Mario Torres is in the front line for the defense of civilization.

Torres is the Columbia University janitor pictured defending Hamilton Hall from invading barbarians last week. The iconic photo of him pinning a protester against the wall became an instant social media meme.

Now, the unassuming Torres wouldn’t describe himself this way. If you listen to an interview he gave to the Free Press, he goes out of his way to say he’s an average New Yorker who now is concerned for his family.

But if you really listen to what he’s saying, you instantly understand the significance of what took place that day. The contrast between the everyday American turned suddenly by circumstances into a hero and the assailant breaking the law couldn’t be more stark.

The protester he pinned is himself a poster boy—for everything reviled in America. He is 40-year-old millionaire anarchist Cody Tarlow, also known as James Carlson or Cody Carlson, a violent trust-funder with a long history of Marxist agitation, whose late parents were megadonor ad executives, and whose trophy stepmother is now dating singer John Mellencamp.

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It was the day the bicoastal elite/celebrity/activist set met a Yankee fan. As Torres put it, “It just so happens that they stormed my building. And I was there.”

Torres describes the Columbia campus prior to the protests as “beautiful, always manicured.” He added, “We always felt safe.” When you think about it, Torres may not know it—though, again, he might—but he is describing the essence of civilization.

Then the protesters came to campus, he said, and everything began to feel uneasy. After they took over Hamilton Hall, he quickly realized the attackers knew what they were doing. The surveillance cameras, high in the ceiling and hard to reach, were all immediately covered. “These guys were pros,” Torres told the Free Press.

In words that perfectly describe society’s dilemma right now, Torres said, “You don’t have a plan. They have a plan, you don’t.”

The reason the barbarians have a plan is that they are organized, while Democratic law enforcement refuses to prosecute criminals, and Republicans in the House of Representatives squander what little power they have.

Just take a look at Tarlow. (Let’s call him that, as that was the name of his father, the late ad executive Dick Tarlow, famous for his work with Revlon, Ralph Lauren, Cuisinart, and Pottery Barn, according to Yahoo News.)

The Canada Free Press quotes New York City Police Department officials as saying that Tarlow is a “longtime figure in the anarchist world.”

The New York Post, quoting a source at City Hall, writes that the millionaire’s rap sheet “dates back to at least 2005, when he was charged in San Francisco for participating in the violent ‘West Coast Anti-Capitalist Mobilization and March Against the G8.’”

So we are dealing with a violent protester who is just a very rich anti-capitalist who has exhibited anti-social behavior for years but whose money, and our increasingly weak law enforcement apparatus, has allowed him to roam our streets free.

As Torres put it, “He’s worth millions, I’m not.”

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Tarlow organized with others like him. Lisa Fithian, a legendary Marxist activist, was seen directing students at Hamilton Hall, telling them how to use zip ties to lock the doors. Fithian, who escaped arrest when the police showed up, is a veteran of the anti-world trade Seattle riots in 1999, the Ferguson riots, and every civil disturbance in between.

On her Facebook page, she describes herself as “trying to build the world that we want.” A 2003 New York Times article wrote of her, “You don’t go to Fithian when you want to carry a placard. You go to her when you want to make sure there are enough bolt cutters to go around.”

Torres enjoys no such advantages. He is a janitor with few resources who’s now worried about his children. A GoFundMe page has already been set up for him.

He told the Free Press of these violent activists, “I know they are funded by someone, you know they are funded by someone. People know that they are funded. We figured that out when we saw all the same colored tents, and then it came out in the news that NYU has the same color tents. Someone is funding them.”

We do know. Politico reported this week that the pro-Hamas protesters “are backed by a surprising source: Biden’s biggest donors.” That’s less of a surprise than Politico is making out. But keep your eyes on Mario Torres. His skirmish with a violent millionaire revolutionary wannabe is the stuff that stands upstream of politics.