Blackshirts or Brownshirts. Tomato, Tomato.

Christine Merser, June 13, 2025

I can’t stop thinking about the men we’re seeing on the streets lately. All black everything, faces covered, weird skull patches like something off a metal band’s discount merch table. Some say they are part of Homeland Security. Some say not. Some say they are Border Control. They move like a unit, but no one can tell me who they are. Not local cops. Not National Guard. Not military. Just there. Beating protestors who got in their way, dragging people into vans. Stealing small children. And they do it with a kind of calm that only comes when someone in power has said, go ahead, do your worst. You are covered.

And there was that cop. Police Officer. You saw him. Standing in a line facing the same direction as other officers. All of a sudden, he makes a hard right turn and raises his weapon and fires at a reporter. Not just any reporter. Blonde. Pretty. The kind of ‘girl’ he probably watched from across the cafeteria in high school while she dated someone on varsity. This wasn’t crowd control. This was personal. This was I saw her, I could shoot her, so I did. And then he just turned back like he was going to pick up milk. He wasn’t worried in the least about repercussions, or who was filming him. She was a reporter on live TV.

What do they know that we don’t?

In this image taken from security camera video, Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old doctoral student at Tufts University, is detained by Department of Homeland Security agents????? without ID on a street in Sommerville, Mass.,AP

So let’s start with who are these guys in black? Did we import them from the cartels? Were they grown in some private training camp behind a gun range in Texas with a God complex and no supervision? Are they working freelance? Are they official? Are they federal? Are they moonlighting from some new agency we don’t even have a name for yet? Are they on payroll somewhere? If so, whose? Are they getting health insurance? PTO? A dental plan with out-of-network kidnapping coverage? How much are they making? And, is it by the headcount, or by the hour?

They look trained. Kind of. Trained enough to march in formation and pull off a snatch and grab. Not trained enough to hold back from punching someone who’s already on the ground. This is not discipline. This is ego. This is rage, paired with the knowledge that no one is going to hold them accountable. They are not law enforcement. They are not peacekeepers. They are a message. And that message is we can do whatever we want, and no one is going to stop us.

This is about male power. Like rape. And, men who want these jobs? Well you know the drill, they are impotent. Very dangerous humans.

Do they go home at night? Do they have wives? Kids? Are they flipping burgers on Sundays and texting in the group chat about how many people they dragged off the street? Are they getting texts from their teenagers? Hey Dad, can you pick me up from practice? Sure honey, just gotta finish abducting a few civilians first. What does that family dinner table sound like?

Are they our Brownshirts?

What the hell is DGCP? Best I can find out, it’s the El Salvador People. But WE detained these people, without any judicial proceedings, shipped them overseas, and now we are not managing it?

Because that’s what it looks like. It smells like it. The Sturmabteilung. Hitler’s original street gang, dressed up as political muscle. They weren’t brilliant. They weren’t trained soldiers. They didn’t need to be. They were angry, loyal, violent, and willing. And that was enough. They attacked Jews, communists, socialists, students, teachers, dissenters, and anyone else who got in the way of the myth of German strength. They beat people in the streets, broke up rallies, destroyed opposition with fists and boots and sticks. Their uniforms were leftovers. Cheap brown shirts from military surplus. That’s all it took. A shirt, a target, and the green light.

The Brownshirts weren’t born out of nothing. They came from chaos, from resentment, from the humiliation of a country that had lost a war and its footing. They were mostly young, mostly broke, mostly furious. Veterans, drifters, tough guys with no future of their own, just looking for someone to tell them they mattered. Hitler gave them that. He handed them a uniform, an enemy, and permission. And that was enough to build a movement. This feels eerily familiar. These men in black, whoever they are, feel like they’ve been pulled from the same emotional scrap heap. Trained just enough to follow orders. Fueled by a low-simmering rage. Pointed directly at the people who still believe in democracy like it’s something worth showing up for. That is not law enforcement. That is history repeating itself in high definition.

And let’s not forget how that ended for the Brownshirts. When Hitler was done with them, he had them killed. The Night of the Long Knives. Hundreds of them. Executed over a few days. Their usefulness ran out, and so did their lives. They were pawns. Disposable. That is the final chapter in the Brownshirt story. It always is.

So again, who are these guys? How did they find them?

Because this feels coordinated. Funded. Trained. Not a couple of wild-eyed Proud Boys playing army in the woods. Not cosplay. This is something else. A force. Showing up in multiple cities. Masked. Silent. Unmarked. Doing violence without consequence. And we still don’t know what to call them.

And now the protests are coming this weekend. People are organizing. Marching. Showing up in cities and towns across the country. A lot of them are older. Lifelong marchers. People who remember Kent State. People who remember civil rights protests that were met with dogs and water hoses. People who know what it means to put their bodies on the line. And they’re scared. And maybe they should be. Because these guys, whoever they are, are attacking from behind. They aren’t standing in front of a crowd with shields. They are grabbing people from behind, throwing them to the ground, stomping on them. This is not about policing. This is about domination.

So if you are marching, do not walk alone. Walk in clumps. Pay attention. Keep your head up. Stay off your phone, but keep it in your hand and ready to film. Document everything. Record it all. They are counting on us to look away. To not know their names. To not know their origins. They are counting on masks and silence to do the work for them.

And isn’t it time we stopped letting them?

Isn’t it time we found out who is paying these people?

Because they didn’t just appear out of nowhere. Someone trained them. Someone is housing them. Someone is buying the gear, the vans, the weapons. Someone is giving them orders. We need names. We need receipts. We need to know who built this force. And who intends to keep using it.

Before they show up again.

At your protest.

On your street.

Behind your back.