Advancing toward an American police state, one executive order at a time

Guest Post by Leo Hohmann

Leftist protest group declared terrorist organization; you can bet Democrats will return the favor and ban right-wing protests when they reclaim power. How long can America endure ‘whiplash effect’?​

Protesting is now viewed as evidence of terrorism. If you are a left winger in America, you are not allowed to protest anymore without being automatically seen as at least a potential threat to “national security.” Your name will likely end up on a list and you could have your civil rights and civil liberties restricted, if not erased.

Responsible Statecraft reports that last week the Trump administration designated U.K.-based Palestine Action as a terrorist group.


The administration placed Palestine Action and two other European entities on the Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) list, a category created by Executive Order 13224 signed by President George W. Bush just days after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Since that time more than 1,000 groups and individuals have been added to the list of foreign terrorists. Most of them in the early years were of the radical Islamic nature and probably deserved to be there, but in recent years the trend has been to add largely non-violent organizations simply because they advocate an unpopular message that offends Washington’s bought-and-paid-for political establishment. Depending on which way the political winds blow, these could be groups on the left or the right. Right now, it’s dangerous to be a leftist advocating for Palestinians or against Israel, but that could change by 2028 if Democrats assume the White House.

This is evidence that America has become a banana republic. In a serious country that’s committed to the basic tenets of a free society, a citizen’s free-speech rights do not depend on who wins elections.

Below is an excerpt from the Responsible Statecraft article:

By designating Palestine Action as an SDGT, the administration has unlocked the authority to impose economic sanctions against the group and all people associated with it, including freezing any of their U.S.-held assets and prohibiting them from financial transactions with any U.S. actors.

Separately from financial transactions, it also means that all U.S. persons are prohibited from vaguely-defined interactions with the group that amount to “material support” or “services.” Anyone violating this prohibition could be subjected to civil or criminal penalties, or could themselves be placed on the SDGT list.

The question of exactly what illegal “support” for Palestine Action could now mean is a troubling one. The group, which carries out so-called “direct action” protests that often include vandalism, says it is working to end “global participation in Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime.” The U.K. “proscribed” Palestine Action as a terrorist organization last year, citing in particular a 2024 incident in which members broke into a military base and sprayed red paint on a pair of aircraft. Since the ban came into effect, hundreds of people in the U.K. have been arrested simply for holding signs in support of the group.

In theory, U.S. law has an important feature not found in the U.K. system: the First Amendment’s protection of free speech and association. In its announcement designating Palestine Action as “terrorist,” the Trump administration reiterated that “constitutionally protected activities” would not result in sanction.

But this is cold comfort for anyone paying attention to how the U.S. government has long chipped away at the First Amendment’s reach in the name of countering “terrorism.” Our Supreme Court has held that assisting a designated group with peacefully resolving its grievances amounts to criminal “support” for terrorism; our Treasury Department once suggested that hosting leaders of a designated group for peaceful dialogue could amount to prohibited “support” for terrorism; and, under the Trump administration, noncitizen students and scholars like Mahmoud Khalil have faced detention and threats of deportation for peaceful protest and expressions of opinion that the administration described as bolstering terrorism.

At this point, we must ask the question: what even is “terrorism”? The Trump administration describes Palestine Action as part of a “violent far-left terrorist network,” yet criminal charges against members of the group primarily pertain to vandalizing property, namely, that of weapons manufacturers complicit in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which rights groups like Amnesty International and B’Tselem have deemed a genocide.

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I don’t know about you, but I could see how an American citizen could easily run afoul of this edict without even being aware that they were doing anything wrong. It’s a classic case of “guilt by association.” I see this as just the latest effort by the Trump administration to subvert the First Amendment, little by little, hoping nobody will notice. Until it’s too late.

When the Democrats return to power, they can be counted on to return the favor by banning all right-wing media from government access. They will also ban right-wingers from protesting at abortion clinics, transgender story hours, and any other favored programs or constituencies.

Last week it was banning news outlets who report critically about administration policies from the White House. Now they are outlawing Americans having associations with groups they don’t like. Where does it end?

Earlier this year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tried to ban reporters he didn’t like from having access to the Pentagon.

This politicization of free speech in a back-and-forth manner between the right and left has created what’s known as the “whiplash effect.” It’s meant to wear people down, cause fear and frustration, while widening the divisions in American society. If it continues, we will at some point see a boiling over into something akin to civil war.

Constitutional attorney and civil liberties activist John Whitehead, who heads up the Rutherford Institute, writes eloquently about our vanishing freedoms and how it often starts with the government focused on foreigners, then moves inward.

Whitehead writes in a September 29 article at Rutherford.org:

The precedent being established and the tactics being trotted out and normalized are the real danger. Because once the government establishes that it can suspend the Constitution’s safeguards for one disfavored group, there is nothing magical that keeps those powers confined to that group.

We are all at risk.

Be warned: the literal and figurative walls being erected in the name of national security should concern the people already living inside them. The machinery being built to find, track, identify, seize, detain and disappear immigrants can just as easily be redirected toward the population at large.

That is how a police state becomes a prison state.

Immigration enforcement is the dress rehearsal in anticipation of the government’s ultimate muscle flex.

To round people up on the scale envisioned by the administration, the government first has to know who people are. Where they live. Where they work. Where they drive. Who they associate with. What they look like. What databases contain information about them. Where they were yesterday. Where they are today. And where they might be tomorrow.

That requires surveillance. Lots of it.

Biometric databases. Facial recognition. License-plate readers. Flock cameras. Data brokers. Location tracking. Artificial intelligence. Phone extraction tools. Government databases linked to still more government databases.

The Brennan Center for Justice reports that the Department of Homeland Security has committed more than $2.9 billion in recent years to surveillance, data collection and analytics technologies used in the interior of the United States, including more than $1 billion for biometrics. Those systems include tools capable of tracking phones and vehicles, collecting facial and other biometric data, purchasing commercial information and combining records from multiple databases to create detailed profiles on individuals.

Then comes enforcement, masked agents, raids, checkpoints, detention centers, private prisons, transfers, rendition—all wrapped in the reassuring language of public safety and national security.

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Let me know in the comments below if you believe we are heading down the right or wrong path by declaring people terrorists without a clear definition of what that word entails, and banning access to government institutions, based on their politics or their coverage.

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[ H/T The Burning Platform ]