The Trump administration declared war on the “terrorist organization” of “antifa” and the supposed “networks” associated with it last week. Antifa is not so much a vast national conspiracy as it is simply an abbreviation for anti-fascism — but don’t point out that anti-anti-fascism looks a lot like fascism. That would make you antifa, too. The plain intent of the memo is to make Americans afraid to call fascism what it is — or worse, to say fascism is bad.
President Donald Trump first signed an executive order purporting to classify antifa as a domestic terrorist organization — a designation that doesn’t actually exist. This was followed by a national security presidential memorandum (NSPM) a few days later. According to the memo, calling things fascist “justif[ies] and encourage[s] acts of violent revolution,” which is why anti-fascism is terrorism, actually.
There is no such thing as a domestic terror group designation, or a federal domestic terrorism charge, which is part of what renders the executive order and memo so perplexing. That is lucky for Trump and his supporters, since a domestic terrorism charge might have applied to the violent insurrection on January 6th, 2021. But it is anti-fascism that is the problem, clearly.
This upside-down treatment of the English language is not novel. The George W. Bush administration coined such unforgettable phrases as “they hate our freedoms” and “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Historical authoritarian regimes repurposed words as part of their assault on collective social reality, a theme that George Orwell returned to many times in his works. Trump’s anti-anti-fascism orders work similarly. They distort not just words like terrorism, violence, and fascism, but also the law, how the federal government is organized, and what the Constitution establishes as the foundational principles of this country. The orders do not make sense logically, they do not match up with reality, and they are not designed to be enacted effectively.
The Trump regime will watch the internet and punish wrongthink
The current level of surveillance — both online and in real life — means that it is easier than ever for the government to blacklist people for speech. Any reasonably intelligent person can read past the Trumpist doublespeak and euphemisms. The White House has issued a naked threat, attempting to use right-wing agitator Charlie Kirk’s death as a pretext to reenact the excesses of the post-9/11 Patriot Act and more — to leverage the government’s sophisticated surveillance apparatus, its many forms of legal exceptionalism, and its punitive controls on financial activity when it comes to international terror groups. The Trump regime will watch the internet and punish wrongthink. It also now has an excuse to put jackboots on American soil.
On Saturday morning, two days after his memo, Trump purported to have sent “troops” into Portland, a city that is specifically named in the NSPM; Portland leaders have confirmed a “sudden influx” while urging residents to stay calm. He also proposed that American cities be used as training grounds for America’s military. “We’re going into Chicago very soon,” he added.
Portland will not be the only victim — or even the primary victim — of the war on antifa, which is part of a larger war against the freedom of speech. Antifa, as described in the NSPM, is both everything and nothing. It is in forums and social media and in-person meetings. It is in educational organizations and nonprofit institutions. It is protests (“riots”) not just in Portland, but in Los Angeles as well, whether against Trump’s immigration policies or, separately, “anti-police and ‘criminal justice’ riots.” It is the doxxing of masked and armed ICE agents. It is the “rhetoric” on the bullets alleged to be engraved by Charlie Kirk’s killer — referring, it seems, to an unused bullet casing with a video game button combo on it.
So antifa could be a kid in a black mask tossing a brick at a CCTV camera at an ICE facility. Antifa could be the grandma on the sidewalk holding a sign reading “DONALD TRUMP IS A FASCIST.” Antifa is ACAB. Antifa is Fuck ICE. Antifa is No Kings. Antifa might be a reading group, a teach-in, an Instagram solicitation for mutual aid. Antifa could be the ICEBlock app, and the App Store could be providing material support for terrorism.
While it is tempting to believe that the war on antifa is just more Trumpist bluster — sound and fury signifying nothing — there are worrying signs that it is deadly serious. Take, for instance, this recent press release about Portland, Oregon: “The Radical Left’s reign of terror in Portland ends now, with President Donald J. Trump mobilizing federal resources to stop Antifa-led hellfire in its tracks.”
Law enforcement and experts have long emphasized that antifa is a decentralized movement. The Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) said in 2021 that its “data do indicate a recent increase in violent activity by Antifa extremists, anarchists, and related far-left extremists,” but that this is “likely connected to the concurrent increase in violent far-right activity, particularly from white supremacists and others whose ideology anti-fascists actively oppose.” If there is a notable rise in anti-fascism, it may be because there is suddenly a whole lot of fascism.
At a meeting with military leaders, Trump emphasized that his ambitions for anti-anti-fascism encompassed more than just Portland. “We’re gonna straighten them out one by one,” he said. “This is gonna be a major part for some people in this room. That’s a war, too. It’s war from within.” If “war from within” feels familiar, well, “the enemy within” is a classic of authoritarianism.
This is all pretty clear: The president wants to turn the military loose on American civilians. Having merged right-wing terror with the Republican Party, the government is now attempting a purge of anyone Trump deems an enemy.
A national security presidential memorandum is neither a statute nor an executive order. It is instead a directive setting priorities for agencies such as the FBI, the DOJ, and the Treasury Department. This one calls for the Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) to rally against the ill-defined “antifa” threat, directing agencies to investigate individuals, organizations and their donors, “illicit funding streams,” and nonprofits with tax-exempt status.
What the DOJ and the FBI ultimately do with the memo could usher in a chapter of American history that makes the McCarthy era look like amateur hour. But there are many steps to get to that ugly future.
According to the memorandum, antifa’s “common threads” include “hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.” Antifa is also described as being animated by “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity,” and holding extremist views “on migration, race, and gender.” These ideological threads, it claims, are at the root of political violence in America, and must be thoroughly investigated and countered.
What is anti-Americanism, one might ask? Well, it would be the negative portrayal of “foundational American principles” like “support for law enforcement and border control,” two “principles” that are somehow neglected in the Federalist Papers.
Antifa’s ‘common threads’ include ‘hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality’
The Attorney General has been directed to prioritize “politically motivated terrorist acts such as organized doxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder.” This list of “terrorist acts” is alarming even before you remember that the mayor of Newark was arrested for “trespassing” on an ICE facility. Further into the memo, the president cites the statute for obstructing arrest by federal law enforcement, the same charge previously levied at New York City Comptroller and former mayoral candidate Brad Lander.
Forget about the deployment of feds to Portland for a moment — after all, the deployments in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, predate this newest excuse to use military force against the populace. While his failed occupation of Portland in 2020 might still be top of mind for Trump, his more mentally deft handlers — like Stephen Miller and JD Vance — understand the immediate devastation they can wreak with the parts of the memo that are about money: IRS investigations, financial institutions’ Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs), and statutes prohibiting “material support” for terrorism. (Given that there is no such thing as a domestic terrorism designation, the legal basis for using these tools becomes murky — not that that sort of thing seems to bother this administration.)
The first financial target appears to be George Soros, who Trump called “a likely candidate” for investigation. Soros, the billionaire Trump has previously threatened to jail, began a network called the Open Society Foundations to distribute money for human rights and pro-democracy groups. (Soros is also unpopular with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who views pro-democracy charities as political threats.)
Two weeks ago, on a memorial episode of Charlie Kirk’s podcast with presidential puppeteer Miller, Vance drew a line to Kirk’s slaying, promising “to go after the NGO network that foments, facilitates, and engages in violence.”
“We are going to channel all of the anger that we have over the organized campaign that led to this assassination, to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks,” Miller responded.
On Thursday, as the president signed the memorandum, Miller repeated much of what he had said on the podcast. “For the first time in history there is an all-government effort to dismantle left-wing, to dismantle Antifa, to dismantle the organizations that have been carrying out these acts of political violence and terrorism,” he said, while standing next to FBI head Kash Patel, who appeared to be in some kind of dissociative fugue. Miller went on to rail against “the riots that started with Black Lives Matter” and “the attacks on ICE officers,” claiming they were part of a larger, elaborate plot. “It is structured. It is sophisticated. It is well funded. It is well planned.”
The same day, The New York Times reported that a senior DOJ official had “instructed more than a half dozen U.S. attorney’s offices to draft plans to investigate” Soros’ Open Society Foundations. Soros is a popular target for right-wing conspiracy theorists, but they likely won’t stop there. But any cursory look at domestic terrorism in the last 30 years, and especially the last 10, will suggest the real problem was, and remains, the political right.
The modern era of political violence started with Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh’s 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, a crime explicitly motivated by white supremacism, came as a shock to America. No act of domestic terror since McVeigh has been as deadly, but right-wing violence has increased in frequency — so much so that America has become numb to it.
Anyone who has been paying attention for the last 10 years understands perfectly well that the country is convulsed by an epidemic of domestic terrorism, with right-wing terrorism comprising the majority of attacks. From the white supremacist 2015 Charleston church shooting to the car that rammed counter-protesters at the 2017 Unite the Right Rally to the 2019 El Paso Walmart killings that were motivated by the “great replacement” theory, right-wing extremism has an immense body count.
Left-wing terrorism is creeping upward, a recent CSIS report claims. But even that report is clear: From 2011 to 2024, there were 20 right-wing terror attacks a year. By contrast, the number of left-wing incidents per year rose in 2016 through 2024 to four. The body count is even more damning — 112 people killed by right-wing terror, eight times as many as by left-wing incidents.
Although there is a complex legal regime around what is described as international terrorism, “domestic terrorism” is, in the federal legal sense, little more than an empty phrase. It is mentioned in the USA PATRIOT Act, but without specific repercussions attached. There is no domestic equivalent for the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list. The FTO list also is part of a separate, even broader list maintained by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) under the Treasury Department — but as OFAC’s name implies, it is not really intended to be a tool against domestic terrorism.
Republicans were systematically undermining attempts to address right-wing extremism
The United States has a vast array of robust (and constitutionally questionable) enforcement mechanisms when it comes to combating and prosecuting international terror, from advanced surveillance regimes to laws barring “material support.” In comparison, it is anemic when it comes to domestic terror. This is no accident. Long before MAGA was but a twinkle in Trump’s eye, Republicans were systematically undermining attempts to address right-wing extremism.
In 2009, the Department of Homeland Security issued a dire warning: right-wing radical groups, including white supremacist groups, were using the dismal economy alongside the election of the first Black president to recruit new members. The nine-page report that warned about right-wing extremism kicked off a furious Republican backlash. The sturm und drang forced Janet Napolitano to rescind the report and roll back the DHS’s efforts in monitoring right-wing extremism.
In 2013, a controversy around IRS scrutiny of right-wing groups seeking 501(c) tax designations ended with an apology and, in 2017, a settlement. That same year, 501(c)(3)s like Identity Evropa were associated with the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where Heather Heyer was killed.
Even laughably modest attempts at countering domestic right-wing terror have been rolled back. For example, government grants to organizations that rehabilitate those who want to leave neo-Nazi or white supremacist groups were revoked during Trump’s first term in office.
That said, the threat to civil liberties posed by anti-terrorism initiatives is far from theoretical. The war against what is described as “international” terrorism has enveloped the American Muslim community in a nightmare of surveillance, infiltration, and fear. Community gatherings are subject to wiretapping and FBI agitators. Charitable giving has become a minefield that can result in nonprofits being dissolved and well-meaning donors becoming legally liable, thanks to the Treasury Department’s “virtually unchecked power to designate groups as terrorist organizations.”
The first Trump administration started with the Muslim ban and ended with January 6th, an insurrection against the foundation of American democracy itself
The first Trump administration started with the Muslim ban and ended with January 6th, an insurrection against the foundation of American democracy itself. Even as Congress convened to certify the results of the 2020 election, a right-wing crowd that included organized groups of extremists gathered to support Donald Trump at a Stop the Steal rally. They constructed a gallows and chanted “Hang Mike Pence.” The crowd surged into the Capitol building, smashing through doors and windows, as the vice president was rushed to an underground bunker.
This was an attack on a symbol of democracy, on the legislative body that most directly represents the people. Its aim was to invalidate an election by force. “We all look like domestic terrorists now,” one White House aide texted in the immediate aftermath.
Although many violent January 6th participants were prosecuted, no terrorism charges were brought — after all, there was no such thing as a federal domestic terrorism charge.
Some of the insurrectionists were later convicted, but the overall event was legitimized by the Republican Party. What’s more, those who were convicted were pardoned by Trump when he returned to office, unavoidably marrying political violence to the political system.
The day after the NSPM was published, right-wing rag the Daily Caller ran a column headlined “Enough is enough! I choose violence.” In the editorial, editor-at-large Geoffrey Ingersoll writes, “Today, I choose violence. Literally. I know calls for violence are generally frowned upon. The issue is … I simply don’t care.”
Ingersoll goes on to describe his fantasies of “hospitalizing” a “fat black lady,” a female activist getting “instantly clotheslined,” and indictments of his political enemies list, which includes Anthony Fauci, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Barack Obama, and “everyone in Clinton world” and “Biden world,” too. The goal is not even to jail these enemies, just to put them through a legal process that “absolutely ruins them.” “I want blood in the streets,” he writes.
The Daily Caller’s editor-in-chief told The New York Times that to characterize this column as a call for political violence is “totally dishonest.” Very well, then. Let’s call it a clear and accurate picture of Trumpism — one the Daily Caller felt safe enough to print because its editors know, just like the rest of us, that punishment is only for the people the Trump administration dislikes.
Ingersoll’s calls for violence are in line with the official Republican position. John Gillette, a Republican state representative for Arizona, called for Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) to be hanged on his X account. Two Kansas Republicans alluded to — “joked” — about shooting a former Democratic colleague on the floor of the Kansas House. Louisiana Republican Clay Higgins threatened to jail the mayor of Denver, while Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna threatened to refer him for criminal charges. Arizona Republican Paul Gosar shared an anime video depicting him killing Ocasio-Cortez and attacking then-President Joe Biden.
Denaturalization is another favorite Republican threat. Republican Andy Ogles of Tennessee said that New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani should be stripped of his citizenship and deported; Ogles later demanded the same for Rep. Delia Ramirez of Illinois. Texas Republican Brandon Gill, Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, and South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace have called for Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, a naturalized US citizen, to be deported.
Criticizing the unidentified masked men kidnapping people off the street in broad daylight is “blood libel,” as Vance puts it. But calling for the assault, even to the point of hospitalization, of political opponents is just “strongly-worded opinions,” as the editor’s note atop Ingersoll’s column reads. As for threats to elected Democrats from elected Republicans, that’s just politics as usual. So as people — including a Des Moines, Iowa, school superintendent — are vanished by secret police, Americans are told that left-wing terrorism is the real problem. Political violence happens because the left “dehumanizes” the right, they say, while the White House posts Pokémon deportation memes.
It is of course helpful to remember that in the Trump regime, every accusation is a confession. Antifa might not be organized, but the Department of Homeland Security sure is. George Soros might not be paying professional protesters, but right-wing media personalities are bankrolled by Trumpist billionaires. In the case of Ben Shapiro, that’s billionaires Dan and Farris Wilks; for Rumble, thank Peter Thiel. This is to say nothing of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, or Elon Musk’s X, or the Daily Caller itself, which is funded by Charles Koch.
Indeed, the memo’s description of the environment that leads to terroristic violence applies cleanly to the entire right-wing ecosystem. But perhaps the most striking accusation-as-confession is this paragraph from the national security presidential memorandum:
This political violence is not a series of isolated incidents and does not emerge organically. Instead, it is a culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change or direct policy outcomes, and prevent the functioning of a democratic society.
What is this but an elegant encapsulation of the past 10 years? It describes everything from the removal of Jimmy Kimmel from the air to the Libs of TikTok pattern of incitement to Charlie Kirk’s Professor Watchlist to Fox News’ defamation of Dominion Voting Systems and its employees to the celebrity worship of people like Kyle Rittenhouse.
What is this entire anti-terrorism memorandum if not an admission that terrorism works, and that terrorism has secured the White House?
Trump’s national security memorandum reads like some serious bullshit — but then, mass deportation sounded pretty fucking stupid, too. The Trump administration simply does not have the capacity to enact mass deportation at scale; nevertheless, even ineffective mass deportation means a plague of faceless ICE agents spiriting people away to inhumane detention centers while the administration’s closest allies gleefully shitpost about “Alligator Alcatraz.” The antifa that Trump imagines might not exist, but that doesn’t mean a war on antifa won’t have serious and devastating effects not just on real people but on the future of democracy itself.
Those who oppose Trump do have one thing going for them — his administration has the most delicate of glass jaws. After Brendan Carr’s barely veiled threat to pull ABC’s licenses unless the broadcaster suspended late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, the Disney-owned network suspended Kimmel. A broad public backlash led to his reinstatement, and Kimmel returned in a highly rated monologue-only episode taking aim at Carr. Though Nexstar and Sinclair — two companies that operate ABC affiliates — blacked out Kimmel at first, even they backed down by the end of the week.
The most significant battles that the Trump regime has won have been against corporations, institutions, billionaires, and elites — the “chickenshit,” in journalist Adam Serwer’s words, worse than mere cowards. “Acts of cowardice can be provoked by genuine danger — think of a deserting soldier fleeing the peril of the battlefield,” he writes. “When you’re chickenshit, you capitulate to avoid the mere possibility of discomfort, let alone something resembling real risk.”
We are surrounded, one might say, by everyday anti-fascists
When faced with the mass fury of ordinary, everyday people, Disney — a corporate juggernaut which functionally owns the hearts and minds of the nation’s children — suddenly recovered something resembling a spine and allowed Kimmel to come back. It is ordinary people, as Serwer points out, who have shown the most bravery and resilience in the face of authoritarianism. We are surrounded, one might say, by everyday anti-fascists. It is one of the reasons antifa is not actually organized; in America, as in many countries around the world, it doesn’t have to be.
So Stephen Miller is targeting the most pliable among us: the billionaire set. Scaring Soros and NGOs isn’t just an easy sop to the Republicans’ conspiracy-addled base — it’s also revealing. The right cannot imagine that politics could still flourish without money.
The idea is to scare people out of protesting in the streets, because protesting in the streets hurts the president’s feelings. The wave of doxxing following Charlie Kirk’s death, which was supported by the vice president, was meant to silence people on social media — to prevent them from posting their political beliefs lest they lose their jobs.
The Trump administration is issuing this highly questionable memo because not even masked thugs snatching people off the streets could quiet the opposition. The deployment of soldiers with guns into American cities didn’t stop the protests against Trump — indeed, one fed got the privilege of wearing a sandwich for his trouble. When the Trump regime attempted to frighten other protesters by trying to stick Sean Charles Dunn with a felony assault charge for throwing that sandwich, the grand jury refused to indict. The memo is an attempt to terrorize the American people, and the terrorists are doing this because they have not yet won.
