By Once hailed as a “bright light” of Gen Z progressivism, 21-year-old Calla Walsh has ignited a political firestorm by aligning herself with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Once a rising Democratic activist praised by The Boston Globe and The New York Times, Walsh has shifted from championing climate action and Democratic Socialism to voicing support for Iran’s hardline regime and its so-called “Axis of Resistance.”
Walsh first emerged as a prominent youth figure in Sen. Ed Markey’s 2020 reelection campaign. The Times once described her as “ardent, organized,” and someone who “doesn’t take orders,” casting her as emblematic of a new generation of left-wing political operatives. Shady Hill School, the elite Massachusetts private institution she once attended, took to social media to commend her as an alum whose “media savvy and grassroots organizing” made her “a force to be reckoned with.”
That reputation has since veered into deeply polarizing territory. In the aftermath of Hamas’s October 2023 terrorist assault on Israel — which left more than 1,200 dead — Walsh was arrested and later pled guilty to charges of criminal trespass and criminal mischief for leading a group that attacked an Elbit Systems facility in New Hampshire. She received a 60-day jail sentence. Her parting words before sentencing: “Free Palestine.”
Walsh’s political evolution escalated further with a high-profile appearance in Tehran at the “International Memorial for the Media Martyrs of the Struggle against the Zionist Regime,” a state-sponsored propaganda event underwritten by Iranian broadcasters. Addressing the crowd, Walsh declared, “We all have a duty, when we go back to the countries we came from, to share the truth we saw here and to struggle against Zionism and imperialism. Glory to all the martyrs! Glory to the Axis of Resistance! … Death to America! Death to Israel.” She later referred to the event as “the greatest honor of my life” and appeared online in a hijab while calling the United States “genocidal.”
The backlash was swift, writes NH Journal, which was one of the first to discuss the leftwinger’s radical stances. Republican strategist Steve Guest described her as “a raging antisemite” and “wildly anti-America.” Nadwa Al-Dawsari, a fellow at the Middle East Institute, condemned the spectacle: “Calla Walsh in Tehran chanting ‘Death to America’ while Iran and its proxies kill, displace, and brutalize millions, especially women. Nothing says ‘justice’ like cheering on a theocracy from a place of privilege.”
Walsh’s radical transformation stands as a reminder of what is really rooted in leftwing utopian ideas. For example, in a 2021 Teen Vogue essay, she portrayed Gen Z as shaped by the Trump presidency, pandemic, economic upheaval, and the Black Lives Matter movement. “These defining events and movements,” she wrote, “have caused Gen Z to become more disillusioned with capitalism and the white-supremacist, bourgeois state than older generations.”
Like Walsh, much of the left has appeared to become radical, embraced violence, and become rooted in antisemitism. In May, a leftwing activist connected to anti-Israel protests and liberal nonprofits murdered to Iraeli embassy staffers in cold blood in Washington, D.C. Authorities arrested 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez at the Capital Jewish Museum after he executed Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim—at close range, out in the open in the nation’s capital.
Despite the attention now swirling around her support for Iran, neither The New York Times nor The Boston Globe — which once elevated her voice — have reported on her activities in Tehran. Walsh’s trip, organized by the World Service of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, a state-run outlet accused of disseminating regime propaganda, has called into question how far youthful idealism can drift — and what it now means to be a “force to be reckoned with.”
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