Democracy is officially over - and we are fucked.
While everyone was distracted by the James Comey indictment theater, Trump signed something far more dangerous. National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 - NSPM-7 for short - labels common political beliefs as indicators of terrorism. Anti-Christian. Anti-American. Anti-capitalism. If you hold any of these views, this memo now treats them as warning signs of terrorism.
Most of the media either missed it entirely or got it wrong - calling it an executive order when its actually something much more powerful. An executive order directs how the federal government operates day-to-day. A national security memorandum is a sweeping policy decree for defense, intelligence, and law enforcement. The’se are the kinds of directives that historically have changed the course of American policy for decades.
Think about what just happened. The president of the United States just directed the FBI, Department of Justice, and a network of about 200 Joint Terrorism Task Forces to go after political violence - and handed them a list of political beliefs to treat as warning signs. Not their actions. Their beliefs.
The memorandum lists specific indicia - indicators - that law enforcement should use to identify potential terrorists. Read the’se carefully:Anti-Americanism. Anti-capitalism. Anti-Christianity. Support for overthrowing the government. Extremism on migration. Extremism on race. Extremism on gender. Hostility toward traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.
Thats not a terrorism profile. Thats a description of roughly half the countrys political opinions.
The directive says law enforcement should intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts. Pre-crime. Theyre literally targeting people for things they havent done yet - based solely on what they believe and what they say.
Joint Terrorism Task Forces arent new. The first was established in New York in 1980. After 9/11, they exploded from 35 task forces to about 200, with more than 4,000 members drawn from federal, state, and local agencies. They were supposed to prevent another terrorist attack.
But we already know what JTTFs do when they’re told to monitor domestic political activity. Documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests in 2004, 2005, and 2006 showed that JTTFs were investigating peaceful advocacy groups - Greenpeace, Catholic Workers Group, antiwar protesters. In 2010, the Justice Department Inspector General found the FBI had opened some investigations of people tied to groups like these on “factually weak” grounds, kept some going “without adequate basis,” and improperly kept information about the groups in its files - though it didn’t find the FBI targeted the groups for their views.
The Inspector General found that most of these investigations didn’t violate regulations - in part because the regulations themselves set the bar so low that opening a preliminary inquiry required only the “possibility” of a federal crime.
Now Trump has directed this entire apparatus to focus on leftist political violence. Stephen Miller - Trump’s homeland security advisor - said this is the first time in American history that there is an all-of-government effort to dismantle left wing terrorism.
Notice whats missing from this directive. Any mention of right-wing violence. Not a word about January 6. Nothing about the Proud Boys or any of the fascist militias - even though Trump told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” in 2020 and pardoned or freed their January 6 members on his first day back. The memorandum strings together completely unrelated incidents - protests against police, the killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, attempts on Trump’s life - and presents them as evidence of a coordinated left-wing conspiracy.
The memorandum doesn’t offer any evidence connecting these events. None. But that doesn’t matter when you’re building a narrative.
The memorandum focuses heavily on speech. It says political violence emerges from organized campaigns that begin in anonymous chat forums, in-person meetings, social media, and even educational institutions. In other words - if you’re talking about politics anywhere, you’re potentially under investigation.
NSPM-7 doesn’t even mention the First Amendment. Think about that. A national security directive that targets political beliefs and speech doesn’t bother to acknowledge Americans fundamental right to organize and protest.
The practical implications are staggering. The directive instructs the Treasury Department to trace funding networks. It tells the IRS to investigate tax-exempt organizations that might directly or indirectly finance political violence - a standard so vague it could apply to any nonprofit that organizes protests. It authorizes investigations into institutional and individual funders, and officers and employees of organizations that aid and abet domestic terrorism.
Who decides what counts as aiding and abetting? The administration does.
The directive also prioritizes Foreign Agents Registration Act investigations - targeting NGOs and American citizens with close ties to foreign governments. This cuts against Attorney General Pam Bondi’s February memo that limited criminal FARA charges to conduct like traditional espionage. But consistency isn’t the point. Control is.
Sebastian Gorka - Trump’s counterterrorism czar - made the administrations position crystal clear after Trump signed the directive. He told Newsmax that the left refuses to rid themselves of the justification for violence and that Trump is taking measures to protect us from the violent rhetoric that becomes snipers and bullets.
Violent rhetoric. Thats the standard now. Not violent acts.
Rhetoric.
As reporter Ken Klippenstein put it, for the Trump White House, “the beauty of using an already existing network is that it bypasses Congressional oversight.” States and cities have already signed agreements with the feds to fight terrorism. Officers are already assigned. The infrastructure exists - Trump is just redirecting it toward his political opponents.
At least three cities have actually pulled their police out of JTTFs. Portland, San Francisco, and Oakland all pulled out - the ACLU says over disputes about “transparency and accountability for abuses,” and because the task forces deputize local cops so they act with the authority of federal agents.
Maybe more cities should be considering the same.
This isn’t hyperbole. NSPM-7 is a declaration of war on anyone who disagrees with the Trump administrations agenda. It takes the entire post-9/11 counterterrorism apparatus - built to stop foreign terrorists - and aims it at American citizens exercising their constitutional rights.
History is full of examples of governments using national security as a pretext to crush political opposition. The Reichstag Fire Decree in 1933. COINTELPRO in the 1960s and 70s. Every authoritarian regime starts by labeling dissent as a security threat.
The question isn’t whether this will be abused. The question is how long it takes.
When the president can designate political beliefs as indicators of terrorism, when law enforcement can investigate people for pre-crime based on their speech, when the entire intelligence and law enforcement apparatus is directed to monitor and disrupt political organizing - you don’t live in a democracy anymore.
Americans now live in a country where the wrong opinion can make you a terrorist.
Correction, September 28th, 2026: This essay first said the Justice Department Inspector General confirmed in 2010 that JTTFs had spied on domestic groups based on speculation - the report was about the FBI, and it found some investigations rested on “factually weak” grounds but no targeting of the groups for their views. It also said anyone holding these views is now on a list of potential domestic terrorists - the memo makes no list of people; that Trump has consistently refused to condemn the Proud Boys - he did condemn them in October 2020, two days after telling them to “stand back and stand by”; and it read as if Gorka signed the directive - Trump signed it.
Update, September 28th, 2026: A few lines now give the FBI’s count of about 200 task forces with more than 4,000 members, say how low the Inspector General found the bar was, say the memo itself offers no evidence tying these events together, put the line about bypassing Congress in Ken Klippenstein’s words, say what Pam Bondi’s memo actually limited, and say which cities pulled out of JTTFs and why, according to the ACLU. Much of this essay follows Ken Klippenstein’s September 27th, 2025 reporting, including the Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka quotes - read his piece here.