Adam Klasfeld writes:

Donald Trump’s efforts to demonize and try to criminalize peaceful protest have grown more flailing and desperate as No Kings 2.0 approaches on Sat., Oct. 18.

There’s been Trump’s absurd campaign to brand “antifa” as terrorists, even though anti-fascist activists are not a formal group and there is no such thing as a domestic terrorist organization under U.S. law. The First Amendment wouldn’t allow it, which is why Trump’s identical declaration about antifa during his first term went nowhere.

During a recent interview with me, former FBI counterintelligence official Frank Figliuzzi explained: “It’s by design that as a country, we’ve decided we don’t want political leaders designating … a group of people they don’t like a domestic terror organization and unleashing the full force of the federal government on [entities that] don’t exist and [people] he doesn’t like.”

No Kings 2.0 protesters and organizers haven’t been intimidated, even as Trump’s campaign escalates.

On Sept. 25, three days after his most recent anti-”antifa” edict, Trump purported to supercharge the power he doesn’t have with National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), instructing four of his cabinet members to use the power of the state against other ill-defined boogeymen like “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity” and their “organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, funding sources, and predicate actions.”

As more than 300 nonprofit groups wrote in an open letter, the memo lays the groundwork for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to target people and groups disfavored by Trump for investigation or prosecution because of their speech or associations.

Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes aptly describes the memo as a “weird mix of nonsense and menace” because it is based on a conspiracy theory and directs government resources against perceived political opposition in violation of the First Amendment.

In other words, according to former Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security Mary McCord: “It doesn’t do anything on its own.”

“It is a scare tactic,” McCord told All Rise News. “It tells the federal government to use all current tools to target people based on their political views, and I expect the government will use those tools aggressively.”

Trump 2.0 has been filled with executive actions like those targeting major law firms, university funding and birthright citizenship. Those who fought back against the clearly unconstitutional actions quickly won in court. Others, including some of the world’s most powerful law firms and prestigious universities, folded from the beginning.

That’s why Nonprofit Quarterly viewed NSPM-7 more as a “legal blueprint for intimidation” than for enforcement, relying more on fear and self-censorship than lawful power. [Continue reading…]