The decades-long sentences imposed on sixteen Prairieland defendants—including people who were not even present at the protest—mark a watershed moment in the Trump fascist regime’s use of the justice system to criminalize political dissent. RefuseFascism.org condemns their convictions and sentences and demands that they be overturned. We call on everyone with a conscience to demand this and defend the rights of protesters facing political prosecutions under Trump’s edicts and NSPM-7 – a fascist Trump presidential memorandum.
THE TERRORISM FRAMEWORK: A BLANK CHECK FOR STRIPPING BASIC RIGHTS
Long before Trump, the U.S. government weaponized security frameworks against political movements—from the Red Scare and COINTELPRO to the post-9/11 “war on terror.” Today’s “terrorism” framework builds on that history while stripping away even more restraints, targeting dissent in thought, speech, association, organizing, and solidarity.
Any “terrorism” designation allows the government to treat an organization as a dangerous entity and impose major consequences, such as seizing and freezing funds and imposing significant criminal and civil penalties.
The Prairieland prosecution marks the federal government’s first successful use of material support for terrorism charges against individuals for their beliefs and by alleging that they are associated with a loosely defined anti-fascist movement they label as “antifa.”
We encourage people to learn about the Prairieland defendants, the Minnesota 15, the Spokane 3, the Stop Cop City defendants, and others facing prosecution for acts of protest and political dissent. These cases are not isolated. Together they reveal an expanding campaign to surveil, intimidate, prosecute, and crush opposition to the fascist program.
NSPM-7: THE CRIMINALIZATION OF DISSENT AS STATE POLICY
First came Trump’s executive order, “Designating Antifa As A Domestic Terrorist Organization.” Three days later came National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7): “Countering Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” directing the machinery of the federal government to launch this campaign.
Because there is no actual “antifa” organization with leaders or membership, the label can be stretched to encompass ordinary protest organizing, casual relationships, and associations that prosecutors then portray as participation in a terrorist enterprise rather than the exercise of First Amendment rights.
NSPM-7 explicitly identifies broad political beliefs as ideological drivers of terrorism—including “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, 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.” It advances the principle that certain political beliefs themselves can justify state suspicion, surveillance, investigation, and prosecution. That is the logic of thought crimes.
The regime expanded this framework in its Counterterrorism Strategy, identifying “Violent Left-Wing Extremists, including Anarchists and Anti-Fascists” as a principal domestic threat. Stephen Miller, Trump’s top policy advisor, told officials from 67 national governments that left-wing individuals and organizations are “enemies of civilization” that will destroy their countries if not taken down.
If this course is not stopped, these prosecutions will multiply. The targets will broaden. The penalties will become harsher. The space for dissent will shrink, and the cost of speaking out will rise for everyone.
PRAIRIELAND IS A WARNING TO EVERYONE
The objective of the Trump fascist regime is to warn millions of others what will happen if they organize, protest, publish literature, donate money, attend demonstrations, or associate with people the regime has chosen to label enemies. Every political prosecution is meant to produce thousands of silent spectators. Prairieland is a warning—a warning intended for everyone who might resist what comes next.
Prairieland demonstrates how NSPM-7 functions: surveilling protesters; criminalizing political beliefs, speech and association; intimidating all who would exercise their First Amendment rights with the threat of decades in prison. The danger is not only that people are being punished for exercising First Amendment rights but that the government openly claims, and now acts on, the power to decide which political beliefs, associations, conversations, and forms of organizing make someone a suspected terrorist or participant in a terrorist enterprise.
The Prairieland judge made that clear when he declared that the state wanted to “send a message to anyone who shares a similar ideology.” Reports indicate that thousands of people and organizations have already been swept into secret watchlists. Their goal is to make people think twice before protesting, organizing, speaking out, or standing in solidarity with those under attack.
THIS IS HOW FASCISM CONSOLIDATES POWER
The Trump fascist regime shamelessly equates nonviolent protest against the grave injustices they perpetrate with terrorism, while glorifying and relying on violence to advance its own agenda. Trump incited the January 6 attack on the Capitol and then pardoned more than 1,500 participants in that assault. It hunts immigrants down in sweeping raids, carries out deadly enforcement operations, and throws tens of thousands in concentration camps.
This is how fascism consolidates power. It transforms opposition into a security threat, replaces the rule of law with ideological loyalty, and makes fear and force the governing principles of society.
There is no “living with” fascism while hoping it moderates itself. Every successful act of criminalizing dissent clears the ground for broader repression. Every retreat by those who oppose fascism emboldens those determined to consolidate it.
UNITE TO DEFEAT FASCIST POLITICAL REPRESSION
We call on everyone who recognizes the danger of this trajectory to stand together against it—including people who may have profound political disagreements with one another, or with those targeted in any particular prosecution. Civil rights organizations, faith communities, labor unions, immigrant rights organizations, student organizations, book clubs – everyone.
The broadest possible unity must be forged. As the regime seeks to isolate each new target, our answer must be the opposite: answer every attack on dissent with broader public opposition—not silence, retreat, or accommodation. When they criminalize one movement, broaden the resistance. When they isolate one group, unite many more. Every attempt to criminalize dissent must be answered by broader, more organized, mass nonviolent resistance.
We must prepare politically and practically to meet—and defeat—this escalating repression: exposing where it is leading, defending those under attack, organizing new people into struggle, and forging the broadest possible unity against fascist repression.
DRIVE OUT THE TRUMP FASCIST REGIME
As long as this regime remains in power they will necessarily find new and ever more extreme ways to suppress all forms of opposition. This regime is on course to change the way this country has been ruled. Having made real progress in creating an openly brutal white supremacist patriarchal police state, they cannot and will not do other than double down with new and ever more vicious repression. We must not be lulled into complacency by the midterms. Think of the lives lost and damage that will be done.
This is why it is essential that while we act to oppose every act of repression, at the same time and most importantly we must marshal our courage and love for humanity toward driving this regime out of power through mass, nonviolent sustained resistance demanding: The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go Now!
In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America.