The catastrophic end of militant youth

For years, our schools and institutions have trained children to believe activism is not a choice but a condition of survival. From the earliest years, they are told the planet is dying, that their identity is under attack, that democracy itself will collapse unless they fight. Not engage, not debate, not persuade, fight.

When you tell a generation that their very existence depends on destroying an enemy, you should not be surprised when some take you literally. Marching, protesting, screaming in the streets was never going to be the end of it. Violence was always going to come.

History shows the pattern. Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution turned classrooms into staging grounds and students into soldiers. He unleashed a Red Guard that worshipped violence as holy. American parents have long comforted themselves with the lie that “it could never happen here.” But it has. Our militants don’t wear red armbands. They wear black masks. They organize in Discord servers, university lounges, and nonprofit shells. 

And now, they shoot.

The Alvarado Ambush

On July 4, 2025, the militant mask slipped. A group in tactical gear stormed the Prairieland ICE Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas. They lit fireworks to lure officers into the open, then opened fire with AR-style rifles. A local police officer was shot in the neck.

Federal investigators later found tactical radios, body armor, and graffiti supplies. ICE confirmed the group’s intent was to murder federal officers. AP identified the ringleader as Benjamin Hanil Song, a former Marine reservist who supplied weapons. He’s now on Texas’ Most Wanted list. Six women have been arraigned in federal court. The Washington Post called them “trans and anti-fascist activists.” The label doesn’t change the reality: this was an attempted mass murder of federal officers.

The Dallas Shooting

Just weeks later, it happened again. On September 22, a shooter, allegedly Joshua Jahn, opened fire at an ICE office in Dallas, hitting three people before killing himself. AP News confirmed the victims’ conditions remain unclear, but the target was unmistakable: ICE.

He made sure to write it on the bullets. 

We don’t yet know if Dallas and Alvarado were directly coordinated. But the pattern is undeniable. The culture, the targets, the ideology, all the same.

Posts from the alleged shooter’s mother shed more light on what might have been going on in the home, leading up to this event.

The Political Murders

This militant culture isn’t confined to ICE facilities. The country just watched the assassination of Charlie Kirk. A man killed for speaking his mind. The first conservative martyr of a new era. Millions tuned in, millions mourned. There were no riots. No violence from the right. Only grief, prayer, and righteous anger. Contrast that with the Left, which has normalized violence for years, and is now reaping what it sowed.

Here in Pennsylvania, an arsonist attacked Governor Josh Shapiro’s official residence, while his family was inside, and even admitted he planned to bludgeon the governor with a hammer if he had found him. Yet Shapiro still refuses to call it what it is.

And we cannot ignore the trend in America’s schools. Multiple school shootings over the past two years have been carried out by radicalized trans youth, shaped by the same militant narratives of victimhood and vengeance. Each time, the press tiptoes around the ideology, downplays the motivation, or buries the facts. But the pattern is there.

Again and again, when the facts come out, the perpetrators are not conservatives. They are the radicalized Left.

The Media Shield

Yet every time, the media rushes to pin the blame on conservatives. Talking heads stretch logic into knots, claiming the Right has somehow “created the climate” for violence. It is desperate gaslighting. The truth is staring us in the face: the violence is coming from inside their own house.

They excused the riots of 2020. 

They minimized the campus occupations of 2023 and 2024. 

They framed Alvarado’s would-be assassins as “activists.” 

They act surprised when guns replace bullhorns.

Antifa Officially Named

This week, the White House finally admitted the obvious. President Trump signed an executive order designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. The order calls Antifa a “militarist, anarchist enterprise” seeking to overthrow the government and law enforcement.

It’s late, and it’s messy. Antifa has no “formal” membership lists or leaders. But the symbolism matters. The federal government is now on record acknowledging that what conservatives have warned about for years is not paranoia, but reality. This is terrorism.

The Militant Endgame

The United States has reached the end of its illusions. The militant youth we created are no longer just tweeting threats or blocking traffic. They are killing. They are targeting federal officers, conservative leaders, and anyone who stands in their way.

But here is the harder truth: this is no longer confined to classrooms. The indoctrination project has moved beyond schools and campuses. It has infected board rooms, where corporate DEI bureaucrats enforce loyalty tests. It has spread into hospitals, where medical staff are pressured to affirm delusion instead of treating reality. It reaches into restaurants and neighborhoods, where casual conversations reveal that people you thought you knew would cheer your downfall.

We are waking up to the reality that this is not just about “kids these days.” It is about colleagues, doctors, neighbors, and sadly, even family members who would celebrate our deaths if it advanced the narrative they’ve been taught to worship. That is not an exaggeration. We saw it in real time after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, as the same people who talk endlessly about “compassion” mocked his murder online.

This is systemic. It is intentional. And it is producing exactly what it was designed to produce: a culture where violence is sanctified, where the line between activist and militant no longer exists.

The question now is whether this country will confront the truth or continue to excuse it. Because unless we reclaim our institutions, schools, medicine, media, government — Alvarado, Dallas, Pennsylvania, and Charlie Kirk’s assassination — will not be isolated tragedies. They will be the opening shots of something much darker.

Ada Nestor is the co-host of the The Conservative Voice radio show in Philadelphia and writes Reflections from the Edge on substack. You can reach her on X at @AdaNestorWC.

This article has been reformatted from the original piece, published on My Reflections From The Edge.