We Are All Domestic Terrorists Now
Here comes the iron fist.
I was marching in a crowd of thousands of people through the streets of lower Manhattan last night when the imperial boomerang officially arrived. After a rally in Foley Square where activists and elected officials decried ICE’s ongoing persecution of immigrants, we all set out in a procession that snaked around the long blocks surrounding 26 Federal Square, the grim, looming building where New York City’s detainees are being held after being violently plucked out of courthouse hallways by masked ICE agents.
As we rounded the corner at Broadway and Chambers Street, I began reading on my phone the text of a new White House executive order titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.” This was an odd experience. The EO in question purported to be an attempt to excavate and disrupt the planning of events just like the one that was happening right that moment ten floors below where lots of terrified immigrants languished in a federal lockup. Yet it seemed like a lot of unnecessary performative madness, an entire world of frothing lunacy concocted in the fevered minds of fascists who bring their own set of answers to the start of every investigation.
I can reveal precisely why so many New Yorkers were out there yelling at ICE: Because they do not like to see human beings abused. Because they dislike racist oppression. Because they find it undesirable to see the sort of people who are the backbone of New York City be grabbed and handcuffed and thrown around and arrested by secret police working for some of the most poisonous right wing racists in modern government history. Lots of people don’t like any of that. So they rally and march and wave signs and bang pots and pans and shout up at the dark, mute face of the building where the outrages are going down. There you have it. End the investigations. The culprit is: People are angry that the government is doing something evil.
There was never a mystery to begin with, of course. The “imperial boomerang” is the concept that all of the methods of oppression that a mighty nation visits upon its far-flung imperial subjects will one day be turned back upon its own population. And here we are. This is a decades-long process, ratcheting up in earnest since the post-9/11 War on Terror, and any declaration of the moment when the boomerang’s sharp edge finally buried itself right in America’s skull is surely an arbitrary one. But last night will do as well as any.
Trump’s new EO is the formal declaration of the rabid fascist war to crush political opposition. It is a statement of the administration’s intention to designate any institutions organizing and funding political opposition as agents of domestic terrorism, and then to use the toolset of “anti-terrorism” to harass, disrupt, and destroy them. The order first lists off some disparate recent events—the killing of Charlie Kirk and United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the pot shots taken at Trump during his campaign, the (half ass, not really) “assassination attempt” on Brett Kavanaugh—along with quasi-imaginary “Riots in Los Angeles and Portland” to paint a picture of a crisis of political violence.
“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,” the order says, falsely. At that, the pretext has been established to the satisfaction of those who have low standards of evidence to begin with. Therefore, “A new law enforcement strategy that investigates all participants in these criminal and terroristic conspiracies — including the organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, funding sources, and predicate actions behind them — is required.”
Who we talking about here? Al Qaeda? Ha, no. We are talking about you and me and anyone who calls themselves “antifa” or starts or joins a group to protest ICE or gives money to fund such groups. We are talking about Americans engaged in protest and civil disobedience and political opposition that the Trump administration does not like. All of these people, us, will now be subject to the sort of nuclear-level state tactics that have been perfected in 20 years of the FBI entrapping random people at mosques into imaginary bombing plots. The order calls on the National Joint Terrorism Task Force, the Attorney General, the Justice Department, the Treasury Secretary, the IRS, and all federal law enforcement agencies to “investigate, prosecute, and disrupt” any and all people and groups who are troublesome enough to be considered bad by, for example, The Fevered Brain of Stephen Miller.
Are you a domestic terrorist? To determine the answer, consider this balanced and reasonable paragraph describing the nature of the threat to the American Way:
There are common recurrent motivations and indicia uniting this pattern of violent and terroristic activities under the umbrella of self-described “anti-fascism.” These movements portray foundational American principles (e.g., support for law enforcement and border control) as “fascist” to justify and encourage acts of violent revolution. This “anti-fascist” lie has become the organizing rallying cry used by domestic terrorists to wage a violent assault against democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and fundamental American liberties. 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.
The absurdity of this political worldview is not a reason for comfort. Political judgments passed down under, you know, Stalin were pretty absurd too, but that would not keep you warm in a Siberian prison. There are those who point out that executive orders are not laws, and that Trump is given to unveiling sweeping EOs saying things like “Antifa is a Domestic Terrorism Organization” that do not seem to be accompanied by the ability of the government to really do anything about it under existing laws and regulations. While it is true that we should never preemptively grant the Trump administration powers it does not have, it is also true that the extent to which the entire federal government and much of the nation’s judiciary has been stocked with Trump loyalists and right wing ideologues means that crying “You can’t do that!” will not necessarily save us for the next several years at least. We should fight on the basis of the law if it is useful, but we should not be surprised if the law proves to be an ineffective barrier to the will of the fascists who have taken charge of writing and enforcing the laws.
On top of that, favorable court rulings for trumped-up “domestic terrorism” charges are not necessary for these orders to succeed in their underlying purpose. The mere act of the federal government launching an investigation and carrying out arrests and filing charges and dragging people and organizations through court proceedings is a substantial power in itself. Lives can be destroyed and bank accounts can be emptied as a result of the investigations themselves even if the charges end up getting dismissed. Consider what the Cop City defendants, people who tried to do a normal protest of a bad government action, have been through—arrest, jail, persecution, severe charges, years of lawyers and court appearances, all of it plainly unjust and absurd. They are likely to be vindicated in court, sooner or later, but years of their lives have been consumed by their abusive persecution at the hands of fascist-minded chuds wielding the legal system. This new executive order intends to expand that sort of legalistic persecution nationwide.
The Trump administration—an organization that everyone who is willing to exercise respect for Constitutional norms has been systematically purged from—will now, at its own discretion, declare people and groups to be “domestic terrorists” and then proceed to treat them the way that the US security state has been treating anyone that it deemed to be a “terrorist” for the past quarter century. (Though hopefully with fewer drone strikes.) The concept of “Terrorism” as a legitimate category has always been poison and we never should have bought into it. Not on September 12, 2001, and not any time since then. All it does is flatten nuance and stifle dissent and pave the way for oppressive abuse of power. Everyone who granted legitimacy to the War on Terror when they imagined that it would only be conducted against foreigners bears a little share of blame for what is coming now.
They are going to call protests riots and they are going to call protesters terrorists and they are going to call activist groups terrorist organizations and they are going to call foundations and donors terrorist funders and they are going to try to scare all of the above into not doing what they do. Prudent attorneys and advisors will prudently tell opposition groups to stop organizing protests and foundations to stop funding radicalism and as a result of these purely prudent decisions, the organized political opposition to the Trump administration will be weakened, allowing the administration to achieve its goals more easily. People who do not obey will be made examples of. They will suffer outrageous prosecutions, and we will yell “Bullshit!” but they will still suffer significant disruptions to their lives and peace and rights. Better to accept that this is all coming, and decide what you will do about it, than to be surprised into acquiescing to it because you didn’t think it would get this bad.
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Related reading: Retire the Word “Terrorism”; How Pretexts Work; Welcome to the Age of Disappearance; The Patriotism Trap.
Now is an excellent time to join a group, any group, working to oppose these outrages. You can form your own group, by unionizing your workplace. Or join DSA. Or get ready for national protests on October 18. Or give money to an activist group of your choice. In the absence of doing any of these things, the vacuum will be filled by people on the other side doing the opposite.
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"Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government..."
...by non-MAGA crowds. Of course, MAG-ites can commit insurrection with impunity, but not people on the left. Rules are for liberals, not MAG-ites.
One of the depressing things, and there are many to choose from, is something that you point out: even if this administration loses in court time and time again, they'll get a thrill out of putting people through the misery and expense of having to defend themselves. It's something that in the past Trump has openly stated he enjoyed doing to people who pissed him off. Maybe it's time we all started studying the techniques of the French Resistance during World War II.