Leftists are in Trump’s crosshairs. For the past year, he has railed against radicals who he claims are wreaking violent havoc in the country. He has classified communists, antifa (i.e., anti-fascists) and groups with “pro-transgender ideology” as dangerous domestic terrorists and ordered law enforcement to “investigate, disrupt, and dismantle” them.
This renewed red scare began in September 2025 when Trump issued National Security Presidential Memo 7 (NSPM-7), which gave the administration carte blanche to attack their opposition. As the Freedom Socialist reported at that time, an ensuing witch hunt was inevitable (See “Another red scare targets the radical Left” at socialism.com). Shortly after, Trump’s regime began putting its enemies on trial.
Criminalizing protest
The persecution began by targeting anti-ICE protesters. The Department of Justice (DOJ) cooked up felony charges against these community activists, many with LGBTQ+ ties.
In Spokane, Washington, three men of color are suffering six years in federal prison, found guilty of “conspiring to impede law enforcement officers.” Last June, they protested with hundreds who responded to an online call-out to prevent the deportation of Venezuelan asylum seekers. The crowd sat in front of an ICE van, a nonviolent act of civil disobedience from the civil rights era that should be protected by the First Amendment.
Spokane Mayor Lisa Brown said the case was “meant to make an example out of people who disagreed with federal immigration policy.”
Migrant defenders have also been indicted for conspiracy as members of “antifa cells.” In Prairieland, Texas, the DOJ charged 19 activists with terrorism for participating in a July 2025 demonstration outside a detention center. Found guilty, the first nine received jaw-dropping sentences from 30 to 100 years. Many of the convicted lived together in the “Big Gay House” and participated in an anarchist-led Emma Goldman Book Club, which was presented as evidence for their supposed crimes.
In Minneapolis, illegal FBI surveillance of unions and community groups included Direct Action Minnesota. This broad coalition coordinated resistance when thousands of masked ICE thugs invaded the city and killed two immigrant defenders, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Claiming links to antifa, the DOJ charged several activists and unionists known as the Minnesota 15 (MN15) with conspiracy using evidence obtained by FBI infiltration.
MN15’s trial is ongoing. In an NPR interview, nurse Isaac Sant, one of the MN15, said “The whole community is really the target here. This is intended to have a chilling effect on protest and to intimidate people out of the street.”
Revitalizing anti-communism
Harking back to the McCarthy era, the Trump regime has resurrected Marxism as boogeyman. In July, the state department released “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism,” which not only threatens the beleaguered Caribbean island, but also invites a clampdown on dissenters at home.
The paper accuses Castro’s homeland of “a sustained campaign of subversion against the United States” that fomented left activity such as the Black Panthers, the George Floyd protests, antifa, and the pro-Gaza student encampments. It identifies as a danger to the USA “leftist nonprofits, anti-ICE collectives, socialist groups and Marxist militant organizations.”
The report names over 40 individuals and groups from alternative media reporter Amy Goodman to the communist Party for Socialism and Liberation. It also includes Democratic Socialists of America, the National Lawyers Guild, and many more.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a right-wing Cuban American, endorsed the report. At its publication, he hosted an international gathering of 65 nations that pushed Cuba, communism, and antifa as international terrorist threats demanding international vigilance.
Stand together
Red scares crush progressive movements when people buy into the government’s propaganda. The Trump regime is working hard to fuel anti-left hysteria. Fear is their main weapon. It succeeds when radicals tamp down their politics or go underground, when liberals distance themselves from radicals or when anyone cooperates with the FBI, despite everyone’s right not to do so.
In 1925, after the first Red Scare incarcerated numerous agitators, future Trotskyist James Cannon and syndicalist Bill Haywood formed the non-sectarian International Labor Defense. It supported political prisoners of all leftist stripes, most famously anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti and the racially targeted Scottsboro Boys. This effort can be replicated today.
