How MAGA Stole Animal Rights from the Left

And how we can steal it back.

In March, a group of around 50 activists broke into Ridglan Farms, a dog breeding and animal research facility, and liberated 22 beagles, a breed said to be favored by the industry because of their docile and eager-to-please temperaments. The company, which had been the focus of a largely successful multiyear animal rights campaign, was scheduled to surrender its breeding license on July 1 to avoid criminal prosecution after a state investigation had found evidence of felony animal abuse, including severe and unsanitary confinement, eye surgeries performed without anesthesia, and unnecessary euthanasia.

But the protesters still weren’t satisfied. They also wanted Ridglan to surrender the animals in its possession to ensure they wouldn’t be killed or sold for use in future experiments. And so, on a bright and chilly April morning, a surprisingly bipartisan group of 1,000 activists traveled to Blue Mounds, Wisconsin, to engage in what they hoped would be a mass “open rescue” of the more than 2,000 beagles that were still held in the facility.

The first, smaller liberation was met with comparatively little resistance. This time, however, the company was prepared. Perimeters were blocked and trenches dug and filled with manure to dissuade trespassers. Private security guards and police patrolled in force, ready to repel demonstrators with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Some of the protesters wore hazmat suits and carried tools intended to help them enter the facility and open cages, but the majority of attendees were dressed in regular clothes and looked like ordinary Americans. Which is what they were, for the most part. Lawyer and organizer Wayne Hsiung had intentionally emphasized a shared concern for animals and a commitment to the principle of nonviolence that attracted people from across the political spectrum. Anti-capitalist vegans stood shoulder to shoulder with dog-loving conservatives. Parents with children and seniors in wheelchairs cheered from the sidelines as more brazen activists tried and failed to breach the barriers.

Not long after the attempted rescue mission began, Gretchen Primack crouched in pain, her eyes burning from pepper spray. A poet and bookseller from New York state’s Hudson Valley, she had traveled roughly 1,000 miles to try to rescue the dogs. But facing pepper spray and rubber bullets, protesters like Primack had been beaten back.

After four tense hours, the crowd retreated. Twenty-seven people had been arrested, and several were hurt; one demonstrator reportedly lost multiple teeth. As Primack rushed a friend who had been hit with rubber bullets to the ER, she wasn’t alone in feeling, she told us, “totally demoralized.”

And then, just as fast as the cops had gassed the protesters, the activists won. Hsiung called it “the greatest turnaround in animal rights history.” Their victory was, in part, thanks to support from right-wingers.

In April, shortly before the smaller scale raid on the facility, the popular conservative podcaster Tomi Lahren interviewed Hsiung and praised the activists for their bravery. The “bipartisan” issue of animal cruelty, she said, is “one of the few areas I think we can all come together on.” After the action, Lara Trump, President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law and a proud beagle owner, urged Ridglan to make a deal and sell the dogs. Working behind the scenes, reportedly aided by well-connected allies and some deep-pocketed Trump donors, the activists secured the release of 2,000 dogs on undisclosed terms.

Under past administrations, bold direct actions like the one seen in Wisconsin have typically been dealt with harshly; for decades, law enforcement equated animal liberation with domestic terrorism. Yet even as it viciously suppresses First Amendment dissent in other arenas, the Trump regime has seemingly embraced some forms of militant animal activism and opportunistically seized the moment to take credit for the........

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