After Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the Trump administration declared a war on the left. The White House hosted a theatrical day-long press conference on the threat that antifa poses and issued new law enforcement guidance that instructed the FBI to closely monitor groups that oppose borders, capitalism, and traditional family values. While this fearmongering rhetoric has long invited mockery—fueling memes like “Antifa Supersoldiers” and “Antifa Stole My Girlfriend”—Trump’s DOJ now is proceeding as if these caricatures describe a credible threat and, earlier this month, took its first prisoners in this nascent war. Nine activists now face years in prison for their involvement in a protest outside of an ICE training facility. The case, out of Prairieland, Texas, pilots the White House’s theory that antifa is a vector for left-wing terrorism. At trial, prosecutors focused not only on what the activists did but what they thought.