It Starts With A Lie Anyone Can Make

Authoritarian regimes are known for repeating false claims to demonize the opposition and justify seizing more power. A similar pattern emerged under President Trump. Virtually every one of his Executive Orders begins with fantastical claims about threats to America posed by his opponents. These claims are then used to justify coercive and often illegal actions to suppress dissent.

For example, consider two recent actions that supposedly target “domestic terrorism.” A September 22 Executive Order begins “Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law,” and designates Antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization.” In fact, there is no law giving the President the authority to designate domestic terrorist organizations. Antifa (short for “anti-fascist”) is not an organization. It is more like a loose coalition of leftist groups that oppose authoritarianism. There is no evidence of an outbreak of Antifa violence.

Three days later, a much broader National Security Presidential Memorandum laid out sweeping steps that are supposedly aimed at “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.” It begins with a screed that misrepresents political violence as a left-wing phenomenon, citing attacks against right-wing figures and ignoring those against Democratic officials. It claims that:

Political violence is not a series of isolated incidents and does not emerge organically. Instead, it is a culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change or direct policy outcomes, and prevent the functioning of a democratic society.

These campaigns are coordinated and perpetrated by actors who have developed a comprehensive strategy to achieve specific policy goals through radicalization and violent intimidation.

The President’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller summarized the NSPM in a tweeted that cited “a growing movement of leftwing terrorism.”

These extravagant claims bear little relationship to reality. The Administration has provided no evidence to support its incredulous claim of “a more than 1,000 percent increase in attacks on … ICE officers since January 21, 2025.” We have seen countless videos of ICE officers attacking peaceful protesters and then charging them with assault.

These claims are intended to portray the President’s opponents as something other than American. The memo lists indicators of supposed a “pattern of violent and terroristic activities:”

Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and 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.

There is no accepted meaning for these supposed indicators of wrongdoing and no basis for using them in law enforcement. Their vagueness would give Federal agencies broad authority to use the power of the government as they see fit to investigate, intimidate, prosecute, and silence the opposition. This practice is common in authoritarian regimes.

The memo lays out “a new law enforcement strategy that investigates all participants in these criminal and terroristic conspiracies — including the organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, funding sources, and predicate actions behind them.” It sets up a “Joint Terrorism Task Force” not only to investigate and prosecute acts of violence but also efforts at “recruiting or radicalizing” people toward violence and calls for scrutiny of non-governmental organizations and their financial flows, suggesting both revocation of tax status and potential criminal investigation.

In 1765, the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire wrote of the connection between lies and oppression. He is often quoted as saying “Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” There are arguments over whether this is an accurate translation of the original French, but in context the meaning is clear enough:

You believe things that are incomprehensible, inconsistent, impossible because we have commanded you to believe them; go then and do what is unjust because we command it. Such people show admirable reasoning. Truly, whoever can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. If the God-given understanding of your mind does not resist a demand to believe what is impossible, then you will not resist a demand to do wrong to that God-given sense of justice in your heart. As soon as one faculty of your soul has been dominated, other faculties will follow as well.

So how are citizens to respond to this attempt to use the threat of “domestic terrorism” to attack the President’s political opponents? We live in a republic – from the Latin “res publica,” literally “public thing.” The government belongs to the people, not the President. We need to reject the absurdities and oppose the atrocities. Silence is not an option.

The author is a retired Civil Servant who served for decades as a senior policy advisor in Democratic and Republican Administrations.

Founded in 2016, The Steady State is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization of more than 300 former senior national security professionals. Our membership includes former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security. Drawing on deep expertise across national security disciplines including intelligence, diplomacy, military affairs and law, we advocate for constitutional democracy, the rule of law and the preservation of America’s national security institutions.