The president is famously vindictive, but he is taking special aim at radicals, including socialist parties and anti-fascist organizers.
In late September 2025, Trump issued an executive order targeting antifa and leftists. Using the killing of Charlie Kirk as a pretext, he followed up with National Security Presidential Memo 7 (NSPM-7). The order and memo are the opening salvo of his all-out war against the radical Left. They pull heavily from Project 2025 — they’re more than Trump’s personal axe to grind. This red scare is part of the corporate agenda to crush all resistance as ruling elites make the working class bear the brunt of a spreading capitalist economic crisis. Conflating opposition with armed resistance, Trump claims to “counter domestic terrorism and organized political violence.”
Civil liberties organizations like the Brennan Center point out that Trump’s use of broad political smears like “anti-American,” “anti-Christian,” and “terrorist” will help the administration, without any basis in fact or law, to slap these labels on political opponents and go after them. NSPM-7 directs the Departments of Justice, Treasury, Homeland Security, and the IRS to use their powers in the crackdown. So much for the First Amendment! (See “SOS for free speech” and “Winning the First Amendment” in this issue.)
First targets
There’s a reason that leftists are the first of many in the bull’s-eye.
Already, the Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism has sent threatening letters to groups who militantly confronted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Los Angeles, including Party for Socialism and Liberation, Unión del Barrio, and the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights of LA. The letter charged the groups with fomenting “civil unrest,” implying that they will be investigated. Also, Michigan and Iowa GOP officials made the ridiculous assertion that the Freedom Socialist Party (FSP), Communist Party and Democratic Socialists of America were hell-bent on inciting violence at the No Kings marches on Oct. 18.
The intent of the witch hunts is clear. The architects of capitalist rule are troubled by the radical perspectives of many young workers, who are deeply skeptical of capitalism. They are organizing unions for low-paid service workers, exposing U.S. complicity in the Gaza genocide, and confronting the profit system as the driver of climate change. Left organizations are a threat because they can provide the leadership to channel this energy into toppling the profitable status quo.
Nothing new
U.S. history is full of examples of the ruling class unleashing government persecution against workers organizing mass movements for fundamental social change, especially the Left.
After World War I, labor upsurges rocked the globe, the United States included. Communists, socialists and anarchists were leaders in these battles. The U.S. government response was the infamous Palmer Raids that beat and jailed individuals from groups like the Communist Party. Many of those harassed were immigrants who were deported.
In the wake of World War II, U.S. workers launched the largest strike wave in history. Also, Black Americans courageously fought discrimination, bringing that struggle into the labor movement. This activism across the color line was a powerful force, and again the capitalists were alarmed. The U.S. House formed a committee to root out alleged communist influence in government institutions. A senator from Wisconsin zealously picked up the anti-communist mantle and hurled accusations far and wide, giving the period its popular name, McCarthyism.
How it ends
In each period of repression against the Left, it was the solidarity and tenacity of working people that shut down hysteria.
In the end, it was the courage shown by the rising Civil Rights struggle that broke the spell of fear that had gripped the nation.
During the Reagan era, FSP was sued by a former member who demanded minutes, donors and membership lists. FSP refused, instead waging an 8-year legal battle called the Freeway Hall Case. (See They Refused to Name Names: The Freeway Hall Case Victory at redletterpress.org.) The key to victory was enlisting broad public support, including significant labor backing, for a campaign unabashedly defending the right to be radical.
In the current battle against repression, left leadership is critical. Since socialists and other radicals have long been targets of the state, they have plenty of experience and the most interest in pushing back. With their connections to labor and other social movements, they have the capacity to build a broad united front that will defend the most persecuted, thereby protecting everyone’s rights.
Some left groups are starting to organize for mutual self-defense. Now is the time to move on that and to make it a bold defense of radicalism that working people will join.
