Ken Klippenstein: Minnesota “Antifa” Terrorists Charged

 Minnesota “Antifa” Terrorists Charged

Federal prosecutor can't explain why or who Antifa is

Ken Klippenstein June 23 2026

U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Daniel Rosen

NSPM-7 is a scandalously under-covered story, please subscribe so I can cover it more

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Last week’s federal indictment of 15 anti-ICE protestors in Minnesota as alleged “Antifa” members — and thus domestic terrorists — is a masterclass in how the FBI is now practicing “pre-crime,” arresting normal citizens beforethey commit a crime, or without regard to whether they’ve committed a crime at all.

It is one of the first cases where presidential national security memorandum 7 (NSPM-7) has been explicitly referenced by the Justice Department as directing arrests, a new practice that began this month. U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Daniel Rosen said that the directive established Joint Task Force Vanguard to “prioritize politically motivated violence,” which to the Trump administration of course means its opponents. The directive, Rosen, also said, directs federal investigators “to investigate, prosecute, and disrupt those who engage in political violence and intimidation.” 

Rosen was asked at the press conference how the Justice Department defines Antifa, and basically had no answer. “What is Antifa goes beyond, goes beyond, I think, the scope of what this indictment is,” he replied. “But what I can tell you is that we have plenty of people that self-identify in that way, and you might wanna ask them that question.”

And as to whether anyone was actually hurt, here too Rosen stumbled. “Whether or not they actually, at the end of the day, caused bodily harm is not the measure of whether or not they committed a serious federal crime,” said, sounding like a kid who hadn’t done the homework being called on in class.

In other words, the federal government is prosecuting a group it cannot even define.

The Trump administration’s war on its opponents finds its solid form in the war on Antifa. Because President Trump “designated” Antifa as a terrorist group, “counterterrorism” rules apply. Think of the modern day FBI objective as preventing another 9/11: that is, following the doctrine of the past two decades, which is to stop an attack before it happened.

Though they don’t say it explicitly, Task Force Vanguard is in the business of pre-crime. Under NSPM-7, the feds require no crime to actually have been committed. They only need “indicators.” The indicators are broad enough to sweep in millions of Americans: “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” “anti-Christianity,” “extremism on migration,” as I’ve previously reported.

Trump’s NSPM-7 Labels Common Beliefs As Terrorism “Indicators”

KEN KLIPPENSTEIN · SEPTEMBER 27, 2025

With the mainstream media distracted by the made-for-TV drama of James Comey’s indictment, Trump has signed a little-noticed national security directive identifying “anti-Christian” and “anti-American” views as indicators of radical left violence. Called National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, it’…

Read full story

Antifa as an indicator is absurd. At protests I’ve covered over the past couple of years, when I asked people what they thought of Antifa, the answer I heard again and again — from moms, from grandpas — was “I’m Antifa!” Some of the protestors were being playful, some were being defiant. But what they didn’t mean was that they were part of some organization as Washington imagines it. When I asked them why Antifa, the answer was universal. They are anti-fascist, which in non-national security terms is what they thought the word simply meant.

That confusion has produced mishaps that would be funny if the stakes weren’t what they are — like the time federal law enforcement was convinced it had identified the “leader of Antifa,” who turned out to be some random guy in Portland, as I reported.

U.S. Attorney Rosen announced at his press conference:

“Today, a federal indictment was unsealed charging 15 defendants with conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers and other charges related to efforts of two Minneapolis-based Antifa groups that violently opposed the enforcement of federal law in our state. The defendants are members and associates of Direct Action Minnesota… These defendants have been charged not for what they said, but for what they did. They all joined an agreement, a conspiracy, to interfere with lawful immigration enforcement operations.”

“Conspiracy” sounds to me like an awful lot like civil disobedience or free speech. Note, for instance, that the most vivid piece of evidence Rosen actually presented to reporters was a video of one defendant, Kyle Wagner, using violent rhetoric — speech — which sits awkwardly beside Rosen’s insistence that nobody was being charged “for what they said.”

NSPM-7 was signed in September 2025, three days after Trump’s executive order designating Antifa a domestic terrorist organization. It directs the government to disrupt networks supposedly “animated” by beliefs that include anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, and “extremism on migration.” Attorney General Pam Bondi’s implementation memo — titled “Ending Political Violence Against ICE” — pointed that apparatus squarely at people accused of impeding immigration enforcement. Joint Task Force Vanguard is now the enforcement arm with a much broader target.

In its zeal to arrest and convict its political opponents, the Trump administration has so far been unsuccessful. In January, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem proudly announced that ICE had survived “an attempted murder of federal law enforcement” in north Minneapolis, suggesting protestors were directly threatening law enforcement officers. What she described as federal officers “ambushed and attacked by three individuals who beat them with snow shovels and the handles of brooms,” forcing one officer to fire “a defensive shot,” ended up being two Venezuelan DoorDash drivers with no violent records.

Then the video surfaced. City surveillance footage showed a scuffle lasting about 12 seconds, with no snow-shovel beating; a shovel sat on the ground the entire time. Authorities had the footage within hours of the shooting. Prosecutors didn’t bother to watch it until weeks after they’d charged the men and put an agent’s sworn account in front of a judge. In February, Rosen’s own office moved to dismiss the charges with prejudice — meaning they can never be refiled — citing evidence “materially inconsistent” with the affidavit. A federal judge agreed. Two ICE agents were placed on administrative leave for apparently lying under oath. 

Minneapolis’s police chief offered the epitaph: the agents “hung themselves.” 

This was no one-off. The local CBS affiliate in Minneapolis combed throughcourt filings and found at least 18 Minnesotans whose assault-on-an-officer cases were dropped, with a judge dismissing charges for 15 of them. The sworn affidavits of a single ICE agent turned up in roughly ten of the dismissed cases. In one case Rosen himself moved to drop charges, the defendant said federal agents had shackled him to a hospital bed for days without access to his phone.

Another case collapsed after a judge found that Bondi had publicly named arrested protesters in a social-media post — violating the court’s sealing order and, the judge wrote, “likely” several Justice Department policies.

And the pattern isn’t confined to Minnesota. In Chicago’s “Operation Midway Blitz,” prosecutors charged the “Broadview Six” — a group that included a Democratic congressional candidate and a Democratic candidate for the state legislature — with conspiring to “impede” an ICE officer outside a detention facility. A federal judge tossed the case over prosecutorial misconduct, including allegations of jury tampering and misleading the court.

Of 22 prosecutions in the Chicago area under the federal impeding-an-officer statute, 16 have been dismissed or never reached indictment, according to a Chicago Sun-Times tally cited by CNN.

In Los Angeles, the government has lost all five such cases that reached trial — five straight acquittals.

None of this is slowing down the White House. “Trump Administration Delivers Another Crushing Blow to Antifa Terrorist Network,” the White House announced with the Minnesota arrests. The release details federal cases against “Antifa” individuals in states including Minnesota, Oregon, Texas, Washington, New Jersey, California, and Indiana.

Trump spews and the machinery of government plods along behind. Yes Noem, Bondi, and Kash Patel can tweet as if there is both a threat and the feds are quickly responding, but Task Forces have to iron out their budget and their letterheads before they can get to the X (née Twitter) on-ramp.

Rosen closed by calling political violence “a national scourge in our times.” Not gas prices. Not rent. Not the cost of healthcare. Or childcare. That’s what you get when the imperatives of “national security” are allowed to set a society’s priorities — especially once “national security” has been redefined to mean almost anything the government wants it to.

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Holman, Bovino, Noem Three Peas in the Same Pod

It is important to recognize that the removal of Bovino, and Noem from Minneapolis is a product of the heroic resistance the people of that city have shown in the face of the assault by Trump’s neo-fascist ICE thugs. It is a small victory. But Tom Holman is no step forward as the author explains below. Admin

"Border Czar" Tom Holman

Holman, Bovino, Noem Three Peas in the Same Pod

 

By Mary Scully

 

To calm down the volatile situation created by ICE storm troopers in Minneapolis, Trump sidelined Homeland Security head Kristi Noem and removed Gregory Bovino from his role as head of the Minnesota operation. He also shut down Bovino's social media account where he portrayed immigrants as thugs and boasted of his crimes against them. To replace Bovino, Trump sent in Tom Homan, the former head of ICE whom Trump calls his 'border czar', to assume command of ICE in Minneapolis. It's an act that brings to mind the fable of the scorpion and the frog. Like the scorpion, Homan has a malevolent character and history that will bring no security to immigrants but perhaps some solace to the local politicians.

Homan has been with ICE since it was created in 2003 and was brought into federal immigration control in 2013 by then president Obama. He was brought in because as The Washington Post reported in 2017, "Thomas Homan deports people. And he's really good at it." The Obama White House even honored Homan in 2015 with some kind of award for deporting undocumented immigrants. Over his two terms, Obama deported at least 3 million immigrants--more than any other president in US history according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.

Homan's whole white supremacist schtick is the deportation of immigrants. It must be emphasized that it is a wretchedly anti-working class policy because immigrants with means have always been able to immigrate to the US without impediment. It was Homan who cooked up and formally proposed the policy of family separation, of tearing children from their parents and warehousing them in inhumane detention centers to deter people from crossing the border. In that policy, there was no accountability and parents lost contact with where their children were. In other words, Homan is a psychopath.

Homan did well under Obama. He is also the kind of psychopath that ideally suits the ethos of the Trump administration. Trump is a felon with a history of raping young girls. That's why it was no problem to hire a rapist to direct the 'Melania' documentary or to elevate the political status of Homan who in 2024 was caught in an FBI contracts-for-cash sting when he accepted a bag with $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents posing as businessmen. He anticipated raking in millions by accepting bribes from border security companies in exchange for government contracts. The FBI sting was a part of investigating the allegations. In 2025, after Trump was elected, his Department of Justice closed down the investigation citing insufficient evidence. 

The 'border czar' was not sent to Minneapolis because Trump is reconsidering mass deportations or planning on toning down the assaults on immigrants. It's a temporizing gesture to calm down politicians and make it look like he's retreating somewhat. But Homan will not stop ICE agents from violating immigrant rights or flouting the Bill of Rights and continuing to hunt them down like wild animals. He will probably stop them from killing protesters.

Immigrants are not safe under the tenure of Tom Homan. They will only be safe when ICE is shut down and the Bill of Rights is enforced. That may take a revolution.

Minneapolis Murder, ICE Thugs and the Mass Movement

Richard Mellor

There is one important point I want to make. Do not limit your criticism or blame solely to the degenerate serial sexual abuser and felon Donald Trump. This is a crisis of the system. It has been ongoing no matter which Wall Street party is in power. The US Congress is as guilty as Trump or the fascistic Noem for this murder and many before it including the millions that have died due to US capitalism's predatory wars. There was a general strike in Minneapolis in 1934. It would be a historic moment for US workers and the world for the second one to occur and call on all US cities to follow suit.

If you are in a union and are not in a political battle for the transformation of these organisations that our ancestors built, a transformation to remove the class collaborationist clique that has captured the leadership, you are failing your membership and the working class as a whole. You are failing your children and grandchildren.

Any local union leadership that claims to be in opposition to the status quo must call for a unity with all workers at home and abroad, unity with our communities, the unorganised and immigrants, undocumented or not. Working people have the power, we have the ability to confront this big business offensive and build a better world that every worker regardless of background desires.

Ken Klippenstein: "No Kings" Is About More Than Trump

Excellent report from Ken Klippenstein on the No Kings Rallies. While the organizers and forces that set this ball in motion, former Congressional Staffers linked to the Democratic Party, confining the rallies to the defense of the First amendment and against "Kingly Rule" will not be easy. There is tremendous anger in America that has percolated beneath the surface of US society for a long time, especially since the crash of 2008. The failure of the Democratic Party to provide a serious alternative to its Republican cohort is a major factor in the rise of Trump and the right. The heads of organized labor as junior partners of the Democratic Party machine are equally guilty.

The turnout will have a huge effect on the mood and inspire further protests and as is usually the case, there will be efforts to direct the movement in to electoral support for the Democrats up ahead but this will not be an easy sell. It's one thing to tap in to the anger people feel at the present state of affairs and bring them in to the streets but it's another to control the direction the movement will take in the long run.

Richard Mellor FFWP Admin

"No Kings" Is About More Than Trump

Americans are rejecting the national security state

KEN KLIPPENSTEIN OCT 20

“No Kings” protester inspired by our NSPM-7 coverage (!)

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While the major media focused on crowd size and potential violence that never materialized, the “No Kings” protests this weekend had another message: millions of Americans reject the entire framework of the national security state.

Protesters I talked to expressed opposition to more than just the president and Trumpism, but the entire national security apparatus, including the FBI, ICE, homeland security, the National Guard and the military. Unlike the protests during Trump’s first term, this one doesn’t see a savior in the FBI or even the Democratic Party, instead putting their faith in ordinary people like themselves. Seven million-plus Americans gathered with homemade signs and costumes rejecting the relentless threat mongering about some domestic terrorism “enemy from within.”

I interviewed dozens of protesters at the demonstration around the leafy capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin, and the major theme that came across was their utter mockery of the government’s warnings about Antifa and domestic terrorists in general.

Madison protester talks to me about her opposition to the National Guard deployments (she was fine with my Hawaiian shirt though)

“It’s a boogeyman,” one protester said of Antifa, reflecting the general consensus. 

“This is all fantasy,” another protester said.

In light of Trump’s official designation of Antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization,” when I asked protesters about Antifa, I expected nervous throat clearing and self-censorship. Instead, people just laughed. Many even embraced the term, saying that if Antifa means anti-fascism, then they’re Antifa.

Even the silly costumes, as many explained to me, were a rejection of the fear people felt that the federal government was trying to spread about anything from Antifa to immigration. 

“What, are they gonna arrest the unicorn?” one protester joked. “There’s some frogs, there’s some lobsters…that’s kind of what we were going for — whimsical fun.”

Unicorns are more common than you might’ve thought

Whimsical is a good word for the menagerie of critters in attendance. Most common were frogs, a nod to the costumed frog protester in Portland, Oregon who became a cause célèbre when an ICE officer carefully sprayed tear gas into his costume’s air intake opening. Video of the incident quickly went viral, becoming a symbol of the wanton cruelty of ICE and a shorthand for the national security state’s ridiculous fear of seemingly everything. Gassing a frog? Really?

ICE is frog-marching immigrants and protesters around, sot he protesters responded with a frog march of their own to show how absurd it all is.

Far from the paranoia and fear that I thought Trump’s designation of Antifa as terrorists would engender, I saw protesters of all ages, from teenagers to the elderly, embrace the word. My personal favorites were a sign worn by a woman identifying herself as “Auntie-fa” and a man wearing a sign that read: “I am Antifa, come get me.”

“We’re Antifa bees,” one demonstrator, part of a group of women dressed as bees, told me. “Most people don’t even know what that means,” she said before another bee interjected: “We don’t even know what it means!”

It’s a fair point. What exactly is Antifa? For all the rhetoric about the threat to public safety, the federal government hasn’t offered a clear definition.

I attended the original No Kings protest in April (you can read my dispatch here) and not only was this larger, but the vibe was much different. Gone were the NATO flags and mass-produced signs decrying the DOGE cuts to federal agencies. 

Particularly striking this time was seeing people who weren’t Republicans were pissed off at the federal government, especially those belonging to the national security apparatus.

“What happened to states rights?” a protester said of the National Guard deployments to states whose governors don’t want them. “We never needed it before … we definitely don’t need the military deployed now.”

“We didn’t ask for it,” another protester said of the Guard deployments. “You can’t really make real change except for at the state level.”

For as long as I could remember, states rights as a concept seemed little more than code for enforcing anti-abortion policies, discrimination and the like. That may be changing.

Even local law enforcement didn’t seem to buy the hype about the domestic terror threat posed by Antifa. Capitol and state police were standing around chatting amongst themselves, checking their phones. The only national security state overkill I saw was an MRAP-type vehicle parked in front of the capitol building. I didn’t see any federal personnel anywhere.

MRAP-type vehicle in front of Madison capitol building. Not impressed!

The increasingly nonpartisan skepticism of the feds isn’t just anecdote: poll after poll this year shows cratering approval especially among Democrats for institutions like ICE, the FBI, CIA, the police and even the military. The glib take would be that they just hate these agencies because Trump is in office; but during his first term, Democratic approval for agencies like the FBI soared. Remember Robert Mueller (or Daddy Mueller as many liberals called him?)

Mueller Time has long since passed. Gone is the liberal undercurrent that the FBI or uniformed military was going to save the country from Trump. Today they’re seen as tools of repression and enemies of free speech.

Source: Gallup

Source: Pew

The protest did have one thing in common with the one in April: frustration with the Democratic Party.

“They’re completely ineffective,” one woman said, laughing.

“It’s a joke,” another added.

“Their leadership needs to go,” said another.

Here too, their sentiments reflect polling that hasn’t gotten nearly the attention it deserves. The Democratic Party’s approval rating is at its lowest in recorded history, with a majority of Democrats wanting its entire leadership to be replaced.

Source: Ipsos / Reuters poll

The Party is out of touch, beautifully depicted in an un-ironic “No Crown. #NoKings!” declaration on X by Nancy Pelosi, the 20-term incumbent who’s been in Congress since before I existed. 

No Kings wasn’t just a protest against Donald Trump, as the mainstream media have lazily cast it. It was a demonstration against the national security neurosis he is trying (and failing) to excite. Not out of some partisan reflex to just support the Democrats and oppose Trump.

Americans in large part just do not believe that there’s an “enemy within.” And they’re right.

In my last post I said that if America has a king, it is the national security state (which laid the groundwork for what Trump is doing long before he entered politics). What I didn’t realize was how many Americans would refuse to bend the knee to that king as well. Good on them. 

Ken Klippenstein: Inside the War on Antifa

Inside the War on Antifa

Feds target "affinity" groups, informant networks, the Tides Foundation, and more.

KEN KLIPPENSTEIN OCT 16

Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem speaks at the Antifa Roundtable

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The FBI and the homeland security department are actively investigating individuals and organizations that the Trump administration has branded domestic terrorists. Actions so far include collecting intelligence on “affinity” groups, canvassing the FBI’s vast informant networks and scrutinizing financial records, two sources involved in the investigations tell me.

While major media organizations continue to downplay the war on Antifa, and virtually ignore the underlying executive order and related national security directive NSPM-7 that are driving the new crusade, sources say that the investigations will likely rival in scope those conducted after the Biden administration on January 6 perpetrators.

“Lawsuits will undoubtedly follow, as will much belly-aching about the Trump team not following established procedures, but no one should doubt the orders that have come down from on high to destroy Antifa,” a senior career homeland security official told me.

At a White House roundtable event about the threat of Antifa last week, President Trump and other administration officials likened the loose “anti-fascist” anarchist collective to an international terrorist group or an organized crime syndicate.

“Antifa is just as sophisticated as MS-13, as TDA [Tren de Aragua], as ISIS, as Hezbollah, as Hamas, as all of em,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said at the event.

“Fighting crime is more than just getting the bad guy off the streets,” added Attorney General Pam Bondi. “It’s breaking down the organization brick by brick, just like we did with cartels.”

“ What we are doing at the FBI is simple,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. “We are following the money. Money never lies. And that’s what it’s going to take to bring down this network of organized criminal thugs, gang bangers, and yes, domestic terrorists because that’s what they are.”

At one point, President Trump instructed several prominent conservative media figures present — all of whom said they’d been victimized by Antifa for reporting on them — to share their knowledge with top national security officials. 

“Do you know the name of any of the funders?” Trump asked the roundtable. “Because if you do, I’d like you to give them to Kash or Pam or Kristi — as soon as you can.”

The floundering attempts to actually find an organized Antifa entity reflects a virtually 180 degree turn from previous government articulations of the group. Former FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that although Antifa is a “real thing … it’s not a group or an organization.” Wray instead likened Antifa to “a movement or an ideology.”

Not believing that Antifa doesn’t have an overall organizational structure, the Trump administration is now setting out to find one. According to the homeland security source, a list is circulating of “affinity” groups that ascribe to the Antifa “ideology.” These include Rose City Antifa in Portland, Oregon; Refuse Fascism; Anti-Racist Action (ARA); Redneck Revolt; and the John Brown Gun Club. The official says the list comes from nothing more sophisticated than Internet searches and right-wing influencer channels.

This week, conservative commentator Glenn Beck said that three FBI agents visited him at his home last Saturday to glean insights about Antifa based on the research he and his team had done for stories.

“ To say the FBI was interested in this might be an understatement,” Beck said on his show. “Let’s just say the FBI is turning over every single stone. It is so clear to me that they are exploring all angles of this and they are talking to anyone and everyone that can give them any kind of information.”

The FBI declined to comment on Beck’s account as well as the Bureau’s canvassing of its informants, citing the government shutdown. “During the current lapse in appropriations, FBI operations are directed toward national security, violations of federal law, and essential public safety functions,” the Bureau’s National Press Office responded in an email. “Media inquiries outside of these functions will be considered when the lapse in appropriations ends.”

NSPM-7, the Trump directive tasking federal law enforcement with rooting out domestic terrorists like Antifa, also instructed the Treasury Department to looking into nonprofit groups that might be funding them. The directive resulted in prominent law firms advising their nonprofit clients to avoid running afoul of the order, as I previously reported.

“ I also wanna thank our Treasury Secretary for his work on getting to the bottom of these funding mechanisms and individuals who are perpetuating this violence on our American cities,” Noem said at the roundtable. 

The DHS official says two funders are being scrutinized: The Tides Foundation; and Neville “Roy” Singham, an American multi-millionaire who is known to provide support to leftist causes. Again, the official says, the organizations were chosen because they have been written about by right-wing media.

Despite Trump’s designation of Antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization,” NSPM-7, and most recently the White House’s Antifa Roundtable, major media still aren’t impressed. Mary McCord, Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security during the Obama administration, summarized downplayed any significance of Trump’s directives while commentating at an MSNBC panel this week.

“ Nothing in NSPM-7 actually provides, creates a new crime, creates any new surveillance, authority, creates any new investigative authority. So the … the government still has to, at least by law, comply with the existing law, right? So if it’s going to search someone’s electronic communications, it needs a warrant based on probable cause. That evidence of a crime will be found there, signed by a judge, right? If it’s gonna bring charges, it has to go in front of the grand jury and prove it. Evidenced by probable cause. So it does not, it’s not licensed to just suddenly charge, you know, organizations with crimes or take away their tax exempt status.”

That same day, Pam Bondi was on Fox News saying basically the exact opposite.

“We’re going to get to the funding of Antifa, we’re going to get to the root of Antifa, and we’re going to find and charge all of those people,” Bondi said. “They’re no different from MS-13 or any gang out there.”

We’re going to “eliminate Antifa from existence,” says Kristi Noem. 

That is, if they can find it.

If What's Happening in the US Surprises You. You haven't Been Paying Attention

James Greenberg

We’ve seen this coming. The rhetoric has been sharpening for years, and now the machinery is in motion. What began as insult—Democrats labeled as communists, Antifa, radicals—has morphed into a governing logic. The opposition is no longer just wrong; it is framed as dangerous, disloyal, un-American. The phrase “Hate America” has shifted from slur to strategy.

This is not just about name-calling. It’s about preparation. The machinery once aimed at migrants at the border has turned inward to target citizens. The same infrastructure—surveillance networks, detention centers, rapid-response units—is being repurposed for domestic repression. Anthropology teaches us that the state is not only a legal entity—it is a cultural presence, experienced through disruption, silence, and fear. Repression begins not with law, but with the quiet normalization of threat.

National Guard deployments are framed as public safety, but the intent is clear: punishment and intimidation staged for effect. These are not responses to crime; they are rehearsals in control. Legal cover is being sought not to protect rights, but to test the courts—how far can executive power stretch before it snaps? The goal is habituation: to make the presence of armed force in civic life feel routine. The state enters the neighborhood not through policy, but through performance.

October 18 is being framed not as a day of dialogue, but as a test of obedience. Protests are planned nationwide, but already the framing is hostile. Organizers are being branded as part of the “enemy within.” The phrase “Hate America” is being weaponized—not to describe foreign threats, but to smear domestic dissent. 

Anthropology of ritual shows that public punishment serves to warn, to intimidate, to shape behavior. The protest becomes a stage, and the crackdown a script.

To show up, to speak, to dissent—each is recast as betrayal. Assembly becomes a threat, speech a mark of disloyalty, dissent a form of treason. Those in power present themselves as patriots and their opponents as enemies of the state. Participation itself is not only discouraged—it is criminalized.

The strategy is to divide America and persecute opponents. This is tyranny dressed up as governance. Civil rights are hollowed out, the Constitution treated as optional. Republicans, for the most part, seem to have received the memo. The silence is telling. The complicity is chilling. Repression does not produce clean lines. It produces victims—many of them unexpected.

When the social fabric is torn, it is not only the opposition that bleeds. Repression does not stop at partisanship; it sweeps up the innocent, the apolitical, the well-meaning. Your aunt, who was at the demonstration, who gives to Greenpeace because she’s against killing whales, is arrested and charged with belonging to a terrorist group. Is this really what we want? It is where we seem to be going. This is how repression works: it recasts dissent as disloyalty.

This is the anthropology of belonging. Citizenship is not just a legal status—it is cultural recognition. Repression redraws who counts as a citizen. Protestors are not merely punished; they are reclassified. The state decides who belongs and who doesn’t. That’s how exclusion works: not through formal bans, but through public warnings. Power doesn’t always declare its enemies—it performs them.

This isn’t bureaucratic drift—it’s choreography. Office closures, arrests, and rhetorical smears aren’t incidental—they’re staged. The point is not only to act, but to be seen acting. The state performs authority in ways meant to intimidate, to isolate, to instruct. The target isn’t just the protestor—it’s the bystander, the colleague, the neighbor who now hesitates. That’s how fear is cultivated: not through sweeping decrees, but through visible consequences. Power doesn’t just reside in law—it circulates through expectation, through silence, through the quiet recalibration of civic life.

The spectacle of control is deliberate. Office closures, delayed checks, suspended grants, and protest arrests are presented as proof that only one person can restore order. Governance becomes theater, with suffering turned into a civic performance. Anthropology of the state reminds us: power is not only visible in moments of violence—it is felt in the rhythms of fear.

What is at stake is not simply policy but the fabric of democratic life. When the rhythms of protest and civic participation are turned into instruments of control, government stops being a shared institution and becomes a weapon. Power works not only through force, but through the reshaping of trust, habit, and expectation. Americans are being taught to trade the expectation of rights for the uncertainty of favors. Citizenship is reduced to conditional obedience.