The DOJ Is Moving to Designate Non-MAGA Americans Engaging in Wrongthink as Domestic Terrorists

Donald Trump has issued a national security directive so broad and vague it can be used to designate any ideological opponent as a terrorist threat to national security. Now he is following up by having his attorney general compile a list of supposed “extremists” to target.

Independent investigative journalist Ken Klippenstein reports:

Attorney General Pam Bondi is ordering the FBI to “compile a list of groups or entities engaging in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism,” according to a Justice Department memo published here exclusively.

The target is those expressing “opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology,” as well as “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” and “anti-Christianity.” …

In addition to compiling a list of undesirables, Bondi directs the FBI to enhance the capabilities (and publicity) of its tipline in order to more aggressively solicit tips from the American public on, well, other Americans. To that end, Bondi also directs the FBI to establish “a cash reward system” for information leading to identification and arrest of leadership figures within these purported domestic terrorist organizations. (The memo later instructs the FBI to “establish cooperators to provide information and eventually testify against other members” of the groups.) …

For months, major media outlets have largely blown off the story of NSPM-7, thinking it was all just Trump bluster and too crazy to be serious. But a memo like this one shows you that the administration is absolutely taking this seriously—even if the media are not—and is actively working to operationalize NSPM-7.

Klippenstein compares this to some of the post-9/11 excesses of the War on Terror, with the targets this time being our fellow citizens engaging in wrongthink. It is perhaps more closely comparable to the Red Scare and particularly Joseph McCarthy’s hysterical denunciations, when anyone and anything could be arbitrarily designated as “subversive.”

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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