Yesterday, I spent a little time on this account writing about the Trump regime, Project Esther, and the fascist American right's plan to use anti-terrorism laws to crush their political opposition. Unfortunately, I ran out of room to say everything I wanted to say so last night I expanded my thoughts over on NIDC and did the sourcing legwork.

https://www.ninaillingworth.com/2025/05/27/nina-bytes-trumps-cointelpro-looms-into-focus/

Nina-Bytes: Trump’s COINTELPRO Looms Into Focus

"This then brings us to the ominous reality so very few observers in the media seem to be grasping, namely that targeting the anti-genocide, pro-Palestine movement is merely the tip of the fascist spear in the Trump regime’s war on dissent and political opposition. The rhetoric, suppression techniques, and legal arguments that are being deployed against foreign anti-genocide student protestors as we speak are easy to replicate while targeting more or less the entire oppositional left in America, including milquetoast NGOs, aid groups, and likely even “liberal” political organizations like the Democratic Party. The broad and extremely vague nature of our terrorism laws leaves room for the Trump regime to label almost anyone a member of a terrorist organization, and define material support for that organization in any way they please. The authors of Project Esther are very clear that they consider opposition to capitalism, or the American state as embodied by the Trump administration, to be valid targets for those designations. If anti-genocide protest is “materially supporting Hamas,” then funding migrant support work is probably “materially supporting narco-terrorist gangs,” and speaking out against the US government can be “materially supporting” any group of “bad guys” around the globe that do the same. The possibilities for targeted, legalized repression are quite literally endless."

#Fascism #Trump #USPol #Gaza #Genocide #Israel #PoliceState #HeritageFoundation #ProjectEsther #Project2025 #GOP #Palestinians #StudentProtests #CivilRights #McCarthyism #COINTELPRO #WarOnTerror #Counterterrorism

While I think anyone still arguing that the Trump regime is not fundamentally fascist in nature is engaging in one form of motivated reasoning or another, I still believe it's important to remember that this particular fascist movement remains firmly grounded in American historical, ideological, and cultural experiences at its core. Indeed, almost every aspect of Downmarket Mussolini's fascist agenda and the methods by which the regime is attempting to conduct it, has an administrative precedent in US political history; although that precedent will almost always come from the most reactionary and objectively shameful activities our government has ever engaged in. You don't have to take my word for it: Trump regime minions on your TV and Justice Department lawyers in court openly admit as much regularly.

There can be no doubt that Trump minions like Stephen Miller and Pam Bondi, are cribbing from America's white supremacist, anti-labor, anti-civil rights history; with a particular focus on the Second Red Scare, the Nixon administration's war on Civil Rights activists and student protestors, and the Bush administration's War on Terror. This synthesis of reaction, oppression, and executive overreach has allowed the Trump regime to create what many identify as a "new form of McCarthyism" empowered by the legalist logic and nativist, white supremacist sentiments underpinning America's "counterterrorism" apparatus, mass surveillance systems, and the national security state; by freely applying the almost legally meaningless "terrorist" label to protestors, student activists, and undocumented migrants, this administration has sought to render the judiciary and even the entire US Constitution, irrelevant.

Of course, none of this is happening in a vacuum, and a fascist Trump regime seeking to enshrine an executive branch dictatorship is fully aware that civil society will eventually understand what they're doing, and fight back. To prevent this they need a skeleton key to enable the active suppression and criminalization of dissidents, opposition groups, and civil rights activists the fascist right broadly classifies as "the radical left." Unfortunately if recent work to connect the dots in the second Trump era are any indication, the regime has already found that key in legally conflating opposing a genocide, with supporting Hamas; and its doing so by design in yet another scheme brought to you by the architects of Project 2025. If the opening salvos of Trump's war on American civil society can be describes as a "new McCarthyism" then I think it's fair to say that the Heritage Foundation's "Project Esther" can be best understood as the Trump regime's "new COINTELPRO."

https://truthout.org/articles/project-esther-is-a-mccarthy-era-blueprint-for-crushing-the-american-left/

Project Esther Is a McCarthy-Era Blueprint for Crushing the American Left

"Mainstream coverage of Project Esther has largely framed the document as an effort to crush the pro-Palestinian movement. It’s important to emphasize, however, that the threat Project Esther poses to the left more broadly is not a byproduct — it’s part of the plan’s core design. The text lays bare the McCarthyist nature of this political moment and underscores the urgent need for the left to mount a multipronged, coalitional defense.

At the center of Project Esther’s crosshairs are the people and organizations it dubs the “Hamas Support Network,” or HSN, though there’s no evidence that the entities it’s targeting actually support Hamas, or that they are even organized in any sort of a network. The playbook proposes a slew of recommendations for dismantling this fictional network, including deporting international students, purging pro-Palestine faculty from educational institutions, defunding organizations, increasing criminalization and promoting social ostracization of people that speak out in support of Palestinian rights. “Within the United States, the HSN receives the indispensable support of a vast network of activists and funders with a much more ambitious, insidious goal — the destruction of capitalism and democracy,” Project Esther claims."

Folks, after four months of watching the Trump regime pretend we're at war with a gang and opposing genocide is "materially supporting terrorism," I think we're past the point of pretending these guys aren't serious about the plans they wrote down and are clearly enacting now that Trump is president. Project Esther is the logical extension of every argument ghouls like Stephen Miller, Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Tom Homan, and Seb Gorka have been making on your TV for weeks. They want to use FARA and RICO Act prosecutions to dismantle every aspect of organized resistance to Trump's fascist agenda under the guise of fighting "terrorism," and they are being quite clear that they consider opposition to capitalism and the American state to be fair game under that rubric.

#Fascism #Trump #ProjectEsther #HeritageFoundation #McCarthyism #COINTELPRO #Activism #Left #USPol #PoliceState #StephenMiller #PamBondi

and in every act of resistance that puts people over profit.

Their work was inspired by Maoist principles and the Underground Railroad—showing that liberation is collective, and mutual aid is power.

All Power to the People.
✊🏿🖤✊🏽
#MutualAid #BlackPantherParty #AllPowerToThePeople #FreeBreakfastProgram #COINTELPRO #BlackLiberation #Socialism #CommunityDefense

https://jmheatherly.substack.com/p/the-black-panther-partys-legacy-of