Trump Counterterrorism Strategy Expands Administration’s War on Progressives

The White House’s 2026 Counterterrorism Strategy, published May 6, reveals startling new details about the Trump administration’s plans to target progressives. The new memo builds on one issued last September, called the National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) on “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.” Organizers warn the administration’s so-called “America First” counterterrorism strategy represents a threat to human rights, civil liberties, and the ongoing struggle for democracy and are shoring up their work to protect against its directives.

“NSPM-7 is a deliberate attempt to sow fear and intimidate and silence opposition to the president’s abuses,” wrote Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) National Security Project, in a blog post following NSPM-7’s release. But, she continued, “[as] chilling as NSPM-7 is, and painful and difficult though its implementation may well prove to be, it contains nothing that we have not seen before.”

Specifically, the memo directs the Department of Justice (DOJ), the FBI, and other national security agencies and departments to root out what it calls “domestic terrorist organizations.” But unlike foreign terrorism, for which there is an established designation the secretary of state can attach to groups headquartered outside the U.S., there is no official label or designation regime for so-called domestic terrorism. Instead, experts argue that the label serves to criminalize dissent and legitimize political opponents as law enforcement targets. The strategy hearkens back to the J. Edgar Hoover era at the FBI, when the bureau launched a secret program “to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” Black leaders and civil rights groups.

It also echoes a more recent past. “The memo itself draws on some of the most harmful post-9/11 national security policies that had served to target Muslim communities, but also Black, African, Arab, Middle Eastern, and South Asian communities,” Sumayyah Waheed, senior policy counsel at Muslim Advocates, told Truthout. “Those policies were characterized by mass surveillance, racial and religious profiling, and crackdowns on dissent, so our community suffered in a lot of ways. We’re seeing the same pattern repeated here with NSPM-7, but with an expansion against basically any movements or groups that the federal government disagrees with.”

The Trump administration has given some indications of who it plans to target with these memos, though their vague language casts a wide net. Days before NSPM-7 was issued, Donald Trump signed an executive order designating antifa a domestic terrorist organization, and in a leaked December memo, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi described “Antifa-aligned extremists” as anyone willing to use violence in the service of “extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment.”

As examples of supposed anti-American sentiment, Bondi offers opposition to law enforcement, anti-capitalist thinking, “anti-Christianity,” and “hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality.” Meanwhile, the latest memo promises to “prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist.” Seemingly, anyone involved in struggles for the rights and safety of immigrants, religious minority groups, or LGBTQ+ people could be labeled anti-American using those descriptions and the Trump administration’s positions.

While Bondi’s memo states that individuals or groups must be willing to use violence to be deemed domestic terrorists, the Trump administration has been quick to label civil disobedience, other protest actions, and even legal observation as acts of so-called political violence to quash dissent. NSPM-7 itself characterizes protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) crackdowns in Los Angeles and Portland as riots and attacks on law enforcement.

Trump’s DOJ was also keen to characterize those accused of involvement in last year’s noise protest and shooting incident at the Prairieland ICE Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, as domestic terrorists and members of a “North Texas Antifa Cell.” A federal trial for nine people in connection with that incident ended in February; convictions were handed down for providing material support to terrorists, rioting, using and carrying explosives, and conspiracy. The group is expected to appeal, and the same individuals, along with others arrested in relation to the case, are now awaiting trials in state court for additional charges.

The government’s efforts to concoct links between the Prairieland defendants and a nebulous left-wing extremist enterprise did not matter to its legal argument. But they could serve as a playbook for how supposed left-wing violence is prosecuted going forward.

“With the case of the Prairieland defendants who were recently convicted, that was a really clear example of what can happen when protest and dissent are characterized as terrorism,” Waheed told Truthout. “With a conviction like the federal government got in the Prairieland case, it is extremely frightening for people — and that’s the point.”

While the stakes are high, progressives can prepare for the threats posed by the Trump administration’s so-called counterterrorism plans. Many already are by reevaluating their workflows to address potential security risks, learning about their rights, and connecting with organizations that have experience navigating government investigations. One of those organizations is May First Movement Technology, a nonprofit membership organization that provides technical infrastructure and web hosting to movement builders worldwide on collectively owned and secure hardware. Since its founding more than two decades ago, May First has faced its share of demands from the federal government to turn over hardware or information about its member organizations.

“We’ve had several different cases come through us, and some of the lessons we’ve learned are that the government is often disorganized and doesn’t follow up. And also, they don’t always push back when you push back against them,” Jamie McClelland, co-founder of May First, told Truthout.

McClelland also had advice for groups that may feel pressured to rush into new technologies for their organizing work to improve security or reduce reliance on companies like Meta or Google, which have aligned themselves with the Trump administration. While those are important steps, McClelland told Truthout, “The first priority is to keep organizing. This fear and feeling like you have to change everything is not helpful for organizing and often paralyzes people and makes it difficult to do the day-to-day organizing work that they’ve been doing for years. That’s not what we want.”

McClelland suggests organizations look for simple steps that would have the biggest impact and shift to a long-term mindset rather than feeling the need to overhaul everything at once. “Think about the next year, think about the next five years, think about the next 10 years — we have to stick around if we’re going to be successful,” he said.

Shamsi of the ACLU, in her blog post, also recommends that organizations learn about the various scenarios in which federal agencies might approach, question, or investigate them and their rights in those situations. Organizations including the ACLU and the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law have issued guidance on compliance and preparedness, anticipating the harms that NSPM-7 and other Trump administration actions could cause.

Even for those not associated with a nonprofit organization or other group that could be threatened, there are steps to take to help protect civil society. Waheed told Truthout that one of the most significant steps is mobilizing state and local lawmakers to cut ties with Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF). Those locally based, FBI- and DOJ-led multi-agency partnerships are integral to carrying out Trump’s “America First counterterrorism” directives. But they cannot operate without the state and local law enforcement agencies that participate in them.

“The JTTFs have an important role in the implementation of this, and so there’s an opportunity there for local governments to say no,” Waheed said. “Local governments that don’t want to participate in this kind of dragnet surveillance of any groups that dissent from the federal government, that should be a step that they take.” Some cities, including Oakland, California, and Portland, Oregon, have already withdrawn from JTTF arrangements.

Simpler still, Waheed told Truthout that continuing to gather with fellow community members to express disapproval and an unwillingness to comply with the Trump administration’s overreach is an important way to push back: “As the masses come together and refuse to be silenced and refuse to live in fear, we are refusing to allow this memo and other statements and intimidation from the federal government to do what they were intended to do, which is just to scare us into silence.”