The President's List of Subversives

In my book The Triumph of Fear, one of the Cold War-era political repression programs I spend some time discussing is the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO). The operative language that gave life to AGLOSO was contained in President Truman's Executive Order 9835, which launched the so-called federal employee loyalty program—an executive action that led to a decades-long government witch hunt for Soviet sympathizers in the federal workforce. People could be denied federal jobs, or existing federal employees could be fired if an unelected and unaccountable "loyalty" board determined that the applicant or worker had simply associated with the wrong people. 

Part V, Section 2(f) of EO 9835 outlined the key criteria:

Membership in, affiliation with or sympathetic association with any foreign or domestic organization, association, movement, group or combination of persons, designated by the Attorney General as totalitarian, fascist, communist, or subversive, or as having adopted a policy of advocating or approving the commission of acts of force or violence to deny persons their rights under the Constitution of the United States, or as seeking to alter the form of government of the United States by unconstitutional means.

Simply hanging out with the "wrong" people or engaging in speech in support of unpopular political concepts was enough to get you investigated by the FBI and subsequently blacklisted for federal employment.

I raise this historical example because on the evening of September 25, Trump issued a Presidential National Security Memorandum that makes Truman's look tame by comparison.

Titled "Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence," the document cynically uses recent and incredibly tragic acts of violence by armed lone actors against political figures such as Melissa Hortman and Charlie Kirk to justify the use of Joint Terrorism Task Forces to target groups and ideologies highly disfavored by the regime. From the memorandum:

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.

"Americanism" is most definitely in the eye of the beholder. Lots of people are opposed to capitalism (wrongly, in my view), but that is most definitely not a federal crime. Neither is being "anti-Christianity" for that matter or embracing anarchist political views and philosophy.

Indeed, it's primarily fans of The Turner Diaries and sovereign citizen types that want to violently overthrow the federal government, yet Trump pardoned insurrectionist supporters of his own in the wake of their January 6, 2021 related crimes. I could go on, but you probably get the point.

Here's another fact: there is no "domestic terrorism" charge or statute, as I noted earlier this week in a piece discussing Trump's "Antifa"-related executive order. But if you think that a lack of a direct legal basis for filing a charge against someone for being a member of a disfavored group or political belief is an actual obstacle to a prosecution, you would be gravely mistaken.

As I noted previously, what matters is that the administration asserts the authority to do this, and it has thousands of armed and armored federal law enforcement agents ready and able to carry out Trump’s orders.

And over the last few days, Trump's chief ideologist and regime mouthpiece Stephen Miller has made clear more state-sponsored coercion is coming, with Portland, Oregon once again the focus of Trump's ire, as this series of tweets by Miller over the last several days presage:

In addition to Senator Wyden, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek and Portland Mayor Keith Wilson have made clear that Trump's claims that Portland is a "war zone" are ludicrous. Rep. Susan Bonamici (D-OR) told The Hill on Saturday that

I was at the ICE facility a couple of days ago. I was in Portland yesterday on the east side for a meeting and last night for an event. Nowhere did I see one single indication that we need military troops here.

Yesterday, after speaking with Kotek, Trump seemed to back off an immediate deployment of troops to Portland, but he did not take the threat off the table either.

In the same way that Trump and his apparatchiks falsely proclaimed "crime" emergencies in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Boston, Memphis, and Chicago to justify a surge in federal law enforcement agents and Red state National Guard units into politically Blue cities, they are now preparing to run the same pretextual playbook against the people of Portland--and likely many other cities currently run by Democratic Party electeds.

Last week, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker outlined what he believes is the larger agenda here: normalizing the militarization of domestic life as a prelude to engaging in voter suppression and false claims of election fraud if the 2026 mid-term elections go against Republicans. I agree completely with Pritzker's assessment.

As law firms, universities, legal permanent resident holders, former government officials, two Members of Congress (one in the House, the other in the Senate), media organizations, entertainers, and people in cities run by Democratic Party electeds have all learned, you can be guilty of no federal crime and still be targeted for prosecution, expulsion from the country, job loss, or institutional destruction by this regime. Week by week and step by step, Trump is creating his own list of "subversives"--organizations, individual people, even entire American cities.

Last Friday, a reporter asked me whether we'd know when the country had reached a state of authoritarianism. My reply: "We're already there."

But as I've noted recently, Senate Democrats can break this cycle of Trumpist repression by refusing to fund the federal government for as long as it takes to bring Trump to heel. The ICE, HSI, and other federal agents Trump is using to terrorize communities can be forced to work during a shutdown, but they still won't get paid as long as it lasts.

A prolonged shutdown that puts them at risk of having to choose between eating and paying their rent or mortgage is exactly the kind of pressure that would cause many to look for other jobs and make potential ICE applicants think twice about accepting a job that might not come with a paycheck.

Senate Democrats have the leverage to make all of this happen. If they don't, they'll bear directly responsibility for the triumph of Trumpist autocracy and domestic terror.

REMINDER: You can get 30% off my new book about past episodes of unconstitutional surveillance and political repression, the Triumph of Fear, by going directly to the Georgetown University Press website and using the code TGUF...and this code can be used by anybody, so spread the word and thanks for being a Sentinel subscriber!