Trump's Directive On Anti-Fascist "Terrorism"

 

In the daily fire hose of fascism being unleashed on America, many of us may have missed an important, dangerous action taken by the Malignant Fascist yesterday.  Here's an explainer:

On Thursday, President Donald Trump signed a memorandum expounding on his calls to crackdown on “antifa” and other left-leaning groups.

The memo, titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” aims to address how the administration will identify and target so-called “domestic terrorism.”

The document fails to mention that the vast majority of political violence in the U.S. is performed by right-wing actors. Instead, it focuses on incidents that it baselessly claims were committed by the left, including the killing of right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk and a recent shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) jail in Texas. 

The document itself doesn’t explicitly mention targeting leftists or left-leaning groups. However, it makes frequent references to “anti-fascists” and includes zero mention of right-leaning ideologies.

Part one of the memo attempts to explain, though very ambiguously, what it means to be “anti-fascist.” In defining what constitutes supposedly “antifa” beliefs, the memos lists “anti-American,” “anti-capitalist,” and “anti-Christian” views. However, it doesn’t specify whether it will target groups based on actual incidents of violence or simply for professing a certain ideology. It also describes “anti-fascists” as being “extreme” on issues of “migration, race and gender,” but doesn’t provide a definition of “extreme.”

It further states that people who are generally hostile “towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality” may be considered “antifa.” Earlier this week, the president issued an executive order designating “antifa” as part of a broader domestic terrorist network, despite having no legal basis to do so.

The second part of the memo issues directives to the Department of Justice (DOJ), the FBI, and other federal agencies regarding how they should deal with groups or individuals supporting so-called “terrorists.”

Some disturbing aspects of the memorandum are not new — including Trump’s directive for “the National Joint Terrorism Task Force and its local offices…[to] coordinate and supervise a comprehensive national strategy to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt entities and individuals engaged in acts of political violence and intimidation,” a power the government has long held.

The memo also orders the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to “take action to ensure that no tax-exempt entities are directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism,” and to refer “such organizations, and the employees and officers of such organizations, to the Department of Justice for investigation and possible prosecution” — echoing orders that have been issued in the past.

But the memorandum also gives the president new powers to name groups as “domestic terrorist organizations,” upon the recommendation of the attorney general. And while U.S. code does provide a definition of what a “domestic terrorist” may be, the president does not explicitly have the authority to designate people or groups as fitting that label...  (our emphasis)

It's hard for us to believe that any administration that put together such a (we'll say it again) fascistic directive would subsequently bow to a court telling it that it's un-Constitutional in whole or in part.  No, for a President who's been given immunity for his actions while President and fully committed fascists controlling all the key levers of power in this country, this is the predicate document for a wholesale crackdown on anyone or any organization the Malignant Fascist wants to target or eliminate.  

Another commentary on the directive can be found at Jeff Sharlet's Substack, "Scenes From A Slow Civil War."

Meanwhile, if you ever wondered what you would have done in 1930s Germany, you're doing it now.