Episode 296
Trump’s presidential memorandum NSPM-7, designating “antifa” as a domestic terrorist threat, was just deployed successfully against eight anti-ICE protesters in Texas, almost one year after a small noise demonstration outside the Prairieland ICE detention center. This is a horrifying precedent accelerating the fascist attack on ALL dissent, and the sentences issued that stack sentences to cumulative amounts of 30 and 50 years send a chilling message to all those who would dissent against this regime.
This week, Sam talks to journalist Adam Federman, reporting fellow with Type Investigations, about this case in Texas as well as the cases brought against protesters in Minneapolis and the voting rights organization in Ohio in recent weeks. Read his piece Exclusive: FBI Files Counter Government Argument in Texas “Antifa” Trial and The War on Protest Is Here. Follow Adam’s work at adamfederman.com. Find out more about the Prairieland case at prairielanddefendants.com.
America At 250: Ruled By An Illegitimate Fascist Regime on Track to Destroy the World
See Action Calendar: July 1 Speakout, 1pm, National Museum of African American History & Culture; July 4 Rally & March, 2 pm, Logan Circle
Mentioned in this episode:
The Supreme Court Once Again Endorses Trump’s Racism by Elie Mystal
A Reckoning with the Future of Resistance by Habiba Farh
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Music for this episode: Penny the Snitch by Ikebe Shakedown
Refuse Fascism Episode 296
The Prairieland Model: Criminalizing Dissent
Adam Federman 0:00
The bottom line is that they were convicted on nearly all charges. The government has celebrated this as sort of the beginning of a crackdown and prosecution of Antifa and Antifa networks across the country. After the uprising in 2020, Trump flirted with some very aggressive militant tactics and was essentially restrained by the few advisors in his camp who still understood that that would cross a line. He actually regretted not having instructed law enforcement to open fire on Black Lives Matter protesters.
Sam Goldman 0:52
Welcome to episode 296 of the Refuse Fascism Podcast, a podcast brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers and host of the show. Refuse Fascism works to unite all who can be united in mass nonviolent resistance in the streets and throughout society to drive the Trump fascist regime from power. This week we’re sharing a conversation with journalist Adam Fetterman discussing Trump’s repression and criminalization of protests.
Before we begin, if you appreciate the Refuse Fascism podcast, help us reach more people, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen, share this episode and consider becoming a paid Substack subscriber, or join our Patreon community for as little as $2 a month. Every bit of support keeps us going, keeps us growing, and keeps bringing the demand that the Trump fascist regime Must Go Now! to society as a whole.
Thank you to all who came out, and thank you to all who contributed — whether time or funds — to our live event that we held this past Friday in Philadelphia at Independence Hall, America 250: Trump Fascism, Historical Erasure, and the Battle Over Truth. We want you to stay tuned for audio and video from the event. We’ll have it for you soon. You can see a clip over on our socials, @RefuseFascism.
This past week, the Supreme Court once again empowered the Trump regime to slam the door on people seeking asylum, another giant step in shredding the rule of law and stripping human beings of their rights and their humanity. Listen to Goebbels’ ghost, Stephen Miller, celebrate this ruling.
So, America’s doors are closed fully to asylum seekers. We’ve set up agreements where, if you want asylum, then we will find a country elsewhere in the world to take you. It’s very simple, a very elegant, very complete solution.
If by elegant, you mean profoundly illegal, if by elegant, you mean heinous cruelty and bigotry, if by elegant, you mean a call back to what the U.S. said to Jews fleeing the Nazis, if by elegant, you mean fucking fascist! And the court did not stop the white supremacy there. No, the court enabled what may be the largest de-documentation campaign in U.S. history, allowing the Trump regime to strip more than 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians of their legal status. Alito’s order enables the regime to begin these mass deportations immediately, refusing to let people remain in the country while their legal challenges are even heard.
As Elie Mystal wrote in The Nation, “When it comes down to it, the thousands of words Alito wrote could have been tossed out in favor of just ten: Haitians have no rights white men are bound to respect.” Think about what that means. Every day this regime remains in power is not only another day of suffering. But let’s be clear, the suffering is immense. Every day it remains in power is another day that its future is being locked into place, another day that terror becomes normalized, another day that institutions are fully remade in Trump/MAGA fascism’s grotesque image.
If you’re still relying on elections to stop this fascism, or even to slow the regime’s program of ethnic cleansing targeting non-white immigrants, these decisions better be your wake-up call. This court is not conservative. This fascist super majority has become an instrument of fascist consolidation, and if your answer is: That’s why we have to elect the Democrats in the midterms — you’re missing what is actually happening. The regime is openly working to rig and steal future elections. It is systematically changing who can vote, suppressing votes, weaponizing the machinery of government, and preparing to challenge any outcome it doesn’t like, and if a future election is contested, who do you think will decide it?
This same Supreme Court. Look, let’s also not forget the Democrats held the White House for four years, and this court remained unscathed. The reality is that this Supreme Court has shown again and again that it is prepared to bulldoze over precedent, logic, and even the plain meaning of the Constitution in service of this fascist project. We still don’t know how far they will go on Trump’s assault on birthright citizenship, which they may decide on tomorrow, Monday, June 29, but the possibility that they would uphold an order that blatantly violates the clear language of the 14th Amendment is no longer unthinkable. That is where we are. This fascist-dominated Supreme Court has become a thoroughly illegitimate institution. There is momentum behind this fascism. There is direction behind it. They are not backing away from their vision. Just listen to what Mike Johnson said to a room of Trump allies this past week.
Speaker Mike Johnson 5:00
If we were to lose the midterms, heaven forbid, these Democrats, y’all, impeachment is not even the big concern. They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they’ll go after the president’s family, the cabinet, his donors, and friends. Half of you in this room will be targeted. I run the protection program, I’ll take care of you, okay? We’re gonna win, we’re gonna win the midterm. Okay? All right? [applause/cheer]
Sam Goldman 5:00
Yes, you heard him. He runs the “protection program,” and he’ll “take care of you.” These are gangster fascists. Every setback they face compels them to escalate their attacks, to lock in their fascist program using every means at their disposal, unbound by domestic or international law. The more unpopular Trump becomes, the more he lashes out with revenge, hatred, and moral depravity, and the more hardened his fascist base becomes — celebrating intimidation and blackmail and violence to eliminate opposition and crush dissent.
The Republi-fascist Party is a section of the ruling class that has staked their entire future on fundamentally changing the form of rule in this country, and they are not going to give up power easily. This is existential for them. The question is, are we going to recognize in time that stopping it is existential for us? Because if we understand what this regime is driving toward, what it means for immigrants, for women, for Black people, for LGBTQ people, for political dissent, for the people of the world, for the evironment, for science, for the rule of law, for the future of humanity, then we understand the existential danger for us, too.
They are acting like everything is on the line. The only way to stop them is for millions of people who reject this fascism to begin acting with that same level of urgency, and the understanding that this is fascism. The comforting myth that it can’t happen here has always been just that, a myth. There is nothing about America that makes it immune from fascism, but much about America makes fascism possible. So, let’s remember what fascism actually means. It means tearing away democratic and civil rights, like what they’re trying to do with birthright citizenship, what they’re doing to those seeking asylum. It means violently suppressing dissent, like their “counterterrorism” strategy does. It means demonizing whole sections of people until cruelty toward them becomes ordinary, like they’re doing towards our trans siblings, like the Supreme Court did towards Haitians that had TPS. It means a section of the ruling class, the Republi-fascist Party, consolidating power through terror, through intimidation, and brute force, unconstrained by law.
That is not some distant future possibility. It is happening now. It is what already we have allowed to go way too far. If this regime is allowed to fully consolidate its rule, it really can become too late. That is why the challenge before all of us is not simply to bear witness. It’s not waiting for the next election, it’s not hoping someone else will stop this, or try to survive it, and come what may, to everyone else.
The challenge is to help create a massive, sustained, determined movement of millions in the streets acting nonviolently, but with fierce determination, with the aspirations and hopes of all of humanity around the unifying demand that the Trump Fascist Regime Must Go Now! A movement that spreads this demand everywhere now, making Trump Must Go Now! a political dividing line between those accepting fascism and those stopping it. Planting a pole, inspiring and uniting all who hunger for justice and do not want to hand the future to these MAGA fascists, together, right now, building an organization capable to lead, in a moment, that people do pour into the streets.
For example, to be poised in November if Trump does something particularly outrageous related to the elections. So that this movement is already ready with a force behind it, people that are clear on what fascism is and what it will take to stop it. On why this demand and nothing less: The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go Now! is what’s needed, so that such an outpouring turns from a moment of protest into the kind of massive sustained nonviolent movement that disrupts business as usual in such a way on such a scale where this regime cannot continue to govern as usual, and their removal from power becomes possible.
There are increasingly two futures struggling to be born. One is a fully consolidated fascist America, the other is one where millions refuse to accept that future and act together nonviolently to stop it. One or the other will prevail. What you do now can make the difference. Which brings me to this week.
On July 4, while Trump stages his America 250 spectacle to celebrate and legitimize his fascist rule, a mega MAGA rally flanked by the military, people who refuse to accept this illegitimate fascist rule need to be visible in the nation’s capital, projecting to the world our demand: Trump Must Go Now! and our commitment: In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America! Join me Saturday, July 4, 2:00 p.m. at Logan Circle. Bring your friends, bring your family, bring your outrage, bring your determination. We’re gonna rally, we’re gonna march. Bring water, bring sunscreen, but be there. And on July 1, 1:00 p.m. at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, join me in saying no to whitewashing history. We’re gonna have a speak out and press conference. July 1 is a Wednesday, by the way, and July 2, a Thursday, 6:30 p.m. at Riverside Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.
Join me for a Refuse Fascism meeting, getting into what is fascism and what will it take to stop it. For more information, visit RefuseFascism.org. If you can’t attend yourself, be part of spreading Refuse Fascism’s America 250 statement wherever you are and spreading the demand: Trump Must Go Now! wherever you are and donating generously towards the mobilization. Again, you can get materials get involved and give at RefuseFascism.org. Don’t spend the coming months perfecting your explanation for why you couldn’t act, spend them acting while you still can. The Trump fascist regime Must Go Now!
Now to the main topic of today’s episode.On June 23, eight people were sentenced to decades in prison in relation to a protest last July th4, where a police officer pulled a gun on a protester and was reportedly preparing to fire when he was non-fatally shot. This is the regime’s first clear attempt to implement their strategy labeling domestic dissent as terrorism, and with the help of two fascist judges, they have succeeded. The Prairieland defendants were tried as though their book club was a domestic terrorist cell, allegedly part of a nationwide terrorist organization.
The Department of Justice’s statement on the sentencing refers to them as “North Texas Antifa cell operatives.” This helped enable them to use a statute that has never before been applied in a purely domestic context, the supposed provision of material support to terrorists. Some of those convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison, went home earlier in the night in question when officers asked them to. Others were not even there at all, like Daniel Sanchez Estrada, who was convicted of moving a box of zines. He is also now beginning a 30 year prison sentence. This is longer than the longest sentence given to the perpetrators of the January 6th coup attempt, the leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, for the direct participation and clear conspiracy to overthrow the electoral process of the United States.
It is not hypocrisy that Trump enabled the Prairieland sentences, but commuted the January 6th ones. It is simply power. This is the guiding principle of the fascist legal system coming into full effect. Whatever they do is legal, and whatever their enemies do is criminal. The fascist sections of the ruling class see crises ahead and are convinced that the only way they can hold on to power is through open and openly partisan violence and terror permeating society. This is what is setting the terms of the Trump fascist regime’s efforts to effectively eliminate the right to obstruct or dissent against fascism.
They’ve got a lot of tools at their disposal in this. They are building on the repressive mechanisms of the Patriot Act, on the increasing militarization of the police, on the infrastructure of mass incarceration, on the violent suppression of actions against the genocide in Palestine, the targeted suspicion, enhanced sentencing, and categorical internment of whole nationalities and religions.
They are taking inspiration from all the legal mechanisms used across American history to enforce slavery, Jim Crow, the internment of Japanese American people, the exclusion of whole nationalities, the forced dependence of women and the silence of LGBTQ people and the suppression of radical and revolutionary thought and action. Yet they are seeking to take this to a whole qualitatively new level, fueled by a rabid fascist movement with their hands all over the levers of power, intent on eviscerating the Bill of Rights, itself and unprecedented technological capacity for both violence and surveillance.
As Habiba Farh writes in her article from Political Research Associates, “The new policies expand on post 911 legal and policy frameworks using the framing of domestic terrorism to include political opponents of the regime. Existing frameworks, particularly countering violent extremism programs have targeted racial, ethnic, or religious groups that the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI deemed suspect. Now the entire population lives in a pre-crime space of constant legal suspicion, with the threat of enhanced surveillance and prosecution.” A September 2025 executive order designated “antifa,” short for anti-fascism, domestic terrorism. It was shortly followed by a National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which directs federal agencies on how to respond to the specter of this supposed terrorism, including by changing the definition of domestic terrorism to include trespass, property damage, and civil disorder for people with specific political leanings — anti-fascist, anti-Christian, anti-traditional values.
In addition to the federal agencies, it should not be lost on anyone that the judge who sentenced most of the defendants is one of the 277 federal judges appointed by Trump to remake the judicial branch, one who understands his assignment and has already issued decisions against DEI practices against Biden’s attempt at student loan debt forgiveness, and against gun control measures. In this case, he used the claim of terrorism to boost the sentences for each charge, and then imposed them consecutively to reach these extraordinary sentences of 30, 50, 70, and 100 years. Meanwhile, the other judge in the case, Reed O’Connor, appointed by George Bush the First, openly stated that he is giving the maximum sentences because he wants to send a message to anyone who shares a similar ideology.
The Department of Justice’s statement can inform us on their strategy going forward. They used the term “Antifa cell” 13 times to describe a book club. They described fireworks used on the fourth of July as explosives. They dead named two trans defendants. They wrote that three defendants “were part of a group that created and distributed insurrectionary materials called zines.” They used possession of first aid gear and legal ownership of firearms in Texas as evidence against the defendants. They threatened other protesters with lengthy prison terms to compel testimony. Their strategy is to continue to carry out state violence on an ever-widening scale, while painting any opposition to their violence as a murderous conspiracy.
Our strategy going forward must be massive, sustained, growing nonviolent action to achieve the political defeat of this fascist movement — the removal from the levers of power. e need to be condemning every act of repression and coming to the defense of those under attack and joining that with the demand that the Trump fascist regime Must Go Now! Only a growing demand, Trump Must Go Now! reaching every corner of society with people acting to assert it nonviolently everywhere, can stop this fascism; people choosing conscience over compliance, students walking out, communities defending those under attack, educators and artists refusing censorship, public servants refusing complicity, neighbors refusing to let immigrants be disappeared, truth be censored, or whole groups of people be sacrificed — a growing refusal spreading from campuses to neighborhoods, from cultural institutions to the halls of power.
Understanding that personal sacrifice and personal risk are needed now that there is no staying safe while this regime remains in power, and instead coming together and disrupting business as usual until the regime faces a profound crisis of legitimacy. One in which millions acting nonviolently and in concert can become an undeniable force compelling those in power to remove the Trump fascist regime. And we, doing it together for the threat it poses to the future of all of humanity.
With that, here is my conversation with journalist Adam Federman. Adam is a reporting fellow at Type InvestiGate, who writes regularly on political repression and government surveillance of social movements. He is currently working on a book on this topic. This interview was recorded prior to the sentencing in the Prairieland case. However, it remains relevant, and we will continue to be paying extra attention to this case and repression in coming episodes.
Sam Goldman 15:10
Adam, thanks so much for joining us. I wanted to talk with you because we’ve seen developments that I feel like in another political context in another time would be front page news, and very much should be now. There’s the example that some people know about 15 anti-ICE protesters and observers indicted in Minnesota under a framework tied to NSPM7, the FBI raid on the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, really, escalating threats against anyone who holds ideas that are contrary to the aims of the Trump regime. They have built an apparatus inside the FBI, inside the DOJ, aimed at identifying and targeting citizens not for crimes that they had committed, but for what authorities suspect they might do because of their political beliefs and associations.
As somebody who’s been looking at the arc of political repression from 9/11 to now. It’s not about the details of each particular case, but there is a trend and trajectory that we wanted to get your take on, because there really is not a lot of coverage on it, and that might be a topic for discussion, of why there isn’t more people talking about it, why it isn’t generating the type of outrage. People are outraged about, rightly so, the murder of Alex Pretti or the murder of Renee Good, but why isn’t it generating the same kind of outrage that should be when you’re talking about this scale of repression? So, again, thanks for joining us.
Adam Federman 15:10
Delighted to be here. That’s really a great summation of where we are, and I think part of the answer to your question about why it’s not receiving more attention is a couple of things. One is sort of historical amnesia. We tend to forget about just how profound the post 9/11 sort of national security transformation has been and what it means for sort of daily life in this country. And then there’s also just the shock and awe of the second Trump administration, which is very calculated and deliberate.
Steve Bannon has talked about flooding the zone, and it’s difficult to focus on sort of escalating repression and the historical context driving it when every day brings another kind of eye-popping revelation from the Trump administration, whether it’s foreign policy or here at home. With what’s happening in Minnesota, Ohio, and in Texas with the Prairieland case, which, incidentally, sentencing is happening for some of those defendants today, as we speak. I do think that people are beginning to sort of understand the scale and the scope of what this administration is trying to do, and sort of the table that had been set for them leading up to this moment.
Sam Goldman 15:26
Thanks for that. I did want to start with the Prairieland case. As you mentioned, today, sentencing is taking place for some of the defendants. You’ve described the Minnesota indictments as essentially the Prairieland model. For listeners who may not have followed the case closely, which would be easy to do, because there has not been that much coverage on it: What is the Prairieland model? What are the key aspects of the precedent being set here? Why do you think it’s so important to be paying attention to?
Adam Federman 18:37
The Prairieland case, just to back up a little bit, involved a group of activists in Texas who staged a noise demonstration and protest outside of an immigration detention center on July 4, 2025, outside of the Prairieland Immigration Detention Center in Alvaredo, Texas, which is 45 minutes or an hour north, I believe, of Fort Worth, Dallas metropolitan area. This was relatively early on in the Trump administration. Antifa was not yet sort of the poster child that it’s become for Trump and his allies in terms of cracking down on the left… the protest, there was some vandalism… This was happening late at night, around 11:00 p.m. Local police were called in, police officer pulled his weapon, some shots were exchanged. The officer was allegedly hit sort of on the shoulder.
The individual who fired the gun was on the run for 11 days, so it led to this week and a half long FBI dragnet, essentially of these activist networks in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and ultimately the arrest of, I think, now it’s up to 19 individuals, some of whom you know, many, at least half, were not even present at the protest. I think the interesting thing to sort of underscore is the fact that it didn’t become an antifa case until after the assassination of Charlie Kirk in September, when, as you mentioned, the administration released the executive order declaring Antifa a domestic terrorist organization, the National Security Presidential Memo, the Bondi memo, all of these, these documents out of the White House, essentially expanding the crackdown on, yeah, antifa, but really anything that counters the administration’s immigration policies and beyond.
So, retroactively, the Prairieland case became the first real trial of what they called an antifa cell, and the indictment makes that very clear. So it really upped the ante for the administration in terms of getting a successful prosecution, and that was the case that they made. They brought in their expert witness, Kyle Scheidler, who tried to connect all these disparate dots related to what these individuals have been engaged in, which was a lot of just sort of traditional left organizing; book clubs, demos, protests, communicating via signal, and all the rest. As I’ve written, nine of the defendants who stood trial — there were five cooperating witnesses who have cooperated with the government, the FBI.
It’s a very complicated case, each defendant has their own representation. There are different charges. The bottom line is that they were convicted on nearly all charges. The government has celebrated this as sort of the beginning of a crackdown and prosecution of antifa and antifa networks across the country. So, when I refer to the Prairieland model, that’s essentially what I’m talking about, and I think if you read through the Minnesota indictment, which is about as flimsy as they come, you can see that they’re drawing from that same playbook and making specious allegations about ties to antifa, equating direct action and nonviolent protest with terrorism and conspiracy, and then rounding up whoever they can, arresting them, you know, seeing what happens.
Sam Goldman 26:46
That’s really helpful. I think it raises a couple questions. One is: How the redefinition and establishing this new category regarding domestic terrorism under this framework, and how that’s changing the creation of antifa as a catch-all category for anyone who not only acts in ways that the regime finds oppositional, but believes things or listens to people who believe things that are oppositional. I’m not sure if you have any thoughts on the significance there, or how that differs from previous frameworks.
Adam Federman 27:28
Well, traditionally the FBI and federal law enforcement are prohibited from targeting individuals or groups based on their political beliefs. Now we know that the FBI has crossed that line many times it’s not a secret. But I think if you look at the history of the agency, sort of after the COINTELPRO revelations of the 60s and 70s, the Church Committee hearings, and the sort of informal guidelines that were put in place to kind of change the culture of the agency and prevent the FBI from targeting individuals and groups because of their political beliefs, those changes were not insignificant, and I think what we’ve seen since 9/11 is that those guardrails have been moved completely, and that’s been a slow, somewhat incremental process, and we’re now in a moment where the gloves are truly off.
The administration isn’t even trying to hide the fact that it is going after a political project. If you read the National Security Presidential memo [NSPM7] that came out after the executive order declaring “Antifa” a domestic terrorist organization, which explicitly says that it will be investigating and looking into organizations and groups who espouse anti-capitalist, anti-Christian, and values of sort of antithetical to the traditional American family. You could essentially lump any sort of left-leaning organization or group into one or all of those categories, potentially.
And I think you really do see that in the Minnesota indictment. I mean, they clearly refer to this group — I mean, it’s not even a group, it’s a network of organizations and individuals who were mobilized in response to the federal occupation of their city and the very violent sort of takeover of their streets, but — they refer to themselves as a decentralized collective of working-class people who are opposed to fascism and a far-right kind of takeover. If that becomes a conspiracy and a potential charge of domestic terrorism, I mean, you can see the very sort of dangerous ground we’re all on now, really, if that’s the administration’s approach, which clearly it is.
What we’re seeing with the Ohio raid, the Minnesota indictment, the Prairieland convictions and sentencing, is a lot of people have been kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop, like, what is this really going to look like? How is it gonna be operationalized? What is the FBI doing? What are these joint terrorism task forces up to? And just how sort of broad in scope is it going to be? I mean, we know that the IRS is looking into nonprofits for funding of organizations that they consider to be “Antifa aligned,” or whatever. There’s a lot happening that we are not aware of, and not privy to.
You know, my fear is that as we get closer to the midterms and the final couple of years of this project, we really have to be prepared for extreme measures from the state. I mean, we’ve already seen nonviolent citizens shot and killed. It doesn’t really get much more extreme than that. So, I think it’s important to, as you’re doing, bring light to these trends, I think the activist community is certainly aware of what’s happening, and they’re taking precautions and trying to be as smart as they possibly can be about protecting themselves and their allies, but one has to be clear-eyed about what is unfolding.
Sam Goldman 30:45
I think that’s really important. One of the things that you wrote that’s gotten a lot of attention, rightly so, in terms of sounding the alarm, is that you had mentioned that Prairieland is Exhibit A, and you expect the regime to get to the end of the alphabet before they’re finished, indicating that this is the trend that we’re going to see more of. There’s many examples of this escalating repression. I’m not sure, in the Minnesota case, or if there’s anything in this buffet of examples that we’re now getting that strikes you particularly, that you think has not been highlighted in the way that is important in terms of understanding the danger and trajectory.
Adam Federman 31:26
Well, it’s multi-pronged. I mean, I do think that the deployment of ICE and immigration policy as a guise for cracking down on protest is clearly the administration’s game plan, and that’s exactly what they’ve done. I think it’s a challenge for the activist community, because one can go out and protest, advocate for speech and civil liberties… it’s harder, I think, to engage in sustained protest and direct, direct action against an authoritarian police state. It’s very easy then for the administration to say, which they do in the Minnesota indictment, that this is a conspiracy to impede and endanger law enforcement. That’s just one basic point, and I think it’s quite obvious in many ways.
The other piece of this that we haven’t really touched on is the administration’s approach to immigrant non-US students who engaged in organizing and protest against the war in Gaza and U.S. policy in the Middle East, which has kind of been eclipsed by now the crackdown on antifa, but of course in the early days of the administration that was actually Exhibit A, taking students off the streets, detaining them, sort of in this state of limbo, some have since voluntarily left, others are their status remains unclear. Of course, the repression of the student movement against the war in Gaza preceded the Trump administration.
We saw some of the most severe crackdowns on student encampments before Trump was elected, but they’ve kind of taken it to another level. These threads obviously connect, and I think you know the election is not far off. All indications are that the Republicans are going to suffer major losses. How the administration responds to that is very ominous, because we know that during Trump’s first term, after the uprising in 2020, Trump flirted with some very aggressive militant tactics, and was essentially restrained by the few advisors in his camp who still understood that that would cross a line. But he actually regretted not having instructed law enforcement to open fire on Black Lives Matter protesters, you know, he’s talked about invoking the Insurrection Act to allow him to deploy the military to American cities. These are all the things that are floating around, and as the administration becomes more desperate, it’s entirely possible that they’ll resort to even more extreme measures.
Sam Goldman 33:54
I think, Adam, those are really important warnings and links that you’re making. There’s so much encompassed in their effort to, you know, root out the enemy within. What does that mean, and how do you go about doing that, that? It’s not just a rhetorical device. Not only do we have historical examples of what happens when that language is utilized, but we have now legal precedent, whether it be the sweeping denaturalization efforts that the regime is undertaking, or it be cases. Your point of looking at the deployment of ICE and what that’s really about, I think, is important. One of the things that you’ve argued in many of your pieces over the years, as when you alluded to in this conversation as well, that the repression that we’re seeing now didn’t come out of nowhere. If we trace the arc from the post 9/11 expansion of not only like counterterrorism powers but sweeping surveillance state,
Adam Federman 34:57
The creation of the Department of Homeland Security,
Sam Goldman 35:00
Exactly. We look at that, and then we look through Standing Rock and anti-pipeline struggles of the 2010s. What do you feel like are the key precedents or nodal points that, if you look at, stepped back, can help us understand this criminalization of dissent that we’re now seeing in overdrive? Because some in certain activist spaces will say: Well, we’ve always lived in a police state — There have been police state measures now for some time, and what we’re seeing now is going for, like, overt, brute terror that has, for the majority of the U.S. history, been delivered to certain sections of the population, but has not been delivered to the entirety of the U.S. population. How are you seeing this expansion?
Are there key times or building blocks that you think can help us make sense of how this regime was able to utilize, like, the architecture that was built by Bush and, yes, Obama, to get us here?
Adam Federman 36:06
‘Architecture’ is a great word, because I think it captures kind of the scaffolding that has been put up over the last two decades plus. The legal landscape has changed dramatically. You’ve had many states pass laws that criminalize common protest tactics, like trespassing and blocking traffic, in many cases making them felonies. The conspiracy charges that we’ve seen in the Prairieland and Minnesota cases, we saw that with Cop City — over 60 activists faced RICO charges, I think, all of which have since been dropped.
But that’s another important thing to point out, is that they’re not always banking on securing convictions, but part of the game plan is to intimidate and just undermine these networks by sweeping up large numbers of activists and charging them with conspiracy or domestic terrorism, which also happened with the Stop Cop City activists, as well. So, you’ve had state-level domestic terrorism statutes have been expanded. You’ve had, I think, it’s over two dozen state-level laws passed that make it much more difficult to engage in direct action without incurring substantial fines or prison time. Then, the rhetoric, I think, surrounding nonviolent… I was gonna say civil disobedience, but it’s not just civil disobedience. In the case of, for example, the campaign to stop the Keystone XL pipeline, there was a lot of traditional organizing that took place, involving petitions and protests and tree sits in East Texas, and thousands of activists getting arrested outside of the White House, including very high-profile and mainstream figures and organizations like the Sierra Club.
Yet, the FBI still described this popular mass movement as an extremist threat. One of the things that I’ve focused on in my work is looking at how law enforcement and industry, or the corporate sector, frames these oppositional movements. This isn’t necessarily new, but I do think it helps us understand how we go from a successful anti-pipeline campaign to Standing Rock. The response is much more militarized. You have at least 10 FBI informants on the ground, state and local law enforcement, and a pretty vicious and aggressive crackdown. In the wake of Standing Rock, you get many states passing these laws that make it much harder to engage in that kind of mass protest.
We have to understand that, the Minnesota indictment, they make this leap, they take organizations that are devoted to community organizing, I mean, that’s really what it is, Minnesota Direct Action, Twin Cities Direct Action, and they use this rhetorical sort of sleight of hand to make the case that these are “Antifa organizations.” I haven’t reported on the Minnesota case, but I can say that in the Prairieland Trial, you know, most of the defendants didn’t describe themselves as antifa. So, anyway, the administration, they make that rhetorical leap, then they use all this fear-mongering and language about antifa as a domestic terrorist threat, and then you know, round people up and try to convict them. I think Trump entered his second term with, you know, all the tools he needed to kind of operationalize this state of affairs, and a lot of the work was done before he arrived on the scene.
Sam Goldman 39:26
It’s really important, I think, to understand that, and then to understand how unbound this regime is by any domestic or international law. While they, yes, want to change laws to make it easy for them, and where do things ultimately go? They go to the Supreme Court that they’ve stacked, that’s now an instrument of their rule. But in the case that they can’t transform the law, they don’t feel beholden to it. That that is an important distinction. While, in my opinion, the U.S. has never felt beholden really to any international law, there has been much more of an attempt to rationalize that they are, and now there is no ration[alization], it is force only.
As we’re speaking about the trajectory and precedence of what got us here, it’s very easy, I think, also, for people, or should be easy for people to conjure up memories — or even if they don’t have them themselves, like I don’t — the shared historical memory of McCarthyism, to have the memory of COINTELPRO tactics. What the effect of intimidation and alienation and isolation that they need in order to consolidate power. As you were talking about earlier. You can’t have people in the streets if you want to make this project locked in. You can’t have that. You have to eliminate it. The much preferred method of elimination that looks better optically is people doing it themselves. When people either normalize this and want to protect their own skin and don’t go out there, or the culture of fear just chills society.
This has been something that has been underestimated in the media, and also has been underestimated in activist circles. It is good that all the Broadview cases were thrown out. It’s good that they didn’t stick. I’m not saying that, but, I think using the metric of how insane it is that there’s no possible legal rationale for these things, and thinking that that means, therefore, that they can’t be successful, I think is gonna be really deadly. If you have any thoughts on that, or ways that you found helpful to, like, grapple with that dichotomy?
Adam Federman 40:12
Well, I do think that part of the reason why they view the Minnesota case as so important is because of the success of that organizing effort in repelling ICE and turning the tide in terms of public opinion, and I think the indictment is actually fascinating to read because it really does sort of document some of the tactics and strategies that were put in place to combat the ICE occupation. I mean, this is something that’s been talked about a little bit, I know that Corey Robin has written about and talked about some of this stuff in the context of the Red Scare and looking at some of the parallels between what’s happening today and what happened in the 1950s and also some of the real clear differences.
I mean, I do think that it’s a stretch for the administration to make the case to the average American that, you know, Antifa is what they should be worried about. I mean, people can’t afford to put gas in their car, they are struggling to make ends meet, and I don’t think they’re waking up looking over their shoulder worried about this specter. So, in terms of the popular sort of appeal of the administration’s project, I think the jury’s out. During the 50s, of course, you had a communist presence in this country, you had the Soviet bloc, you had an enemy that could be defined in a way that I think the administration is struggling to do with Antifa, so that’s one sort of small difference. But I think the culture of fear, it’s palpable, and I think that it preceded Trump’s return to office with the crackdown on the student protesters.
I did a fair bit of reporting on what was happening on campuses across the country at that time, and people were terrified. And then when Trump came back into office and started kidnapping activists in broad daylight, you know, Rumesa Ozturk, this Turkish grad student at Tufts, who was taken in broad daylight by unmarked masked men, shoved into a vehicle, she didn’t even know who had taken her until they arrived at an ICE facility in New Hampshire. I think she ends up, I think, in Vermont on a plane sent to Louisiana. I mean, this stuff is.. it’s still hard for me to believe that this has happened, and I think that because the news cycle moves so fast, and because there are so many fires to put out, it’s easy to kind of forget what we have lived through and what we are living through, so I don’t want to minimize that, but I also think we do need to acknowledge the success that the Minnesota campaign, and of course, long tradition in Minnesota.
I went to school for two years in St. Paul, you know, farmer, Labor Party, progressive left social networks, strong immigrant communities. You know, major protests in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. So it’s like it’s not a surprise that they pulled this off in the same way that we can’t explain Trump, you know, it didn’t happen overnight. These movements don’t succeed over. Right, these networks and bonds have been formed over decades of organizing, and I think that’s important for people to recognize too, because the work that people do now may not come to fruition for another decade, but it’s no less valuable. I would assume that the left will emerge stronger than it was a decade ago.
Sam Goldman 45:18
I think that there is such a lesson in what we’ve already lived through, I would argue, have accepted, even people that don’t want to accept it. There is a certain amount of like accepting this is this is what your country does now. I think that the scale of fear and normalization is feeding this beast that is the regime, you know, an example of that is Delaney Hall. What should have been thousands, if not tens of thousands, in my opinion, showing not only solidarity with the people on hunger strike, but saying these cages need to be opened and people need to be free, right?
The people that were outside are beautiful people, they’re wonderful, wonderful people, but the numbers are puny. It is, and it is incredibly scary how few people are there, and that is creating much more vulnerability for those people inside and outside. It is much easier for them to slap outrageous charges, and then the people that are out there and aren’t seeing more people come out, they start doing adventurous shit. I feel like there are times in history where the repression ricochets, and you get that dictator’s dilemma, where do they back up, where the dictator takes a step back from their oppression because they have to make a calculus, if they drop the hammer, is that going to give them more, more legitimacy and bring more people into motion, or can they get away with just shutting it down?
What is the greater cost? And right now they aren’t facing that dilemma, and they could be, and there have been moments where we’ve approached that and Minnesota was part of that. Had that spread nationwide, had it moved from, and this is again not me denigrating the work of the people in Minnesota, so I want to be clear on that, but like had it moved from ICE out of here, to fascist regime out of here, and that spread, and that been what was setting the terms, I think it could create a different situation. Now we’re not there now, and we could be, you know, you alluded to, you know, the midterms, and the fact that this regime is not doing well, they are facing real problems, and how they go about what they do in the face of those problems isn’t looking good.
There is, I think, a potential that people do pour into the streets, but then what is it that they’re demanding, and what does the regime do in response? And I think that that’s part of what we need to be preparing for now, and I was wondering, if, as somebody who’s you’ve watched a lot, you know, in particular around the movements that have been trying to protect the environment and protect cultures that are more connected to the environment that have faced a lot of repression over decades, what do you think that people should be preparing for, and are there any insights?
Adam Federman 48:22
So, I don’t know how the midterms will sort of reshape the landscape, but I guess I would count on increased repression from this administration, an escalation of potential National Guard deployments, and the invocation of the Insurrection Act is, I think, on the table with this administration, particularly with Stephen Miller continuing to kind of shape much of the administration’s domestic policy, and then, of course, with the total failure of the war in Iran, the administration is only going to be more desperate to shore up sort of the MAGA base, which has splintered badly, so I think all of these things sort of point to a very muddy and unpredictable next several months and years. Not a very satisfying answer, but….
Sam Goldman 49:11
These aren’t satisfying times. Adam, I want to thank you so much for joining us. The targeting of dissent, criminalization of protests and of ideas, and the effort to intimidate people from acting against the terror and bigotry. These are not side issues. It is a central feature of how fascist movements consolidate power, and understanding these developments and refusing to normalize them is something everyone needs to be grappling with right now, so I want to thank you for helping us do that work, and if there’s any upcoming projects that you’re working on, any thing that I didn’t ask you that you wanted to mention, and of course, Where people can go to read some of your work, of course, in the show notes, we’ll put some of your key articles on this topic.
Adam Federman 50:03
Thanks so much for having me. I mean, I will continue to report on the Prairieland case, and now I’m working on a book project that will bring together a lot of what we’ve talked about today in terms of political repression, sort of from 911 to the present moment, and folks who are interested in the reporting that I’ve done on this stuff, can find most of it at Type Investigations, where I’m a reporting fellow.
Sam Goldman 50:25
Thanks so much, Adam.
Adam Federman 50:26
Thank you, Sam.
Sam Goldman 50:27
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