The Terrifying New Memo Trump Could Use to Go After His Opposition
On Tuesday, Donald Trump stood in front of more than 800 generals and admirals in the U.S. military and informed them of their new enemy: their fellow Americans.
“Our history is filled with military heroes who took on all enemies — foreign and domestic,” Trump said. “You know that phrase very well. That’s what the oath says: foreign and domestic. Well, we also have domestic. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Grover Cleveland, George Bush, and others all used the armed forces to keep domestic order and peace. … Now they like to say, Oh, you’re not allowed to use the military.”
Trump went on, in that speech, to refer to both “the enemy from within,” and a new war — “a war from within” — that generals would be asked to fight in.
In case there was any ambiguity about which enemies here in United States the president is intent on targeting — either with the military or other arms of the federal government — a national security directive published the week before his speech spelled it out: Anyone who is not with him, will be considered against him — and against the United States.
On September 25, the White House released “NSPM-7,” a sweeping order targeting “anti-fascist,” “anti-Christian,” “anti-capitalist,” and “anti-American” speech, as well as speech that expresses “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 memo announced a new strategy “to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”
There is little debate that political violence is on the rise, and a recent poll showed that increasing numbers of Americans view such violence as necessary “to get the country back on track.”
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The problem is that the vast majority of political violence of it is not coming from the places that Trump, via NSPM-7, is ordering federal law enforcement to look. The week before Trump’s new memo went out, the Department of Justice removed a report from its website that showed “the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism.”
“Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives,” the now-archived report reads. “In this same period, far-left extremists committed 42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives.”
White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson inadvertently cited similar statistics when she posted a chart with the headline, “Left-wing terrorism climbs to 30-year high” — a chart that shows that, since 2016, there have been almost four times as many attacks by right-wing terrorists as attacks by left-wingers.
The scrubbed report cites a U.S. Department of Homeland Security threat assessment concluded that these extremists “are an acute threat,” adding that “COVID-19 pandemic-related stressors, long-standing ideological grievances related to immigration, and narratives surrounding electoral fraud will continue to serve as a justification for violent actions.”
But the same week as Trump’s speech, and amid the administration’s new crackdown, Kash Patel, the director of the FBI, announced that the agency has cut ties with both the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center — two of the nation’s leading anti-hate groups, devoted to combating anti-semitism and white nationalism, respectively. (This, after a lobbying campaign by a right-wing influencers.)
The SPLC, in particular, is known for its efforts to track violent extremists and hate groups, expertise that previous administrations had called on to assist their own investigations. (“For decades, we have shared data and analysis with the public to protect civil rights and hold extremists accountable,” a spokesperson for SPLC said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “We remain committed to exposing hate and extremism as we work to equip communities with knowledge and defend the rights and safety of marginalized people.”)
Now, instead of investigating the homegrown individuals and groups that are vastly more likely to commit terrorism in the U.S., the federal government is primed to go after individuals and, potentially, nonprofit, political, and civil rights groups who voice opposing views.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who ran for Congress in 2003 against the Patriot Act, called NSPM-7 an even “greater infringement on freedoms.” In an email to Rolling Stone, Khanna wrote, “the threat of retaliation is intended to silence people and give the administration the authority to go after political opponents.”
The ACLU sounded a similar alarm, with Hina Shamsi, director of the nonprofit’s National Security Project, calling NSPM-7’s strategy of targeting speech “a shameful and dangerous move.”
“After one of the most harrowing weeks for our First Amendment rights, the President is invoking political violence, which we all condemn, as an excuse to target non-profits and activists with the false and stigmatizing label of ‘domestic terrorism,’” Shamsi said in a statement.
A slew of law firms have issued their own guidance warning about the expansive threat posed by the memo, while more than 3,000 nonprofits have raised their own concerns about the memo, publishing an open letter criticizing NSPM-7.
“This attack on nonprofits is not happening in a vacuum, but as a part of a wholesale offensive against organizations and individuals that advocate for ideas or serve communities that the president finds objectionable, and that seek to enforce the rule of law against the federal government,” the nonprofits’ letter read. “Whether the target is a church, an environmental or good government group, a refugee assistance organization, university, a law firm, or a former or current government official, weaponizing the executive branch to punish their speech or their views is illegal and wrong.”
Matthew Sanderson, director of the political law group at Caplin & Drysdale, one of the law firms that issued guidance about NSPM-7, said that while the operative aspects of the memo are tailored, specifically, to investigate “political violence, terrorism, or conspiracy against rights,” he was struck by the language White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller used at a press conference announcing the directive. “He used the term ‘whole of government’ several times, and so I don’t think this is a mere messaging vehicle, as some executive orders are,” Sanderson says. “I think this means something and will have lasting consequences.”
When reached for comment about NPSM-7, Abigail Jackson, the White House spokesperson, wrote in a statement to Rolling Stone, “At the President’s direction, The Trump Administration will get to the bottom of this vast network inciting violence in American communities, and the President’s executive actions to address left-wing violence will put an end to any illegal activities.”
How NSPM-7 will ultimately be enforced is yet to be seen, but if there are three things that Donald Trump has made clear since returning to power, they are that he is not timid about going after his enemies — as Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif), New York Attorney General Tish James, former FBI Director James Comey, and many others can attest — that he is willing to shut-down speech he doesn’t like — just ask Jimmy Kimmel — and that he is absolutely itching to send in the troops to American cities.
Speaking in Memphis — the latest Democratic-led city where Trump is sending the National Guard to, and a city where crime in the city hit a 25-year low in September — Miller drove home just how lopsided a fight with an emboldened Trump administration might be. “The gangbangers that you deal with — they think they’re ruthless? They have no idea how ruthless we are. They think they’re tough? They have no idea how tough we are,” Miller said. “They think that they’re hardcore? We are so much more hardcore than they are — and we have the entire weight of the United States government behind us. What do they have?”