Muhammad boasted, “I have been made victorious through terror.”

J.J. Saunder’s History of the Mongol Conquests (1971) estimates that the 14th-century Muslim emperor Timur (Tamerlane) slaughtered 17 million, 5% of the global population at the time. At Delhi, Tamerlane wrote, “I proclaimed throughout the camp that every man who had infidel prisoners should put them to death… One hundred thousand infidels, impious idolaters, were on that day slain.”

Today, Hamas indoctrinates many Palestinian children from a young age to devote their lives to jihad against Jews and infidels. Parents, especially mothers, teach their children to view martyrdom in the “Holy War” as the ultimate honor.

2. HITLER’S BROWN SHIRTS – Founded in 1921, the Sturmabteilung (SA), or Brownshirts, assisted Adolf Hitler’s rise to power by inciting riots, influencing elections, and attacking Jews and other “enemies of Germany.” When the Brownshirts threatened his power, Hitler purged their leadership in the Night of Long Knives (1934) and empowered the SS in their place.
3. CHINA’S CULTURAL REVOLUTION – During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, police stood down, or even assisted, as Mao Zedong’s “Red Guard” units, many of them consisting of young students, brutally attacked “class enemies” and waged war on the “Four Olds” (old ideas, culture, customs, and habits).

A survivor of Mao’s Revolution, Xi Van Fleet, wrote the book Mao’s America: A Survivor’s Warning. Van Fleet explained, “Red guards were the kids from elementary school to universities. So they took over the country… He [Mao] had tens of millions of young people that he had indoctrinated in the government schools for the past 17 years… They dismantled the criminal justice system. No police, really, just like a defund police. So, the Red Guards could do anything. There are no consequences. And eventually, they start to kill. Kill their teachers, kill their principals, and they kill millions of people.”

4. THE NEW LEFT – The New Left Wave of the 1960s and 70s produced assassinations, bombings, and kidnappings from groups such as the Italian Red Brigades, the German Red Army Faction, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), and the U.S. Weather Underground.

In 1995, Weather Underground terrorist leader Bill Ayers helped launch the political career of Barack Obama.

5. MARX AND STALIN – Karl Marx, whose ideology claimed over 100 million lives in the 20th century, asserted, “There is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror… We have no compassion, and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.”

One of his followers, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, slaughtered millions of his own people and callously declared, “Death solves all problems. No man – no problem.”

C. WHAT IS DRIVING TODAY’S ESCALATION?

“If you believe the president of the United States is leading a racist, fascist movement that threatens the rights, if not the lives, of vulnerable minorities, how far are you willing to go to stop it?” –The Atlantic’s Peter Beinart, 2017

Donald Trump’s surprise 2016 victory witnessed an increase in violent rhetoric and protest. After George Floyd’s death in 2020, BLM and Antifa rioted, clashed with police, and destroyed possibly billions in property, with no consequences.

In 2024, eight years of “Trump is Hitler” rhetoric prompted two attempted assassinations.

1. INFLAMATORY MESSAGES – Through media, education, and social media, the left has consistently communicated two dangerous messages:

• Trump and MAGA Republicans are “domestic terrorists,” fascist authoritarians, and racists.
• Racial minorities, women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and the poor are victims, and white, male, Christian capitalists are their oppressors.

Leftists incite violence but feign indignation (or even blame the victims of violence) when their brainwashed followers carry their propaganda to these logical conclusions:

• If Trump and conservatives are as evil as Hitler, they should be “” As one crazed lunatic said, “The only good fascist is a dead fascist.”
• If you are being oppressed and victimized, violence is justified to defeat the oppressor.
• Those who seek to remove the threat are morally upright heroes. They should be praised, and protected by the law.

Consider several recent examples:

• At the Coachella music festival, headlined by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Circle Jerks’ singer Keith Morris called for an “army of Luigis,” referring to Luigi Mangione.
• Climate hoaxer and former Vice President Al Gore said the Trump administration is seeking to “create their own preferred version of reality,” just like Adolf Hitler.
• Former Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz gushed of Mangione, “You’re going to see women especially that feel like, ‘…Here’s this man who’s a revolutionary, who’s famous, who’s handsome, who’s young, who’s smart. He’s a person who seems like this morally good man, which is hard to find.’”
• Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson called Trump a racist and said, “We’re not going to negotiate with terrorists.”

2. MENTAL AND PHYSICAL INSTABILITY – One researcher linked the surge in school shootings to the proliferation of SSRI drugs in the late 1980s, such as Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, and Celexa, that “chemically alter” children’s minds. Dr. Joseph Mercola says mass shootings are likely “the result of how we’ve been mistreating mental illness, depression, and behavioral problems.” Mercola also faults the surge in violent video game simulations.

Others have cited family breakdown, social media radicalization, and transgender ideology (i.e., Audrey Hale).

3. FAMILY BREAKDOWN – Harvard’s Robert J. Sampson stressed, “Family structure is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, predictor of variations in urban violence across cities in the United States.”
4. A LACK OF CONSEQUENCES – Soros-funded district prosecutors and government educators have repeatedly failed to provide accountability.

An anonymous Texas school teacher wrote, “Students today know they can get away with almost anything. Last year, a 16-year-old student-athlete pushed me, cursed me out, and walked out of class. A few days later, I sat across from him in the assistant principal’s office. The assistant principal gave him candy and spoke to him like he was an upset eight-year-old. His father tried to blame me for the altercation. After a half-hearted apology, the young man was allowed to return to class without a disciplinary referral.”

The teacher warned, “Dangerous students remain in classrooms. Administrators hope for the best, while enforcing no real standards for the rest. Those who want to cause chaos will, and their peers will celebrate them for it… A culture that refuses to enforce consequences is a culture that enables tragedy.”

5. THE EVIL RELIGION OF POWER – Much of the modern left – from party elites to the grassroots – openly worships evil. During the Biden reign of terror, Democrats mutilated children, facilitated an illegal invasion, locked up their political opponents, censored dissent, attacked Christianity, and nearly destroyed America.

Their continued embrace of this cult is proved by their passionate defense of MS-13 gang members like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, their urge to kidnap children whose parents oppose “gender-affirming care,” their endorsement of judicial sabotage, and their praise of cold-blooded murderers.

Libertarian analyst Brandon Smith explains, “Evil people define freedom without responsibility as the ultimate state of being… It’s no mistake that leftists and woke activists are obsessed with power dynamics; their new religion ensures that they cannot see the world any other way… They see moral order as an artificial construct that oppresses them (because they want to do evil without consequence)… Leftists are TOTAL relativists. The rules do not apply to them. The law does not apply to them. Morality does not apply to them. Conscience is non-existent for them… Biological reality does not apply to them… They want to be like God; all who try to stop them should be eliminated… When a person adopts all of these beliefs together, they are capable of any conceivable atrocity.”

This false religion traces back to the devil’s bargain in Eden, “You will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5).

PREDICTIVE ANALYSIS

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” – John 10:10

“By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.” – Hebrews 11:4

More Americans will follow the example of Karmelo Anthony, Lugi Mangione, and Nikita Casap, driven by Marxist brainwashing, mental instability, little accountability, and Satanic delusion.

The American “center-left” has been virtually captured by Luciferian Marxists who cannot be reasoned with, applaud violence, hate America, and remain an existential enemy of freedom. They must be denied all political power.

For the country to survive, the Trump administration must deport illegals (even if that means defying rogue courts and suspending Habeas Corpus), convict the perpetrators and funders of violence, expose the Democrats who side with assassins and illegals, and bring to justice the Deep Staters who tried to stop Trump and destroy America over the past eight years.

Without extraordinary measures, the country is lost. Yet…emergency measures risk imperiling American freedom. Citizens must remain both courageous and vigilant.

Ultimately, today’s terror reflects the depravity of a world lost in sin. It can be traced back to America’s rejection of God’s wisdom and authority over the past 100 years, but especially since the 1960s. To quote Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”

Our country will only continue its descent into tyranny and corruption, unless we repent.

True repentance must include family restoration, as parents seek to build committed, God-centered marriages and reclaim responsibility for the education, discipleship, and health of their own children.

Isaiah 55:6-7 declares, “Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”

Genuine, Christ-centered revival remains the only hope for America. That does not start in D.C.; it begins in your own heart (2 Chronicles 7:14).

FURTHER RESEARCH:

The Death of the Center-Left in America – Steve McCann

What’s Scarier Than a 33rd Degree Bilderberger? – Donald Jeffries

“We Forgot God” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

A Christian Response to an Increasingly Violent ‘Assassination Culture’ – Sarah Holliday