Trump Has Promised to Target ‘the Radical Left’ — What Could That Look Like?
Originally published in Teen Vogue for my Black Canary column.
The fear that hovered over half the country during Donald Trump's first term as United States president has returned, and his promotion of violence to accomplish political goals may be his most troubling threat. As before, Trump has promised to allow the police broad leeway, even advocating for a “violent day” of policing. He wants to legally protect officers who commit violence and end agreements that give federal authorities oversight of local police departments with a history of misconduct.
Trump also has the power to shape the Justice Department in a manner that can be used to serve his own vendettas, in a way that wasn’t possible before a Supreme Court ruling in July found that current and former presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for activities carried out within their “constitutional authority.”
What this will mean for organizers and those facing the wrath of Trump’s reign can be inferred from his previous term in office and what he promised during his most recent campaign, such as his plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants in the “largest deportation program” in the nation’s history.
Fariha Huriya, who works with Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid in DC, is preparing for the worst under Trump’s incoming administration. “If we [mutual aid activists] are in danger by giving out free food, free clothing, free legal advice — I mean, what does that say?” she tells Teen Vogue.
In interviews and public statements, Trump has pledged to go after the “enemy within,” including what he calls “the radical left.” During his previous term, amid the George Floyd protests in 2020, the Justice Department used a loophole to deploy National Guard troops armed with bayonets against DC protesters. A 2023 ACLU lawsuit alleged that military helicopters hovered “as low as 45 feet above people’s heads” during those protests.
Also that summer, members of the US Marshals shot anti-fascist activist Michael Reinoehl (who died later from his injuries) in what Trump celebrated as “retribution” for Reinoehl killing a supporter of the far-right Patriot Prayer organization. (Per The Guardian, Reinoehl claimed he did so while protecting a friend from a group of armed Trump supporters.) Said Trump, “We sent in the US Marshals. They knew who he was. They didn’t want to arrest him, and 15 minutes, that ended.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling last summer essentially granted the president unprecedented power to enforce federal law. This means that a figure like Trump has the potential to direct the Department of Justice to target activists that challenge his authority — including federal prosecutions.
As part of Trump's crackdown on the 2020 uprisings, federal prosecutors initiated court cases against more than 300 predominantly young Black people for infractions typically handled by local authorities. Under William Barr, Trump’s attorney general, US attorneys were told to aggressively go after Floyd protesters, according to reporting from the Associated Press. Some of those prosecuted are still in jail today. Arkansas activist Mujera Benjamin Lung’aho, for example, is currently serving five and a half years for “firebombing” police cars.
In 2017, during Trump’s presidential inauguration, nearly 200 demonstrators and journalists were arrested and prosecuted for offenses including “conspiracy to riot” and felony rioting. Trump’s advisor Roger Stone and right-wing operatives with ties to Trump, Project Veritas, and the Oath Keepers provided evidence that was key to the state's case by infiltrating a planning meeting and secretly recording the organizers. The videos that were produced by the group were reportedly edited, something the prosecution team left out in court, which caused one of the attorneys to face disbarment. This sort of collusion with right-wing operatives is likely to increase as Trump continues to implement his extremist agenda.
Conspiracy charges against protesters continue to be deployed against organizers at the state level. The particular danger of conspiracy charges is how easily they can be used to try to oppress social movements. In Georgia, for instance, Republican Attorney General Chris Carr filed charges related to conspiracy, including the use of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) against those organizing to protest the development of an Atlanta police training facility dubbed “Cop City” by its opponents. And, according to the New York Times, during the height of college encampment demonstrations over the war in Gaza, more than 30 protesters were “detained or zip-tied” at University of California Los Angeles for conspiracy to commit a robbery.
The threat to organizers does not come from Republicans exclusively. Atlanta Democrats have failed to condemn the political persecution of Cop City protesters, and Democratic leaders have stood by much of the repression taking place on college campuses and beyond for those speaking out against the genocide in Gaza. In April, President Biden called the campus protests “antisemitic.”
In the House of Representatives, two bills that threaten nonprofits, including pro-Palestine organizations, recently passed. Fifteen Democrats joined their Republican colleagues in voting for HR 9495, which gives the Treasury Department unaccountable power to strip organizations of their nonprofit status if it deems them “terrorist supporting organizations"; another bill, HR 1449, condemns “the global rise of antisemitism and call[s] upon countries and international bodies to counter antisemitism.” Representative Rashida Tlaib, one of the three Democrats that voted against the latter, said in a statement, “I strongly oppose antisemitism…. I opposed this resolution because it embraces the IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] definition of antisemitism, which dangerously conflates criticism of the state of Israel with antisemitism.”
Palestine Legal attorney Dylan Saba tells Teen Vogue it is “concerning” to see Democrats supporting the nonprofit law “because they are basically giving the Trump administration free rein to identify any nonprofit that it doesn't like and calling it, with almost no evidence, terrorist.”
The Washington Post reported that Trump told donors in May that he would set the Palestinian movement back “25-30 years” and deport protesters. This is also a “desired effect” that has been outlined in the right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther report, which, under the guise of fighting antisemitism, aims to “dismantle the infrastructure that sustains the HSN [Hamas Support Network].” Under its definition, that includes the US Palestinian movement.
Daniel Velazquez, a senior at Pomona College who was suspended for their Palestinian activism, says that much of the threats from Trump are already being implemented. They cite the case of one student at Cornell University who was nearly deported as an example of how Democrats have laid the groundwork for Trump to ramp up repression.
Organizers for reproductive justice are facing similar risks under Trump, says Maren Hurley, cofounder of Mountain Area Abortion Doula Collective, a group that offers support for people in North Carolina who are seeking abortions. There is a clear “playbook,” she says, that is derived from the repression of Palestinian advocacy and efforts to stop Cop City. “Policing and militarization is then applied to surveil, police, and criminalize people who are seeking abortion, particularly Black, brown, and Indigenous communities,” Hurley tells Teen Vogue.
Yet, she adds, people can still fight back despite the fear that makes them "feel very aware that if they choose solidarity or if they choose to act outside of the conservative ideal, that they will be swiftly punished.”
Huriya of Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid in DC has also cautioned about being hampered by fear. Trump has promised to use the military to deport millions of undocumented people in the “largest deportation program” in the nation’s history. But “I don't operate out of fear,” Huriya says. “I try to focus on listening more, how the work could change, and trying to figure out what kind of other layers we need to add within our work.”
For a group that’s been working to welcome asylum seekers who were dropped off by buses in DC with nothing, Huriya continues, the focus must stay on the task at hand: “We need to step into this work very grounded and very calmly. [We’re] focused on what we need to adapt to, and not be[ing] afraid to try different things, and to stand out is [also] very important. That sometimes requires being a little bit uncomfortable.”
For guidance, Huriya says, she has leaned on people she knows who are incarcerated: “I'm talking to a person who's incarcerated and who's facing repression 24/7.” Their advice is “don't let fear distract you. Don't jump into it. Take a minute” to think things out.
And this might be the best advice right now. Fascism thrives in a culture of fear. And as the activists I spoke with have noted, the best way to fight repression is to keep doing the work — no matter what.