Regarding American authoritarianism: NSPM-7 and MAGA's domestic terrorist list

 The origin and content of NSPM-7

On Sept. 25, 2025 Trump signed NSPM-7, National Security Presidential Memorandum 7. NSPM-7's subject was countering domestic terrorism and organized political violence. The memo's language is broad enough to encompass legal, peaceful political opposition such as Dissident Politics as a source of domestic terrorism that can be targeted by federal law enforcement. Some of the relevant language from NSPM-7 is this:

Heinous assassinations and other acts of political violence in the United States have dramatically increased in recent years.  Even in the aftermath of the horrifying assassination of Charlie Kirk, some individuals who adhered to the alleged shooter’s ideology embraced and cheered this evil murder while actively encouraging more political violence.

There are common recurrent motivations and indicia uniting this pattern of violent and terroristic activities under the umbrella of self-described “anti-fascism.”  These movements portray foundational American principles (e.g., support for law enforcement and border control) as “fascist” to justify and encourage acts of violent revolution.  This “anti-fascist” lie has become the organizing rallying cry used by domestic terrorists to wage a violent assault against democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and fundamental American liberties. Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.

This political violence is not a series of isolated incidents and does not emerge organically. Instead, it is a culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change or direct policy outcomes, and prevent the functioning of a democratic society.

These campaigns often begin by isolating and dehumanizing specific targets to justify murder or other violent action against them. They do so through a variety of fora, including anonymous chat forums, in-person meetings, social media, and even educational institutions**.** These campaigns then escalate to organized doxing, where the private or identifying information of their targets (such as home addresses, phone numbers, or other personal information) is exposed to the public with the explicit intent of encouraging others to harass, intimidate, or violently assault them. (emphases added)

Criticisms of Trump and MAGA elites often made here are that they are authoritarian and kleptocratic. There is plenty of evidence to rationally support those criticisms. Despite that fact- and reason-based truth, NSPM-7 legally reframes such criticism as the "radicalization" phase of a violence campaign. Here Trump has directly converted good faith, fact-based criticism from constitutionally protected free speech to an actionable source of domestic terrorism. Thus, people merely criticizing Trump and MAGA authoritarianism and corruption don't have to be violent to be targeted. Instead, they just have to share an "ideology" that a violent actor might also held.

Catch-alls: There is a catch all in NSPM-7 to sweep in criticism of MAGA under the "anti-fascism" label. Trump's memo states that the label "anti-fascism" is a "lie" used to "justify and encourage acts of violent revolution." It then lists "common threads" ..... [including] extremism on migration, race, and gender." Thus even if there are significant parallels between (a) Trump, his MAGA elites and their authoritarian tactics, and (b) old-fashioned fascists or Nazis, simply making the comparison can put someone on Trump's domestic terrorist list, so they can be surveilled, financially harassed, subjected to federal conspiracy charges, and maybe some even put in jail.

NSPM-7 explicitly lists anti-capitalism as a common thread of domestic terrorism. This sweeps in criticism of "oligarchs," "kleptocrats," and "corporate corruption", all of which can easily be framed as anti-capitalist and thus domestic terrorist rhetoric.

The vaguest and most dangerous catch-all is NSPM-7's assertion that anti-Americanism, which is not defined, is also linked to domestic terrorism. The scope of NSPM-7 includes any sharp criticism of the US government's legitimacy that can be framed as "anti-American." Thus calling the President a "dictator," "tyrant," or "illegitimate" attacks the core functioning of the state. According to MAGA dogma, that is now domestic terrorism. Terms that delegitimize the state, e.g., junta or police state, can be easily categorized as anti-American sentiment because they imply the government is an enemy to be resisted rather than a democratic administration to be debated.

Federal implementation of NSPM-7

The Bondi memo: According to the Ken Klippenstein substack, and other sources such as Reuters, Trump's weaponized DOJ has produced its own internal (not public) memo that makes clear MAGA's authoritarian intent to squelch legitimate, legal criticism. The memo leaked to the public. Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered the FBI to compile a "list of groups or entities engaging in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism." The Bondi memo is a masterpiece of how to weaponize law enforcement language to criminalize legitimate political opposition.

The Bondi memo explicitly states that domestic terrorists are "united by an anti-fascist platform", which the memo links to "an elevation of violence to achieve policy outcomes." The logical chain is simple: if you hold anti-fascist beliefs, you are part of the "common characteristic" network of domestic terrorists. This imposes guilt by ideological association, not guilt by conduct.

Thus, if a person or group has ever written that Trump is authoritarian, an autocrat, or a fascist, Bondi's DOJ memo provides the fig leaf to investigate them as part of the ideological network behind the "Charlie Kirk assassination". Thus a person or group is not charged with the assassination. Instead they are investigated simply for holding the shared ideology that supposedly motivated it.

The memo is designed to treat criticism that attacks the moral legitimacy of the ruling order (capitalist, traditional, nationalist) as the precursor to terrorism. No one needs to call Trump or MAGA elites Nazis or fascists to be on the domestic terrorism list. Calling them corrupt oligarchs destroying America or the like is enough.

Points to consider

This sounds like the creation of a federal speech and thought police force that has been licensed to police speech and thought that the police and dictator Trump want to see policed and suppressed. Is that a reasonable, rational, evidence-based assessment of NSPM-7 and Bondi's no-longer secret memo? Or is it crackpot conspiracy theory or blind partisan opposition to a molehill concern?

Trump lawsuit tracker

The AP published a graphic showing a nice summary of lawsuits filed against Trump. The courts are still generally fighting for the rule of law, but they're being worn down by the USSC and its MAGA authoritarianism and corruption.

Once most of those red squares turn to green, we know we will be in for some very bad stuff, even worse than what we're getting now.

Regarding the mainstream media, and its failures and constraints

Context

Accumulating evidence points to a MSM (mainstream media) that is increasingly weak, subverted and incompetent in keeping the public reasonably informed. The post here yesterday focused on that reality. As used here, the MSM means reasonably professional news and analysis outlets like the NYT, WaPo, Reuters, AP, BBC, and the like. Reasonably professional, not perfect or even stellar. Just reasonable.

As conceptualized here, the MSM does not refer to sources like Fox News, The Federalist, Town Hall or other MAGA demagoguery outlets. Years ago, those place were subverted into partisan demagoguery and propaganda outlets for American authoritarianism (dictatorship, Christian nationalist theocracy and oligarchy).

Public opinion is deeply divided over those definitions and assertions. For the most part, the MAGAland rank and file firmly believes that the sources I call the MSM are corrupt, authoritarian radical left demagoguery and lies sources. They also firmly believe that MAGA demagoguery news and commentary sources are the truth tellers. In those MAGA minds, my definitions make me a radical left demagogue and liar. Such is the inescapable nature of humans doing politics.

Obviously, the vast differences between the two perceptions of reality are bitterly contested, vast and not reconcilable. They're not reconcilable mostly because authoritarianism does not compromise when circumstances do not force it to at least some degree of compromise. Reasonable compromise is a trait of democracy, not an authoritarian trait.

The frightening current anti-democracy reality

Under current political conditions, one can reasonably treat MSM outlets as at most as sources of raw material (documents, quotes, on‑the‑record claims, empirical facts), but not as trustworthy framers of facts, reasoning, implications or explanations. In recent years, the basis for trust in the MSM has been mostly destroyed. But to be honest and transparent, one must acknowledge historical facts. There has never been a time in colonial or American history when the press was completely trustworthy, at least from the perspective of the public interest. Special interest points of view present a different analysis.

In recent years what pushed the status of the MSM from reasonably trustworthy to not? The main sources of anti-truth, anti-rationality, and anti-democracy framing that push against reporting and commentary about truth, rationality and democracy are probably obvious to most people who pay reasonable attention.

First and foremost is the profit motive. Investors and owners of corporations that own MSM sources are under constant, relentless pressure for more profit. The profit motive never goes away. It does not care about democracy, authoritarianism, truth, lies, good, evil or anything else. It cares about itself and only itself. Pro-profit ideologues and propagandists tell us that they are on our side. They strenuously argue that the profit motive is moral and good. And, we are told that very forcefully, very often. But, that propaganda is simply not true.

So, the MSM is forced to report, analyze, and comment through a lens that protects profit. That's just a matter of fact in a capitalist system. News, analysis and commentary are all influenced to soften adverse impacts on revenues and profits. MSM outlets that offend big advertisers, lose ad revenue and ad profit. That is common sense, not rocket science or even high school biology. Newsroom cuts and audience‑chasing algorithms prioritize conflict and novelty over structural analysis. Investigative capacity has shrunk because slow‑burn accountability stories don’t drive enough ad revenue.

The second big factor is direct threats and attacks by MAGA authoritarianism and MAGA elites including Trump. Trump filed a $15 billion lawsuit against the NYT for alleged defamation. The lawsuit was frivolous but nonetheless profoundly threatening to the NYT. For years, MAGA elites have been asking our authoritarian MAGA USSC chooses to lower the evidence standards that public officials have to meet to prove defamation in court. If this USSC finally does choose to lower the evidence standard, what is left of the MSM will either be completely destroyed, or more likely neutered to the point of being akin to the non-MAGA news and commentary sources mentioned above.

Other minor factors are in play to weaken the MSM, but the bottom line is this: Anger and frustration with the MSM and its failures are rational. The best that pro-democracy citizens can do is to use that emotion as a guide. One must understand that the MSM has serious structural conflicts that mitigate against telling the whole truth. A person has to extract what the MSM still provides, namely the raw material. People of good will have to either interpret the raw material for themselves or trust sources to interpret it for them.

Points for consideration

Gathering and interpreting news is complicated and time consuming. Most people cannot or will not do that. Most people generally rely on news sources, not their own analyses, on occasions when they do pay attention. Poll data supports the claim that trust has been “mostly destroyed” among large segments of the population, with Republican trust in MSM outlets falling to single digits. However, human susceptibility to deceit, and emotional manipulation (demagoguery) is a deep, species‑level vulnerability, not something unique to this moment or MAGA and its demagoguery. We have been here before.

One question is to what extent, if any, has the failure of the MSM this time worse than at times in the past? Another is what are the odds of democracy, the rule of law and our civil liberties surviving the current kleptocratic authoritarian MAGA threat, and to what extent does (1) the current state of collapse of the MSM, and (2) the non-MSM such as Fox News, contribute to the threat?

From the MAGA death chronicles: MAGA attacks infant HBV vaccination, babies will die

The NYT reports (not paywalled) that Dr. Brainworm's (RFK Jr) politicized, pseudoscience CDC (Centers for Disease Control) has changed the science-based standard recommendation to get infants vaccinated against HBV (hepatitis B virus). The new magic and crackpottery based recommendation is shown below. The vaccinations at birth and 1 month are no longer recommended despite data proving that lives are saved using the current vaccination schedule.

A modeling study released in December 2025 by researchers in partnership with HepVu, the Hepatitis B Foundation, and the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable projected that delaying the birth dose to 2 months for infants whose mothers test negative could result in at least 1,400 preventable hepatitis B infections among children, 304 excess cases of liver cancer, and 482 preventable deaths for each year the revised recommendation remains in place, along with over $222 million in excess healthcare costs.​ If the vaccination schedule is delayed to a first vaccination at 12 months of age, the projections increase to 2,700 preventable infections and over $313 million in excess healthcare costs annually.

Infants face catastrophic outcomes if infected. Ninety percent of infants infected at birth develop chronic infection, and one in four chronically infected children will die prematurely from liver disease or liver cancer. Children infected between ages 1-5 have a 25-50% chance of developing chronic infection.

A comprehensive review by the CIDRAP Vaccine Integrity Project examining more than 400 studies spanning 40 years found no evidence that delaying the universal hepatitis B birth dose improves safety or effectiveness. The review found that birth dose vaccination does not cause any short- or long-term serious adverse events or deaths.

The NYT article commented:

Dr. Noele Nelson, a hepatitis expert at Cornell Public Health and a senior author on the C.D.C.’s previous guidelines for the vaccine, said the advisers did not “follow the scientific evidence, and risk undoing decades of progress in hepatitis B prevention, eroding vaccine confidence, and causing confusion among parents and health care providers.”

Mr. Kennedy fired all 17 previous members of the vaccine panel in June, replacing them with people who largely share his [pseudoscientific] skepticism about vaccines. Meetings of the new members, most of whom have no experience in vaccine research or clinical practice, have been marred by disorganization and intense disagreements, sometimes devolving into shouting matches. (emphasis added)

CDC vaccine experts 

Q: Once there is solid evidence of an increase in infant deaths from HBV infections under the new recommended HBV vaccination schedule, does that make Dr. Brainworm, his crackpot experts and his boss evil people who have committed Trump homicide, i.e., killers, or are they (a) merely good people doing what they think is best for us, or (b) something else, e.g., ignorant but making excusable honest mistakes?

Qs: Killer or not, or do we need to wait for the mortality data to accumulate? Is it responsible or not to suggest he and his crackpot pseudoscience cadre and his boss Trump are killers?

Dr. Brainworm - a killer?

Q: Does being deceived and manipulated by MAGA crackpottery absolve parents of the deaths, harms and costs of them being deceived and manipulated?

Clueless, therefore not responsible 

for their actions?