Not Without Incident: Questioning Big Brother's Platitudes

For much of Joe Biden’s presidency, I wrote about the war on Donald Trump, who, because of the lawfare campaign against him, went from a fading star after J6 to an invulnerable force that channeled the rabble’s rage straight to the White House for a second time. The various indictments against Trump crumbled one by one. There was the case on Georgia, which was riddled by conflicts of interest, and the case in Florida, which, though it was likely the strongest of the four, was tarnished by partisanship as many politicians have mishandled classified material, from David Patreus to Hillay Clinton.[i] Of course, there was the case in Washington brought by then Special Counsel Jack Smith over J6 and the claim that Trump fomented an insurrection, and that his speech on that day was tantamount to incitement.[ii] Finally, there was the brittle case in New York, the weakest of the four, but the one that Trump was eventually charged on, and that brandished him with the new title ‘felon’, which may have seemed like a blessing for his opposition, especially Kamala Harris, who imagined the 2024 election was a battle between “the prosecutor and the felon”, but it became akin to a knighthood for Trump.[iii] It bolstered his formidability. None of these cases should have been prosecuted, not because Trump is not a criminal, but because two-tiered justice system, which protects elites from accountability, was distorted to try and imprison Trump before the 2024 election. The same logic applies to the latest indictment by the Trump regime, and James Comey, the former Director of the FBI, was indicted by Trump’s DOJ.

The Trump regime’s latest National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM-7) named the “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence” presents a plan to target and abolish not just opposition to Trump, but opponents of Americanism, capitalism, ICE, and Christianity.[iv] The Comey indictment, as well as Trump’s executive order declaring Antifa a terrorist organization, are significant news items, but this memorandum from the White House is incredibly alarming and deserves a lot more attention than it is getting. Few are reporting on it, let alone devoting time to analyzing its text and considering the implications and dangers in it.

That this directive is so underreported, let alone analyzed and called out, is astonishing, especially because the illiberal liberal class is so hell bent on depicting Trump as an aberrational dictator. Here is a document that is ample evidence of this, yet there is little to no attention paid by our great defenders of democracy and all that is good. A few outlets have reported on it. In the mainstream news, there is The Guardian, CNN, and Axios, and in alternative media, there is Chris Hedges, Ken Klippenstein, Drop Site News, Common Dreams.[v] The ACLU has also released a statement reacting to NSPM-7. Hina Shamsi, director of their National Security Project, said that “Working from a fever dream of conspiracies, President Trump has launched yet another effort to investigate and intimidate his critics.”[vi]

As Klippenstein notes, NSPM-7 differs from executive orders because an executive order is a public decree with the goal of dictating the daily machinations of government, but “a national security directive is a sweeping policy decree for the defense, foreign policy, intelligence, and law enforcement apparatus.”[vii] Various arms of the US federal government are being tasked with rooting out leftist terrorism. This will be done by identifying and interrogating citizens who espouse certain ideas, like anti-capitalism or anti-Christianity. Thus, this order establishes a pre-crime unit whose sole purpose is to abolish critics of the Trump regime and its ideology. This is the Bush regime’s approach to national security on steroids. After 9/11, the Bush regime issued various national security and presidential directives that established a surveillance state and used the US security state to monitor its own citizens. The goal was to stop terrorist attacks before they occurred. The FBI regularly infiltrated and surveilled Muslim groups, as they have infiltrated far-right groups like the Proud Boys in recent years.[viii] The Trump movement is rightfully outraged at the alleged involvement of the FBI in J6, and the case of Ray Epps and other oddities were touted by Ted Cruz and other Republican officials as proof that at the very least, the FBI was not telling the whole story.[ix] I wrote about this at the time.

However, NSPM-7 will inevitably lead to the same being done to left-wing groups. COINTELPRO was launched in 1956 to target the perceived influence of the communist party in the US, but it eventually branched out to monitor figures we now laud, like MLK Jr., Malcom X and other civil rights movements, as well as groups with more distasteful or abhorrent ideologies, like the Ku Klux Klan.[x] Such grotesque factions, and the boogeyman of global communism, were used as a pretext for the erasure of any idea or proposal that could be interpreted as socialist of communist. People who proclaim themselves socialists are obvious targets, but those who even partially sympathize with socialist ideas or platforms are next, and then those who are perceived to be communist and socialist are next, and so it goes. As we know, the Trump regime and most conservatives see the Democratic party as communists, Marxists, and socialist lunatics, so no one is safe from being accused of having Leftist ideas or sympathies.

The war on Trump was so misguided and fraught with danger because the exact same logic and means would inevitably be exploited by their adversaries. The reality of the lawfare, the political persecution, the inversion of justice, that was used to target Trump, and his political movement would be used to justify a different, but equally deluded crackdown. It is deluded because it is not clear what Trump, or the conservative right mean by “the Left”. This spectral left is seen haunting the halls of corporate news outlets, universities, public schools, and the many other pillars of liberal society, which have been warped by the illiberal liberal class, but are not bastions of leftism or Marxism as many conservatives repeatedly claim.

The illiberal liberal class pursued fragile, shoddy cases against Trump. After he rebuffed these efforts to thwart him, he has delivered what on the surface looks like retribution or revenge, but what is essentially a campaign to remove voices against empire and the permanent regime. J. Edgar Hoover, who as FBI Director started the first Red Scare, could only dream about having had the power Trump is using to target the so-called Left.

In 1947, Hoover delivered an infamous speech before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in which he outlined the threat of Soviet communism to Americanism.[xi] There are parts of the speech that mirror parts of NSPM-7 and the broader crusade to out and exterminate alleged Leftist agitators. For example, when Hoover emphasizes the stealthiness of communists and their ability to infiltrate groups like organized labor, civil rights/progressive movements, and the media, this is like the claims by conservatives that universities have been taken over by anti-American ideologues and anti-American thinking. William Buckley argued this decades ago in his book God and Man at Yale, and commentators like Ben Shapiro, Mark Levin, and Dinesh D-Souza and countless others have all published books that chastise universities for their left-wing bias.[xii] Hoover argued that “The open, avowed communist who carries a card and pays dues is not different from a security standpoint than the person who does the party’s work but pays no dues, carries no card, and is not on the party rolls. In fact, the latter is a greater menace because of his opportunity to work in stealth.”[xiii] This logic, which fed a paranoia about communists being everywhere, like the agents in The Matrix, is intoxicating. In NSPM-7, it states that “under the umbrella of anti-fascism. These movements portray foundational American principles…as “fascist” to justify and encourage acts of violent revolution.”, and disturbingly, it goes on to say that “Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”[xiv] This essentially deems anyone who is opposed to the Trump regime is if not a domestic terrorist, is sympathetic to such groups and their actions.

The Communist Party in America was banned by Dwight Eisenhower in 1954, based on the idea that it sought to “overthrow the government of the United States”[xv] This insidious notion, that certain parties seek to overthrow the US government, and are thus too extreme to hold power, implies that only approved parties are allowed to run for election, and that the “US government” must only be managed by a particular ideology. Instead of meaning whatever party is currently in power or who is elected, this means the unelected body who steers US policy every day, no matter who is in the White House, more aptly referred to as the permanent regime,

However, some political factions are not seen as such by those in power, and just like communists or alleged communists were not seen as political parties and to some, not even human. Hoover embodies this sentiment in the conclusion of his speech, where he says that “Communism, in reality, is not a political party. It is a way of life–an evil and malignant way of life. It reveals a condition akin to disease that spreads like an epidemic; and like an epidemic, a quarantine is necessary to keep it from infecting the nation.”[xvi] This language is mirrored in NSPM-7. Different parts of the executive branch are tasked with seeking, identifying, and dismantling groups who are terrorists or those who are accused of abetting or sympathizing with them. The same paranoia that gripped the illiberal liberal class during the Cold War is being unleashed in the US, boosted by the killing of Charlie Kirk and ICE agents. Paranoia, especially paranoia based on elaborate conspiracy theories about spectral enemies, is deadly. It is fatal for societies and civilizations. As Richard Hofstadter writes of paranoia in US politics, “The paranoid spokesman sees fate of this conspiracy in apocalyptic terms-he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values.”[xvii] As Miller said in his speech at Kirk’s memorial, the Trump regime seeks to remove their perceived enemy, the evil force that they have concocted in their minds, the apparent scourge on society, the forces of secular humanism, Satanism, communism, Marxism and Cultural Marxism, Leftism, witchcraft, and Islam.[xviii] This existential threat, one that is juxtaposed by the threat declared by Trump’s opposition, is similarly conjured up to justify censorship and abolishment of whole ideologies. Hedges captures this unreality when he writes that “Paranoia grips the ruling elite, composed of narcissists, buffoons and gangsters, who feed off conspiracy theories. They see mortal enemies everywhere and live in a hermetically sealed non-reality-based universe. They are creating a pseudo-democracy populated with pseudo-legislators, pseudo-courts, pseudo-journalists, pseudo-intellectuals, pseudo-Christians and pseudo-citizens.”[xix] The claim that there are always barbarians at the gates, now in the form of drag queens and blue-haired freaks, is trumpeted to justify authoritarianism and fascism. It is not friendly fascism, but straight fascism, unmasked and overt.

Despots thrive on imagined emergencies to seize total power. Hofstadter also writes of the paranoid leader that “He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point: it is now or never in organizing resistance to conspiracy. Time is forever running out.”[xx] NSPM-7, combined with the plethora of fiery speeches and declaration of war from the Trump regime, are proof that the war on Trump has flipped and a new war is being waged, a war on the Anti-Trump sect. Fueled by paranoia about the spectral Left, this war will potentially be more extreme and catastrophic than the last one. No one will be safe from cancellation or imprisonment. Directives like NSPM-7 are a step closer to outright totalitarianism. It is akin to anti-agitation laws passed in The Soviet Union and China, where all counter-revolutionary activities were/are banned and those who found to hold or express subversive views are deemed enemies of the state.[xxi] In a free society this is despicable and unacceptable. Just like the war on Trump was outrageous, this war on the anti-Trump sect is equally outrageous.

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[i] PBS Politics, and District Attorney of Georgia. “Read the Full Georgia Indictment against Trump and 18 Allies.” PBS NewsHour, August 15, 2023. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-the-full-georgia-indictment-against-trump-and-18-allies. and PBS Politics, and US Department of Justice. “Read the Full Trump Indictment on Mishandling of Classified Documents.” PBS NewsHour, June 9, 2023. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-the-full-trump-indictment-on-mishandling-of-classified-documents.

[ii] US Department of Justice. “IN the UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT for the DISTRICT of COLUMBIA UNITED STATES of AMERICA,” August 1, 2023. https://www.justice.gov/storage/US_v_Trump_23_cr_257.pdf.

[iii] District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “District Attorney Bragg Announces 34-Count Felony Indictment of Former President Donald J. Trump.” Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, April 4, 2023. https://manhattanda.org/district-attorney-bragg-announces-34-count-felony-indictment-of-former-president-donald-j-trump/.

[iv] Trump, Donald J. “Memorandum on Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence | the American Presidency Project.” Ucsb.edu, September 25, 2025. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/memorandum-countering-domestic-terrorism-and-organized-political-violence.

[v] Cancryn, Adam. “Trump Signs Memorandum Ordering Probes of Groups Aiding ‘Organized Political Violence.’” CNN, September 25, 2025. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/25/politics/trump-memorandum-probes-groups-aiding-political-violence., Falconer, Rebecca. “Trump Slams ‘Radical Left’ after Signing ‘Organized Political Violence’ Memo.” Axios, September 26, 2025. https://www.axios.com/2025/09/26/trump-organized-political-violence-radical-left., Hedges, Chris. “Trump’s War on America.” Substack.com. The Chris Hedges Report, September 29, 2025. https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/trumps-war-on-america., Klippenstein, Ken. “Trump’s NSPM-7 Labels Common Beliefs as Terrorism ‘Indicators.’” Kenklippenstein.com. Ken Klippenstein, September 27, 2025. https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trumps-nspm-7-labels-common-beliefs., Rosane, Olivia. “Underreported Memo Is ‘Declaration of War’ against Trump Opponents | Common Dreams.” Common Dreams, September 28, 2025. https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-war-on-critics., and Tait, Robert, and Aram Roston. “Trump Signs Memo Targeting ‘Domestic Terrorism’ amid Fears of Crackdown on the Left.” the Guardian. The Guardian, September 26, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/25/trump-presidential-memorandum-political-violence.

[vi] Shamsi, Hina. “ACLU Statement on the Trump Administration’s Memorandum Targeting Political Opponents | American Civil Liberties Union.” American Civil Liberties Union, September 26, 2025. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-statement-on-the-trump-administrations-memorandum-targeting-political-opponents.

[vii] Klippenstein. “Trump’s NSPM-7 Labels Common Beliefs as Terrorism ‘Indicators.’”

[viii] Greenwald, Glenn, and Murtaza Hussain. “Meet the Muslim-American Leaders the FBI and NSA Have Been Spying On.” The Intercept, July 9, 2014. https://theintercept.com/2014/07/09/under-surveillance/., Human Rights Watch. “US: Terrorism Prosecutions Often an Illusion | Human Rights Watch.” Human Rights Watch, July 21, 2014. https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/07/21/us-terrorism-prosecutions-often-illusion. and Rafei, Leila. “ACLU News & Commentary.” American Civil Liberties Union, November 8, 2021. https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/how-the-fbi-spied-on-orange-county-muslims-and-attempted-to-get-away-with-it.

[ix] C-SPAN, and Ted Cruz. “Senator Cruz Questions FBI Official about Ray Epps Role in January 6.” C-SPAN.org. C-SPAN, January 11, 2022. https://www.c-span.org/clip/senate-committee/senator-cruz-questions-fbi-official-about-ray-epps-role-in-january-6/4995564.

[x] To see all that has been released so far, see: FBI. “COINTELPRO.” FBI, 2025. https://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro.

[xi] Hoover, Edgar J. “Hoover, ‘Speech before the House Committee…,’ Speech Text – Voices of Democracy.” Voices of Democracy, 2014. https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/hoover-speech-before-the-house-committee-speech-text/.

[xii] Buckley, William F. God and Man at Yale. Gateway Editions, 2021., D’Souza, Dinesh. Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus. New York: Vintage Books, 1992., Levin, Mark R. American Marxism. New York: Threshold Editions, 2021., and Shapiro, Ben, and David Limbaugh. Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010.

[xiii] Hoover. “Hoover, ‘Speech before the House Committee…,’ Speech Text – Voices of Democracy.”

[xiv] Trump. “Memorandum on Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence | the American Presidency Project.”

[xv] Eisenhower, Dwight D. “Statement by the President upon Signing the Communist Control Act of 1954. | the American Presidency Project.” http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu, August 24, 1954. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-the-president-upon-signing-the-communist-control-act-1954.

[xvi] Hoover. “Hoover, ‘Speech before the House Committee…,’ Speech Text – Voices of Democracy.”

[xvii] Hofstadter, Richard. “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” Harper’s Magazine, November 1964. https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/.

[xviii] Daystar, and Stephen Miller. “Stephen Miller’s Full Speech at Charlie Kirk Memorial.” YouTube, September 21, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPcp67tidDY.

[xix] Hedges. “Trump’s War on America.”

[xx] Hofstadter. “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.”

[xxi] Академия “Bolashaq. “Article 58: Treason against the Motherland – Академия ‘Bolashaq.’” Bolashaq.edu.kz, 2021. https://bolashaq.edu.kz/en/novosti-en/article-58-treason-against-the-motherland/. and in this source, it notes the introduction of anti-agitation laws by the Chinese government. Mao Zedong did not issue such laws or decrees because of his beliefs regarding judicial institutions and the law in general: US Department of State. “1997 Human Rights Report – China.” 1997-2001.state.gov, January 30, 1998. https://1997-2001.state.gov/global/human_rights/1997_hrp_report/china.html.

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References

Академия “Bolashaq. “Article 58: Treason against the Motherland – Академия ‘Bolashaq.’” Bolashaq.edu.kz, 2021. https://bolashaq.edu.kz/en/novosti-en/article-58-treason-against-the-motherland/.

Buckley, William F. God and Man at Yale. Gateway Editions, 2021.

C-SPAN, and Ted Cruz. “Senator Cruz Questions FBI Official about Ray Epps Role in January 6.” C-SPAN.org. C-SPAN, January 11, 2022. https://www.c-span.org/clip/senate-committee/senator-cruz-questions-fbi-official-about-ray-epps-role-in-january-6/4995564.

Cancryn, Adam. “Trump Signs Memorandum Ordering Probes of Groups Aiding ‘Organized Political Violence.’” CNN, September 25, 2025. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/25/politics/trump-memorandum-probes-groups-aiding-political-violence.

D’Souza, Dinesh. Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus. New York: Vintage Books, 1992.

Daystar, and Stephen Miller. “Stephen Miller’s Full Speech at Charlie Kirk Memorial.” YouTube, September 21, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPcp67tidDY.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “District Attorney Bragg Announces 34-Count Felony Indictment of Former President Donald J. Trump.” Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, April 4, 2023. https://manhattanda.org/district-attorney-bragg-announces-34-count-felony-indictment-of-former-president-donald-j-trump/.

Eisenhower, Dwight D. “Statement by the President upon Signing the Communist Control Act of 1954. | the American Presidency Project.” http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu, August 24, 1954. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-the-president-upon-signing-the-communist-control-act-1954.

Falconer, Rebecca. “Trump Slams ‘Radical Left’ after Signing ‘Organized Political Violence’ Memo.” Axios, September 26, 2025. https://www.axios.com/2025/09/26/trump-organized-political-violence-radical-left.

FBI. “COINTELPRO.” FBI, 2025. https://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro.

Greenwald, Glenn, and Murtaza Hussain. “Meet the Muslim-American Leaders the FBI and NSA Have Been Spying On.” The Intercept, July 9, 2014. https://theintercept.com/2014/07/09/under-surveillance/.

Hedges, Chris. “Trump’s War on America.” Substack.com. The Chris Hedges Report, September 29, 2025. https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/trumps-war-on-america.

Hofstadter, Richard. “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” Harper’s Magazine, November 1964. https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/.

Hoover, Edgar J. “Hoover, ‘Speech before the House Committee…,’ Speech Text – Voices of Democracy.” Voices of Democracy, 2014. https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/hoover-speech-before-the-house-committee-speech-text/.

Human Rights Watch. “US: Terrorism Prosecutions Often an Illusion | Human Rights Watch.” Human Rights Watch, July 21, 2014. https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/07/21/us-terrorism-prosecutions-often-illusion.

Klippenstein, Ken. “Trump’s NSPM-7 Labels Common Beliefs as Terrorism ‘Indicators.’” Kenklippenstein.com. Ken Klippenstein, September 27, 2025. https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trumps-nspm-7-labels-common-beliefs.

Levin, Mark R. American Marxism. New York: Threshold Editions, 2021.

PBS Politics, and District Attorney of Georgia. “Read the Full Georgia Indictment against Trump and 18 Allies.” PBS NewsHour, August 15, 2023. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-the-full-georgia-indictment-against-trump-and-18-allies.

PBS Politics, and US Department of Justice. “Read the Full Trump Indictment on Mishandling of Classified Documents.” PBS NewsHour, June 9, 2023. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-the-full-trump-indictment-on-mishandling-of-classified-documents.

Rafei, Leila. “ACLU News & Commentary.” American Civil Liberties Union, November 8, 2021. https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/how-the-fbi-spied-on-orange-county-muslims-and-attempted-to-get-away-with-it.

Rosane, Olivia. “Underreported Memo Is ‘Declaration of War’ against Trump Opponents | Common Dreams.” Common Dreams, September 28, 2025. https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-war-on-critics.

Shamsi, Hina. “ACLU Statement on the Trump Administration’s Memorandum Targeting Political Opponents | American Civil Liberties Union.” American Civil Liberties Union, September 26, 2025. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-statement-on-the-trump-administrations-memorandum-targeting-political-opponents.

Shapiro, Ben, and David Limbaugh. Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010.

Tait, Robert, and Aram Roston. “Trump Signs Memo Targeting ‘Domestic Terrorism’ amid Fears of Crackdown on the Left.” the Guardian. The Guardian, September 26, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/25/trump-presidential-memorandum-political-violence.

Trump, Donald J. “Memorandum on Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence | the American Presidency Project.” Ucsb.edu, September 25, 2025. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/memorandum-countering-domestic-terrorism-and-organized-political-violence.

US Department of Justice. “IN the UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT for the DISTRICT of COLUMBIA UNITED STATES of AMERICA,” August 1, 2023. https://www.justice.gov/storage/US_v_Trump_23_cr_257.pdf.

US Department of State. “1997 Human Rights Report – China.” 1997-2001.state.gov, January 30, 1998. https://1997-2001.state.gov/global/human_rights/1997_hrp_report/china.html.