Behind the Black Mask

As a young Mexican immigrant, Gabriel Nadales grew up feeling alienated and distant from the American Dream that brought his parents to this country seeking a better life for themselves and their family. In high school, he was attracted to a left-wing ideology and soon found himself caught up in the anarchist subculture-attending punk-rock concerts, dressing up in garish outfits, and making t-shirts, flags, and zines to fund his activism. He learned about anarchist history and got involved in "direct actions," including destructive acts of mayhem. Above all, he was angry: angry at cops, angry at Wall Street, angry at corporations that despoiled the environment, angry at America itself. It was only after being exposed to works by classical liberal economists-such as Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell-which Nadales began to reconsider his assumptions about capitalism and American society. Eventually he left Antifa and became a conservative activist, advising youth groups on campuses around the country on how to deal with left-wing students, radical faculty, and openly hostile administrators.