The Chilling Memo Marking Trump’s War on Dissent

It was released without fanfare. But NSPM-7 signals an alarming new phase in Trump's revenge tour.

Late last month, while the country was distracted by the usual chaos – ICE raids, a White House ballroom, and the Epstein files – the White House quietly posted a presidential memorandum. It was titled, Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence, and it appeared under the unassuming “Presidential Actions” section of whitehouse.gov.

No rant from Karoline Leavitt. No press conference in the Concrete Garden. No coverage. Just a document written in bureaucratic English – the kind of text designed to hide its true intentions in plain sight.

At first glance, it looks routine: A reaffirmation of the government’s duty to protect the American people from political violence. Buried in the language is something far more consequential – an executive framework that expands the government’s power to define dissent itself as a potential act of terror. At a time when the president has promised to “destroy Antifa” the memorandum spelled out its intentions through the mechanisms of the Trump regime. In modern American politics, that’s how control is implemented.

National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, or NSPM-7, lays out what amounts to a blueprint for criminalizing political opposition. It directs the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and the Treasury to coordinate investigations of what it calls “organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech.”

The language sounds responsible. But if you read it closely, it does something extraordinary: it folds political influence itself into the definition of terrorism. The memorandum describes these movements as efforts to “change or direct policy outcomes.” In other words, activism that challenges the regime’s authority can now be read as a form of coercion against the state.

That shift is the legal foundation for what Americans are seeing in real time – ICE units deployed in Democratic cities under the banner of “restoring order.” The raids that began as immigration enforcement have evolved into political demonstrations of power: federal officers entering states that didn’t ask for them, assaulting and arresting protesters, and labeling unrest as domestic extremism. NSPM-7 gives those operations an official doctrine. It defines their targets, supplies the justification, and tells the bureaucracy exactly how to respond.

Section 2 of the memorandum instructs the National Joint Terrorism Task Force to lead a “comprehensive national strategy to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt entities and individuals engaged in acts of political violence and intimidation.” That means the same network that once tracked al-Qaeda and ISIS is now tasked with investigating domestic groups whose “motives” or “patterns” fit Trump’s political targeting.

The task force is ordered to examine “institutional and individual funders” and “non-governmental organizations” that allegedly enable such conduct. It authorizes coordination with “American citizens residing abroad” who might have “ties to foreign influence networks.” It’s a wide-open conspiratorial dream net–one that treats activism, philanthropy, and international solidarity as possible conduits of terrorism.

Within the DOJ, the Attorney General is instructed to prosecute these cases “to the maximum extent permissible by law.” No independent review, no congressional notification or hearings, and no requirement that the accused be charged under ordinary criminal statutes before being classified as part of a terrorism investigation. A single administrative memo turns political dissent into a matter of national security.

For all the talk of law and order, NSPM-7 isn’t about restoring stability; it’s about centralizing control. It converts what used to be neutral agencies into ideological weaponry. The Justice Department is further emboldened to act as the regime’s personal prosecutor in the retribution tour. The Treasury is its financial enforcer. And the IRS, its compliance arm.

One paragraph instructs the Treasury Secretary to “identify and disrupt financial networks that fund domestic terrorism and political violence.” Another orders the IRS Commissioner to ensure “no tax-exempt entities are directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism.” On paper, that targets extremists. In practice with this administration, it authorizes surveillance of political nonprofits, advocacy groups, and even media organizations that the administration deems hostile.

This is the architecture of authoritarianism. Rather than banning opposition, the government audits it, defunds it, and prosecutes it. Once financial institutions are told to file “suspicious activity reports” on the basis of ideology, the effect spreads faster than any ban could.

Section 4 goes further, declaring domestic terrorism a “national priority area.” That phrase dictates how homeland security grants are distributed. Cities and states that adopt the federal definition of “threat” receive funding and equipment; those that don’t are left exposed. It’s an administrative leash disguised as assistance. For blue-state governments already facing unauthorized ICE invasions – it’s coercion: accept the framing and surrender to the feds, or resist and risk losing the resources to protect their own residents. Either way, Washington dictates who is compliant and who is expendable.

Where federalism once created balance, this directive replaces partnership with hierarchy. The federal government now reaches directly into community policing, protest management, and even school-safety programs under the language of counter-extremism. The same agencies that once offered support are now instruments of enforcement, conditioning state cooperation on political alignment.

Trump’s public vow to “destroy Antifa” now has bureaucratic shape to it. Section 3 allows the Attorney General to recommend that any group “whose members are engaged in activities meeting the definition of domestic terrorism” be formally designated a “domestic terrorist organization.” Once that recommendation reaches the president, the group loses its right to operate freely inside the country. No judicial process. No presentation of evidence. The same administration that defines the enemy also decides when their war begins.

That’s what makes this memo more consequential than the rhetoric that preceded it. The ICE raids show the visible force of power; the NSPM-7 supplies the invisible infrastructure – the justification, coordination, and funding that keep those raids legal on paper long after cameras leave. It converts presidential retribution into standing orders for the civil service and codifies political vengeance as administrative policy.

In bureaucratic terms, NSPM-7 is governance without oversight. It sidesteps the Federal Register, avoids legislative debate, and shields itself from Freedom of Information Act scrutiny by classifying the directive as an internal management document. Congress never voted on it. No inspector general monitors its enforcement. Yet every department named in the memo now treats it as binding guidance. That’s the hallmark of Trump’s second term: an executive that doesn’t need to break the law because it has rewritten the way law itself is applied. Each agency acts independently but toward the same objective – neutralize dissent, reward loyalty, and call it national security or law and order.

To most Americans, it will look like a technical adjustment – a fine-tuning of policy and how agencies handle extremism. But for those already watching ICE expand into a new city every week, it’s the missing piece of the puzzle. The raids, the detentions, the financial crackdowns aren’t isolated events; they’re components of an integrated domestic-control strategy designed to bring the boot to the neck of anyone who resists the regime. In past administrations, the tools of counter terrorism were aimed outward. Under NSPM-7, they’re turned toward Americans. What began as a response to foreign threats now defines the relationship between citizens and their own government.

Toward the end, the memo offers a familiar reassurance: “This memorandum shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and the Constitution of the United States.” It’s the same clause that appears in nearly every executive order. But without transparency, the promise is meaningless. No independent body can verify compliance, and no one can challenge the policy in court. NSPM-7 bluntly concludes that it “does not create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law.” In other words, Americans can be affected by it but have no legal standing to contest it.

Taken together, the memo and the ongoing federal deployments form a single project: the institutionalization of domestic control. The raids provide spectacle; the memorandum provides structure. One is visible, the other procedural – both serve the same purpose: to make resistance administratively impossible.

The danger isn’t only arrest or surveillance; it’s normalization. Each directive conditions the public to accept federal domination as ordinary governance. Each memorandum teaches the bureaucracy that obedience is safer than integrity. Democracy rarely ends in a dramatic collapse. It’s quietly absorbed in the day-to-day operations of power. With NSPM-7, that absorption is already underway.

Evan Fields is a veteran who writes the Fourth & Democracy and Weekly Wrap newsletters for Lincoln Square and the News from Underground Substack.

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