Republicans have made it abundantly clear, from behind the presidential seal and in the halls of Congress and on all manner of news networks, that the extremists in America are liberals like me.

We are, in the oft-repeated words of President Donald Trump, “radical left lunatics.” We are agitators. Insurrectionists. Thugs.

Our ideas are extreme, always.

“Radical left climate extremism.”

“Extreme gender ideology.”

“WOKE, SOCIALIST, and ANTI-AMERICAN Ideology.”

Really, MAGA Republicans? You think liberals are the extremists?

To all of that, I say: Seriously? You all kneel at the altar of a narcissistic conman who eviscerates every democratic norm he comes across and slaps his name on things like a dollar-store Mussolini. And you want to gaslight people into thinking liberals are the extremists?

As the Republican Party has morphed into an averse-to-democracy cult of personality – 63% of Republicans now identify as part of Trump’s MAGA movement – their labeling of the left as radicals has had to keep pace. It’s the “No I’m Not, YOU ARE!” approach honed throughout history by bullies and abusers. 

In January, when Democrats were criticizing then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s handling of immigration raids, Trump labeled them “Radical Left Lunatics, Insurrectionists, Agitators, and Thugs.” 

He said in 2025: “The radicals on the left are the problem, and they're vicious and they're horrible and they're politically savvy, although they want men in women sports, they want transgender for everyone, they want open borders.”

He said in September: “We have radical left lunatics out there and we just have to beat the hell out of them.”

Everything a liberal does is radical in the eyes of Trump

A statement on the White House website posted ahead of the Democratic rebuttal to Trump’s recent State of the Union address carries the headline: “Radical Left’s Rebuttal Will Contrast Democrat Extremism with President Trump’s Road to Prosperity."

It says Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger is “like the rest of the Radical Left lunatics in her party” and accused her of advancing “woke DEI and divisive ideologies.”

Radical! Extreme! Divisive!

Let's look at a few of the truly extreme things Trump has done

I’ll now ask Republicans to take a look in the mirror.

Trump and his Republican lackeys made a living during the presidential campaign by saying "radical" Democrats had made life unaffordable, ballooned the national debt and weaponized the U.S. Department of Justice.

You'll never believe what has happened since. Food prices are up under Trump. Health care costs are up. Gas prices are now skyrocketing. The U.S. debt just whooshed past $39 trillion under Trump. And he has sicced the DOJ on myriad political opponents.

Who are the radicals now?

Pardoning insurrections seems kind of extreme

On Trump’s first day in office, he pardoned MAGA insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Promoting mass deportation, Trump and his party have proudly dispatched squads of masked and warrantless federal immigration agents across the country, resulting in the killing of U.S. citizens and repeated acts of transparent inhumanity.

Without any form of approval, Trump had the historic East Wing of the White House demolished to make way for a ballroom funded by corporate and private donors, opening a door for shameless influence peddling.

War, cruelty and racism. Isn't that all a bit extreme?

The president launched a war with Iran without congressional approval, while his former-Fox-News-host Defense secretary is letting a Christian nationalist pastor in to lead a Pentagon worship service.

You want extremists? How about the Young Republican leaders in New York, Kansas, Arizona and Vermont who in 2025 were found to be swimming in racist and antisemitic chats, saying things like “I love Hitler” and casually using slurs for Black people.

Or, as The New York Times reported March 16: “The University of Florida has blocked a Republican student group from operating on campus over accusations of antisemitism, after a photo showing two people giving a Nazi salute was posted online.”

A few weeks before that, another vile Republican chat was revealed involving students at Florida International University in Miami. The Times noted: “The slur-laden chat includes a lengthy message about killing Black people and a separate warning about not getting sexually involved with a Jewish woman.”

That sure sounds like radical extremism to me. And keep in mind, the issues that lead Trump Republicans to label liberals “extreme” generally revolve around: treating transgender people like human beings; agreeing that climate change is real and needs to be addressed; protecting migrants from state violence and unlawful deportation; and little things like making sure people can afford rent and health insurance.

Pure, uncut Islamophobia is now just fine in the Republican Party

Recently elected New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has become one of the right’s favorite examples of scary leftists, given his desire for universal childcare and his push for a $30 minimum wage and a rent freeze. Oh, and he’s a Muslim, which in the eyes of many Republicans makes him automatically extreme.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, shared a post on X that showed a picture of New York's Twin Towers burning after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack next to a picture of Mamdani. Tuberville wrote: “The enemy is inside the gates.”

He later doubled down on his words, posting: “To be clear, I didn’t ‘suggest’ Islamists are the enemy. I said it plainly.”

It appears the “religious freedom” crowd has been radicalized.

GOP calls of 'extremism' on the left is epic-level gaslighting

GOP Rep. Randy Fine of Florida recently posted: “We need more Islamophobia, not less.”

Fine's fellow Republicans don't call him or Tuberville extremists. No, the “radicals” and “thugs” are the folks who don't want migrants violently rounded up by masked agents, or those who want to make sure childcare is accessible to everyone. And the patriots, the good guys, the non-radicals are the ones literally promoting hatred and Islamophobia, running roughshod over due process and pardoning people convicted of seditious conspiracy. 

As long as MAGA exists, I don't want to hear 'radical leftist'

Along with slapping his dear-leader name on every building he can, Trump’s ego is generating stories like this about pushing the U.S. Mint to make a commemorative coin: “Trump’s Handpicked Arts Commission Approves Gold Coin With His Face on It.”

As The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols noted in February: “The Department of Homeland Security used an anthem beloved by neo-Nazi groups, ‘By God We’ll Have Our Home Again,’ in a recruitment ad. The Labor Department hung a giant banner of Donald Trump’s face from its headquarters, as if Washington were Berlin in 1936, and posted expressions on social media such as ‘America is for Americans’ ‒ an obvious riff on the Nazi slogan ‘Germany for the Germans’ ‒ and ‘Americanism Will Prevail,’ in a font reminiscent of Third Reich documents.”

Frankly, I don’t ever want to hear the term “radical leftist” again. At least not as long as Republicans are okey doke with a man whose every utterance is radical, a man who has subjugated an entire party and brainwashed them to obey his every whim.

As your friendly neighborhood liberal, I’ll point this out to all MAGA Republicans shouting “EXTREMIST!” at me. Y’all elected the world’s biggest con artist twice, and presumably voted for him three times.

I don’t want to hear a word out of you. 

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk

© USA TODAY