Media describes arrested Marxist-Leninist activist as ‘preschool teacher’

When police in Michigan arrested Jessica Plichta stay as she wrapped up a TV information interview in help of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, she grew to become an immediate protest hero, seen as a sufferer of regulation enforcement’s heavy hand.

The 22-year-old from Grand Rapids was broadly described within the media as a “preschool trainer,” an “anti-war activist” and “protest organizer.” And whereas these descriptions aren’t flawed, they have been hardly complete. Analysis from Fox Information Digital reveals they’re a part of a media sample of ignoring the unconventional ties of left-wing agitators, depriving readers of a deeper and extra correct image of their sinister targets.

A reserving photograph of Jessica Plichta, 22, who was arrested by police throughout a protest in Grand Rapids, Michigan. (Kent County Sheriff’s Workplace)

“Preschool trainer, 22, arrested on TV after Trump conviction,” blared a headline in The Each day Beast, above an article who cynically famous, “Welcome to America.” The British Guardian published an article that labeled her a progressive “anti-war activist.” And Democracy Now, an anti-Trump platform, regretted“Grand Rapids Police Arrest Anti-Battle Protest Organizer After Condemning Trump.”

Few media retailers reported that Plichta is a dedicated revolutionary inside the radical Freedom Highway Socialist Group, a self-described Marxist-Leninist “group of revolutionaries combating for socialism in the USA.” The FBI investigated the group in 2010 for alleged ties to terrorist teams, together with the Fashionable Entrance for the Liberation of Palestine. It’s a part of a sprawling community of Marxist-Leninist teams funded by a Chinese language-backed billionaire and devoted to sowing chaos in American streets, utilizing points from the Israeli-Palestinian battle to Elon Musk and President Donald Trump to fire up discord.

On January 20, 2025, activists from the Freedom Highway Socialist Group marched by Washington, DC, carrying a “FIGHT TRUMP’S AGENDA” banner and flags of the Philippines and different overseas pursuits the place they help communist and socialist efforts. (Asra Q. Nomani)

However whereas the media has tried to downplay and even disguise Plichta’s radical ties, she has not been shy about her associations.

“I’m a proud cadre of the Freedom Highway Socialist Group!” Plichta acknowledged this throughout a pro-Maduro protest on January 3, simply hours after US forces captured Maduro and his spouse, Cilia Flores, for alleged narcoterrorism.

Jessica Plichta speaks right into a megaphone throughout a protest in Grand Rapids, Michigan, January 3, 2026. (IG/FRSO Grand Rapids)

The Freedom Highway Socialist Group and Plichta didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Plichta’s case is one in a sequence by which the media glosses over — basically redwashing — the unconventional ideologies of far-left folks and organizations concerned in protests and agitation in opposition to the Trump administration. Equally, the media has largely described anti-ICE protester Renee Nicole Good, who was killed by an ICE officer in Minneapolis final week, as a “37-year-old mother of three” And “a wonderful person”, with little consideration to her participation in a so-called militant anti-ICE group “Minnesota ICE watch,” which trains members to aggressively impede the work of ICE officers.

For the far left, purging protesters accomplishes an organizing technique that its advisers can present recommend in data warfare: “lead with likable characters.” The aim is usually to disguise coordinated revolutionary exercise as grassroots activism.

“It seems that there’s a widespread apply within the media of figuring out conservatives by their political or group affiliations,” stated Walter Kirn, a veteran journalist and editor-in-chief at County highwaya groundbreaking media publication. “They’re ‘MAGA.’ They’re ‘Trump supporters.’ They’re ‘far proper’.

“In the meantime, folks on the left,” Kirn stated, “are described sympathetically by their position. They’re ‘moms’. They’re ‘protesters.’ It is a clear double customary that must be corrected, particularly in relation to membership in particular activist teams.” Kirn additionally edits a Substack publication, “Untethered.”

Most often, the motion teams are clear about their work and happy with their aims. The acknowledged aim of the Freedom Highway Socialist Group, which planted its pink “FRSO” flag on the road the place Good was murdered, is to undermine the US. The Freedom Highway Socialist Group receives 501(c)(3) nonprofit advantages by the Lucy Parsons Institute for Social Analysis, a small Chicago nonprofit that final reported $264,004 in income.

Plichta’s arrest on Jan. 3 got here shortly after she led the pro-Maduro protest by the streets of Grand Rapids, blocking intersections. Regardless of a number of warnings from police, the group refused to go to the sidewalk.

She learn her speech on her telephone, with a megaphone in her hand, and the younger revolutionary didn’t mince phrases.

“Free Maduro! Free Maduro!” she shouted. “We demand his protected return to Venezuela!”

“Be a part of us within the struggle in opposition to imperialism!” she continued.

KNOWN PROTEST GROUPS MOBILIZE IMMEDIATELY AFTER ICE SHOOTING OF MINNESOTA PROTESTER

“brick by brick… wall by wall… one battle will set us all free!” she shouted.

Shortly afterwards, round 5:30 p.m., exterior the Fountain Road Church, Plichta was giving an interview to the native TV station, WZZM 13 On Your Aspect, when two Grand Rapids law enforcement officials got here up behind her and arrested her for blocking a roadway and disobeying a lawful order from a police officer. Her jaw dropped and she or he slowly raised her fingers above her head and stated, “I can’t resist arrest. I am going away peacefully.’

Native media instantly reported the story, describing Plichta merely as a “kindergarten trainer” and protester. She has Monday complained in an interview that police positioned her of their cruiser “with out fastening my seat belt.” The interview was staged along with her comrades behind her, together with one signed ‘Freedom Highway Socialist Group’. There was no point out of Plichta’s radical ideological orientation within the story.

VENEZELAN-AMERICAN JOURNALIST RAISES ALARM OVER PRO-MADURO PROTESTS, CALLING THEM A ‘THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY’

Nationwide and worldwide media quickly adopted swimsuit, making Plichta a darling of the left. However to her self-described “comrades,” she and the Freedom Highway Socialist Group have been new stars in an increasing motion, all beneath the Worldwide Individuals’s Meeting, an umbrella group for some 200 communist, socialist and Marxist-Leninist teams worldwide. That group has extra on its agenda than stopping the Trump administration from arresting unlawful immigrants and even overthrowing South American dictators.

The Worldwide Individuals’s Meeting is supported by controversial American expertise magnate Neville Roy Singham, who presently heads it research by the US Home Methods and Means Committee as an alleged propagandist for the Chinese language Communist Occasion. Singham funds quite a lot of teams within the US within the socialist-communist community, which stoke anti-American sentiment on the streets, together with The Reply Coalition, the Occasion for Socialism and Liberation, BreakThrough Information and Code Pink, co-founded by his spouse Jodie Evans.

On August 19, 2024, members of the Freedom Highway Socialist Group joined roughly 200 different teams, many socialist and Palestinian, in Chicago to protest the Democratic Nationwide Conference. Members held up indicators calling for “VICTORY OF THE PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE.” The terrorist group Hamas calls itself ‘the resistance’. (Asra Q. Nomani)

In latest days, these teams have actively mobilized socialist, communist, and Marxist-Leninist members throughout the nation to protest U.S. “imperialist” insurance policies in opposition to immigrants, Venezuela, Palestinians, and a number of different points. Even there, main information retailers largely ignore the position of far-left teams in organizing the protests, as an alternative describing them with sweeping statements framed as nationwide consensus. CNN called the protests led to a “nationwide outrage,” whereas the New York Instances described the demonstrations as “a rising outrage.” Neither CNN nor the New York Instances described the overtly socialist organizers of the demonstrations, though the New York Instances revealed two pictures of the Occasion for Socialism and Liberation’s distinctive black-and-white indicators, its identify in daring letters on the indicators, and even revealed one photograph with “FRSO” and “Freedom Highway Socialist Group” on the backside.

That is evident from her analysis into the Freedom Highway Socialist Group internal documents After going public, the FBI launched its question in 2010 to see whether or not American activists linked to the group offered materials help to overseas teams designated as terrorist organizations by the State Division. That investigation resulted in raids on the houses and places of work of the group’s activists called ‘repression’, however didn’t result in felony prosecution.

CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION PROMOTES VENEZUELA’S REGIME CHANGE PROTESTS ORGANIZED BY SOCIALIST GROUPS

The Freedom Highway Socialist Group and its community of socialist organizations internet hosting the anti-ICE protests imagine that the American capitalist system have to be abolished, they usually help the communist governments of Cuba, China, Russia and North Korea.

It framed Plichta’s arrest as a part of a sample of ‘repression’ in opposition to revolutionary activists.

The case of Plichta illustrates how revolutionary teams can embed themselves in mainstream protest actions, akin to an rebellion, utilizing fashionable causes to advance a way more radical political agenda.

Whether or not the media was oblivious or deliberate, the proof of Plichta’s ideological radicalization was all there. She emerged from her temporary stint on the Kent County Correctional Facility with a pink shirt that learn “FRSO” seen behind her winter coat.

On Might 1, 2025, members of the Freedom Highway Socialist Group protested in Washington, DC, blocks from the White Home, in help of labor rights. “DOWN WITH BILLIONAIRES,” learn an indication with a picture of Elon Musk. ‘WE NEED SOCIALISM.’ (Asra Q. Nomani)

At Fountain Road Church, the group’s organizing secretary, Tom Burke, president of the Worldwide Alliance of Theatrical Stage Workers Local 26, gave the native chapter gave a pep speak in protection of Maduro, with members leaning on their protest indicators as they listened intently. One signal learn: “Regime change begins at dwelling.”

Burke suggested them to hitch different branches and ship a delegation to Maduro’s courtroom for his trial to “wreak destruction, make the nation ungovernable for Trump and his mates, and stir it up in every single place we will.”

“So, comrades, please be part of me and we’ll defeat Trump and his minions,” Burke stated.

Beside him, Plichta nodded in settlement.

“Solidarity!” Burke closed.

Plichta joined the mantra: “Solidarity!”