Introduction: The Political Charge of the Fascism Label

Since the 2017 presidential inauguration in the United States, political scientists and popular media alike have debated whether President Donald J. Trump qualifies as a “fascist” or “terrorist” president. Social scientist and Anatomy of Fascism author Robert Paxton classified President Trump as a fascist, calling attention to his “America First” message, “Make America Great Again” emblems, violent threats, and nationalist militias like the Proud Boys that “have stood in convincingly for Hitler’s Storm Troopers and Mussolini’s squadristi.”1 For Paxton, these acts, symbols, and armed militants make up the “anatomy” of fascism, which he defines as

Political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.2

Political theorist and author of The Nature of Fascism Roger Griffin, however, contends that labeling President Trump a fascist is irresponsible, noting, “You can be a total xenophobic racist male chauvinist bastard and still not be a fascist.”3 For the average U.S. resident, the fascist label has served as an indictment of Trump’s harmful rhetoric and policies, a rallying cry to challenge the administration, and a desperate effort to define a political moment that seemed to defy all historical conventions. Political activists even transformed Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan into a political allegation: “Make fascism great again!”

In this context, supporting Senator Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential bid was framed as a “vote against fascism.”4 In this view, a Biden presidency would mark a return to democratic politics and values as well as the professional performances expected of a sitting president. If President Trump were an aberration from business as usual in U.S. governance, President Biden could return the country to its rightful political state, regardless of his troubling record on immigration, war, policing, and civil rights. In fact, Biden himself promised he would “be an ally of the light, not of the darkness,” and help the United States “overcome this season of darkness.”5 Reflecting on Biden’s interventionist record and current administration, Center for International Policy fellow Danny Sjursen writes that “[Biden’s] filled his foreign policy squad with Obama-Clinton retreads, a number of whom were architects of—if not the initial Iraq and Afghan debacles—then disasters in Libya, Syria, West Africa, Yemen, and the Afghan surge of 2009. In other words, Biden is putting the former arsonists in charge of the forever-war fire brigade.”6 While some viewed a Biden administration as a “vote against fascism,” others saw it as a continuation of U.S. governance and therefore refused to see the Trump administration as a mere “season.”

These debates reflect the tension in naming political formations and the conceptual work such labels do by shaping public understandings of presidential administrations and informing subsequent political action, such as voting. Rather than engage in an arguably objective assessment of whether either administration conforms to academic definitions of para-, semi-, generic-, or pseudo-fascism,7 this chapter examines the conceptual work the fascism label is called on to undertake. More specifically, we argue that the term fascism has been mobilized to delegitimize certain forms of U.S. empire, war, and security like President Trump’s proposed Build the Wall, Enforce the Law Act while authorizing the outwardly liberal manifestations of hegemonic regimes of power, such as President Obama’s “deportation machine” that “turbocharged” immigration enforcement and the use of “precision” drone strikes ostensibly targeting terrorist leaders and reducing U.S. military casualties. The political, polemical, and affective desires to define Trump as a fascist ruler exceptionalize his administration and its nationalist brutality, erase the forms of violence and death dealing the United States uses irrespective of its presidential administration, and therefore undermine a robust political analysis.

Although many political commentators worried about President Trump’s access to nuclear weapons, presidential administrations have long used brutal warfare to pursue their foreign policy interests. In January 2009, for example, President Obama ordered his first drone strike, hitting a civilian home in North Waziristan, Pakistan. President Obama justified these “surgical strikes” as a way to assassinate suspected terrorists on the CIA’s Disposition Matrix. This “kill list” catalogs suspected enemies of the state slated for capture, rendition, or assassination in the endless global war on terror. As the civilian death count rose alongside the killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, President Obama insisted that these drone strikes constituted a “just war—a war waged proportionally, in last resort, and in self-defense” and therefore conformed to international and domestic law.8 Later, President Obama defended his use of drone strikes after the killing of two U.S. hostages in Pakistan, stating, “one of the things that sets America apart from many other nations, one of the things that makes us exceptional, is our willingness to confront squarely our imperfections and to learn from our mistakes.”9 To justify these illiberal practices, President Obama invoked just war theory, legal conventions, and American exceptionalism. Such overtures echo Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s defense of U.S. airstrikes against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, arguing, “If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are an indispensable nation.”10 Such rhetoric forecasted President Trump’s invocation of “the defense of our nation and its citizens” to justify his drone assassination of Qasem Soleimani, allegedly “plotting imminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel.”11 Emblematic of his “America First” mantra, President Trump concluded, “If Americans anywhere are threatened, we have all of those targets already fully identified, and I am ready and prepared to take whatever action necessary.”12 Across presidential administrations, the United States has justified the use of lethal force by evoking the twin specters of national security and American exceptionalism. Even as President Trump operated in a different register—distinctly refusing to disguise illiberal practices like extrajudicial killings in liberal discourses that invoke the law and humanitarian intent—his forms of death dealing extended previous generations of U.S. empire.

Historicizing President Trump’s assassination of Qasem Soleimani refuses to exceptionalize his administration as an aberration in U.S. politics and demonstrates the nationalist political ideology—inflected by professed ideals like American exceptionalism, humanitarian intervention, and just war—that historically has organized U.S.-led violence. Labeling President Trump as a fascist ruler—an exceptional “season of darkness” in U.S. governance—denies the ideological and material underpinnings that have shaped U.S. violence since its very inception. President George W. Bush, for example, mobilized nationalist rhetoric to describe the United States as a defender of liberty and justice, primed to “bring the hope of democracy, development, free markets, and free trade to every corner of the world.”13 In this political calculus, American exceptionalism justified President Bush declaring war without congressional approval. Furthermore, classifying President Trump as a fascist means that what incites outrage are illiberal practices without liberal discourses. In other words, the fascism label has delegitimized clearly illiberal forms of U.S. empire like President Trump’s border wall while simultaneously affirming similar practices draped in liberal veneer, such as President Obama’s deportation machine, which he deployed alongside his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

January 20, 2021: Democracy Prevailing?

After the 2020 presidential election, the United States faced a particularly pressured political moment. Given both intensive political repression and COVID-19 spikes, the Movement for Black Lives protests of the summer after the police killing of George Floyd began to wane. President Trump warned that he would refuse to leave office regardless of the electoral outcomes, and the looming threat of vigilante violence to protect President Trump’s declaration sent waves of instability through communities across the United States. The ensuing attempted armed takeover of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, created a sense of imminent national crisis. As President Trump deployed the National Guard to protect the Capitol from his own armed militia, people reached for terms like coup and civil war to make sense of the spectacle. President-elect Biden even called for the restoration of “just simple decency” following the January 6 events.

Given the attempted armed takeover, the intensity of the election process, and President Trump’s willful delay of President-elect Biden’s transition into office, by January 20, 2021, several media outlets described the inauguration as a triumph.14 With headlines and news coverage emphasizing President Biden’s kindness, calm nature, and sympathetic approach, many in the United States believed that democracy had prevailed. With President Trump’s legacy and “season of darkness” in the country’s rearview mirror, the United States could return to “simple decency” under a new administration.

Even as President Biden identified the need to “repair,” “restore,” “heal,” and “build” in his inaugural address, he almost immediately initiated military interventions, anti-Muslim national security policies, and coercive policing tactics to repress political dissidence. For example, within the first month of his presidency, Biden launched airstrikes against Iran-backed militias in Syria by bypassing congressional approval.15 After alleging that these militias attacked U.S. forces in Iraq, Biden warned that Iran could not “act with impunity” and described the strike as both lawful and necessary.16 President Biden’s decision to suspend the second wave of airstrikes because “a woman and children were spotted in the area” became an act of emotional reprieve and military restraint, ultimately erasing the weight of his first strike—the casualties, the political unclarity around its relevance, the lack of congressional consultation. The fact that Biden bypassed Congress to enact the airstrike made fleeting waves despite its familiar connotations: acting with “impetuousness.”17

This “firm but fair” logic and its accompanying paternalistic approach echoes President Obama’s framing of the global war on terror as both lawful and in the interests of human security. Artfully condemning war as he praised it, President Obama stated the following about Afghanistan and the war at large:

The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.… We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest—because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others’ children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.18

Here, President Obama strategically wove a commitment to war into the poignant mourning of its inevitability and the ultimate universal responsibility of the nation to seek “a better future for our children and grandchildren and others’ children and grandchildren.” This paternalistic approach serves as the perfect embodiment of liberal maskings of illiberal practices. In this case, President Obama intentionally overstated the tragedy of war, at least for U.S. soldiers, while blaming its necessity on the United States and its exceptional status. Similarly, President Biden strategically blamed Iran for his attack on Syria, presenting the United States as a reluctant enforcer of what is right rather than as a nation with political and economic interests in the dismantling of Iran, its anti-imperialist allies, and the subsequent threat they pose to U.S. economic and political influence.

Under the Obama and Biden administrations, these multilayered interpretations of military interventions ultimately absolved the United States of its aggression by redirecting focus to Western anxieties surrounding the Axis of Resistance (the political alliance between Iran, Assad-led Syria, and Hezbollah). Yet, after the Trump administration’s assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the House proposed legislation that would curtail presidential war powers.19 For actions like this, President Trump became known as a president waging “war on American institutions.”20 In other words, while both presidential administrations used airstrikes to “send a message” to Iran, only President Trump’s military interventions received popular criticism that resulted in material “punishment” as a deviation from American values and as an ineffective or unnecessary strategy to effect political change. The public outcry over President Trump’s “fascist” leadership evident in his “war on American institutions” set the stage for President Biden to continue a long legacy of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab warfare and policing while appearing as a more liberal and less repressive political leader.

Refusing the Exceptionalization of Trump: The Case of Anti-Muslim Racism and the Domestic War on Terror

Using the January 6 attempted armed takeover as a platform, the Biden administration has sought to expand initiatives like the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention program. More specifically, the Biden administration has sought to increase governmental resources to combat white supremacy as a domestic terrorist threat, including requesting an additional $84 million for the Department of Homeland Security to investigate internal workforce complaints about white supremacy.26 Capitalizing on fears of a resurgent attack on the nation, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report outlining the intelligence community’s assessment that “domestic violent extremists (DVEs) who are motivated by a range of ideologies and galvanized by recent political and societal events in the United States pose an elevated threat to the Homeland in 2021.”27 To guide the government’s new initiatives, the report identified “DVEs with ideological agendas derived from bias, often related to race or ethnicity,” and “DVEs who oppose all forms of capitalism, corporate globalization, and governing institutions” as two of the nation’s most pressing terrorist threats.28 Although justified as a response to the white supremacist attack on the U.S. Capitol, this framing criminalizes political ideologies well beyond white supremacy, reduces white supremacy to the violence of individual actors, and, in doing so, absolves the federal government of its role in producing, enacting, and benefiting from structural white supremacy.29 Furthermore, the Biden administration already has weaponized these terrorism categories to crack down on anticapitalist, anti-imperialist, antipolice, and antiracist protests across the United States.30 These terrorism assessments and funding priorities reflect the continuation of the exact anti-Muslim and anti-Arab programs Biden previously promised to eliminate. These investments also speak to the longer legacy of racialized surveillance and political repression, as evidenced in the post-9/11 civil rights violations through national security policies like the unconstitutional No Fly List31 and the Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO), used to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of the Black nationalists”32 during the 1960s, both of which were in effect across Democratic and Republican presidential administrations.

This utilization of progressive ideals to enact repressive policies is reminiscent of the passage of the Mulford Act in 1967, which repealed a law permitting the open carry of loaded firearms. Introduced by Republican State Assembly Member Don Mulford, the Mulford Act was crafted with the explicit intent to disarm and undermine the Black Panther Party’s cop-watch patrols in Northern California. With bipartisan support, Mulford defended the timing and targeting, arguing, “Let me assure you … that there are no racial overtones in this measure. There are many groups that have been active in California with loaded weapons in public places and this bill is directed against all of them.”33 Despite this denial, concerns that the Black Panther Party and other Black political groups might “overthrow” the government encouraged politicians like then-governor Ronald Reagan to support this and other gun control legislation. For example, a 1968 federal report determined that “the sharp and substantial increase in sales of firearms in US cities and nationwide is directly related to the actuality and prospect of civil disorders” and therefore concluded that “effective firearms controls are an essential contribution to domestic peace and tranquility.”34 In this case, Mulford and others drew on national security and “domestic peace” discourses to frame this gun control legislation as an ideologically ecumenical approach, targeting all forms of “civil disorder” equally.

Even though supporters of the Mulford Act specifically sought to disarm the Black Panther Party, conservative political leaders and gun rights organizations like the National Rifle Association (NRA) described these legislative efforts as a color-blind effort. The NRA specifically stated that it “does not approve or support any group that by force, violence, or subversion seeks to overthrow the Government and take the law into its hands, or that endorses or espouses doctrines of operation in an extralegal manner.”35 These framings of the Mulford Act echo through the director of national intelligence’s condemnation of all forms of “violent extremism”36 while directly targeting communities of color. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, for example, has policed the Movement for Black Lives as terrorist threats under the national security category of “Black Identity Extremist.”37 The private mercenary TigerSwan similarly treated Indigenous water protectors protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) as “jihadists.”38 Across presidential administrations, communities challenging racial profiling, coercive policing, and governmental overreaching have been treated as terrorist threats. While the Obama and Biden administrations have sought to frame their national security initiatives as alternatives to previous counterterrorism tactics, such as President Bush’s use of torture and President Trump’s Muslim ban, these liberal policies still monitor, surveil, and brutalize communities perceived to threaten the homeland. Classifying President Trump as a fascist leader whose Muslim ban reflects his racist authoritarianism merely erases the other ways anti-Muslim racism has been institutionalized and perpetuated in and through U.S. governance despite its resulting in increased arrests, deportations, and torture of Muslim community members.39 Fueled by the fascist label, such historical amnesia ultimately treats President Trump’s anti-Muslim policies and corresponding retrenchment of (white) nationalism as an aberration rather than a continuation of anti-Muslim policing and security regimes that stretch worldwide. In this way, the term fascism has been mobilized to delegitimize certain manifestations of U.S. empire, war, and security like the Muslim ban while legitimizing more liberal expressions of these hegemonic regimes of power like the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention program.

Conclusion: The Dangers of the Fascist Label

If the U.S. public has used the fascist label to exceptionalize President Trump, its political leaders have used a similar charge against other world leaders to justify military interventions, regime change, and economic sanctions. As the United States historically and presently has framed itself as an exceptional nation responsible for enforcing world order and protecting democracy, it interdependently defines other nations as repressive and oppressive. For example, the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations all have attacked Syria to punish, although not entirely depose, “proto-fascist” President Bashar al-Assad.40 Across administrations, political leaders and military strategists have labeled certain world leaders as “fascist,” “terrorist,” “tyrannical,” or “despotic” to legitimize military campaigns against Hezbollah, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Egypt, and Somalia, and prior to that, there are many examples from eastern Europe and Central America. Given the conceptual work the fascism label is called on to undertake and the subsequent authorization of ensuing violence in both domestic and global contexts, we argue against using the term to understand political formations and their ideological foundations.

Ultimately, the utilization of the term fascism in the context of the United States is an ineffective and inaccurate portrayal that serves the very interests of the United States itself. While there are a handful of individual activists, scholars, and organizers who have used the term to describe former President Trump or the United States at large, the majority of the fixation comes from news outlets and political figures who position Trump as the epitome of fascism. This rhetorical work intentionally sidesteps more substantial critiques of the structures that undergird the United States, such as the myth of American exceptionalism, U.S. empire, and white supremacy. By describing presidents like Trump as mere blips or fleeting “seasons” in the trajectory of democracy, the United States can maintain its position as a world leader in democratic politics, multiculturalism, and law and order. As Angela Davis and many others argue, moments of progressive reform by the U.S. government typically emerge in response to popular protest geared toward dismantling institutions of oppression.41 Understanding the rhetorical strategies, such as the mobilization of the fascist label, that intentionally invisibilize these oppressive and violent structures is central to challenging ostensibly liberal manifestations of U.S. war and empire, from explicitly anti-Muslim antiterrorism programs to global military interventions.

Nicole Nguyen is associate professor of educational policy studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is author of A Curriculum of Fear: Homeland Security in U.S. Public Schools (University of Minnesota Press, 2016) and Suspect Communities: Anti-Muslim Racism and the Domestic War on Terror (University of Minnesota Press, 2019).

Yazan Zahzah is a community-based researcher and organizer from Southern California. They hold an MA in gender studies from San Diego State University and currently work as a lecturer for the California State University system. Yazan is a longtime member of the Palestinian Youth Movement, a grassroots organization dedicated to the self-determination of the Palestinian People.

Notes

1. Robert Paxton, “I’ve Hesitated to Call Donald Trump a Fascist. Until Now,” Newsweek, January 2021, para. 1, https://www.newsweek.com/robert-paxton-trump-fascist-1560652.

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2. Robert Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (New York: Penguin Random House, 2005), 218.

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3. As quoted in Eliah Bures, “Don’t Call Donald Trump a Fascist,” Foreign Policy, November 2019, https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/02/donald-trump-fascist-nazi-right-wing/.

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4. Kelly M. Hayes, “In the 2020 Election, I’m Casting a Ballot against Full-Blown Fascism,” Teen Vogue, August 2020, https://www.teenvogue.com/story/2020-election-voting-joe-biden-fascism-donald-trump.

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5. Joe Biden, “2020 Democratic National Convention Speech” (Milwaukee, 2020), https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/joe-biden-2020-dnc-speech-transcript.

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6. Danny Sjursen, “What Our Forever Wars Will Look like under Biden,” The Nation, January 2021, para. 6, https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/biden-endless-war/.

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7. Roger Griffin, “Il Ventennio Parafascista? The Past and Future of a Neologism in Comparative Fascist Studies,” in Rethinking Fascism and Dictatorship in Europe, ed. António Costa Pinto and Aristotle Kallis (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), viii–xix.

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8. Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President at the National Defense University” (Washington, DC, 2013), https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/23/remarks-president-national-defense-university.

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9. As quoted in Peter Baker, “Obama Apologizes after Drone Kills American and Italian Held by Al Qaeda,” New York Times, April 23, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/world/asia/2-qaeda-hostages-were-accidentally-killed-in-us-raid-white-house-says.html.

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10. As quoted in Micah Zenko, “The Myth of the Indispensable Nation,” Foreign Policy, November 2014, https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/11/06/the-myth-of-the-indispensable-nation/.

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11. Donald J. Trump, “President Trump’s Statement on Death of Iranian Commander” (Mar-a-Lago, FL, 2020), https://www.c-span.org/video/?467859-1/president-trump-speaks-air-strike-killed-iranian-commander.

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12. Trump, “President Trump’s Statement.”

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13. George W. Bush, “The National Security Strategy of the United States” (Washington, DC, 2002), 4, https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/63562.pdf.

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14. With headlines such as “Biden: ‘Democracy Has Prevailed,” “Biden Inaugural: Abrupt Pivot to Civility in Post-Trump Era,” “Kamala Harris Makes History: Her Swearing in as Vice President Shows Strength of Our Democracy,” “Joe Biden Consoles Country as US Tops 400,000 COVID-19 Deaths,” and “Vice President Harris: A New Chapter Opens in US Politics,” the media reiterated that President Biden marked a turning point for the country.

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15. Christian Nunley, “Democrats Criticize Biden’s Decision to Launch Airstrikes in Syria without Consulting Congress,” CNBC, February 26, 2021, https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/26/lawmakers-react-to-biden-in-syria.html.

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16. “Iran ‘Can’t Act with Impunity,’ Biden Says after U.S. Air Strikes,” Reuters, February 26, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-iran-iraq/iran-condemns-u-s-strikes-in-syria-denies-attacks-in-iraq-idUSKBN2AR0BU.

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17. Sarah Ferris, John Bresnahan, and Connor O’Brien, “Frustrated Dems Plan War Powers Vote over Iran,” Politico, January 8, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/08/democrats-trump-iran-war-power-096193; George Packer, “The President Is Winning His War on American Institutions,” The Atlantic, April 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/04/how-to-destroy-a-government/606793/.

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18. Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President at the Acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize” (Oslo, Norway, 2009), https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-acceptance-nobel-peace-prize.

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19. Ferris, Bresnahan, and O’Brien, “Frustrated Dems Plan War”; “Slotkin’s Bipartisan War Powers Resolution Heads to the President’s Desk for Signature,” press release (Washington, DC, 2020), https://slotkin.house.gov/media/press-releases/slotkin-s-bipartisan-war-powers-resolution-heads-president-s-desk-signature.

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20. Packer, “President Is Winning.”

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21. Nicole Nguyen, Suspect Communities: Anti-Muslim Racism and the Domestic War on Terror (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019); Yazan Zahzah, “Warcare Economies: Countering Violent Extremism in San Diego” (Master’s thesis, San Diego State University, 2021).

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22. Sabrina Alimahomed-Wilson, “When the FBI Knocks: Racialized State Surveillance of Muslims,” Critical Sociology 45, no. 6 (2019): 871–887, https://doi.org/10.1177/0896920517750742; Nguyen, Suspect Communities; Zahzah, “Warcare Economies.”

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23. Majdal Community Center and Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, “Countering Violent Extremism: Surveillance of San Diego’s Muslim Refugee Communities” (San Diego, CA, 2020), https://www.panasd.org/cve-brief; Nguyen, Suspect Communities; Zahzah, “Warcare Economies.”

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24. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, “Joe Biden and the Arab American Community: A Plan for Partnership,” JoeBiden.com, August 2020, https://joebiden.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Arab-American-Agenda.pdf; Faiza Patel, “Biden’s Plan to Roll Back Discriminatory Counterterrorism Policies,” Brennan Center (New York, 2020), https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/bidens-plan-roll-back-discriminatory-counterterrorism-policies.

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25. Julia Ainsley, “Biden DHS Plans to Expand Grants for Studying, Preventing Domestic Violent Extremism,” NBC News, February 12, 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/biden-dhs-plans-expand-grants-studying-preventing-domestic-violent-extremism-n1257550.

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26. Executive Office of the President, “Request for Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 Discretionary Funding” (Washington, DC, 2021), https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/FY2022-Discretionary-Request.pdf.

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27. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2021” (Washington, DC, 2021), 2, https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/UnclassSummaryofDVEAssessment-17MAR21.pdf.

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28. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Domestic Violent Extremism Poses.”

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29. Nicole Nguyen and Yazan Zahzah, “Why Treating Domestic Terrorism as Domestic Terrorism Won’t Work and How Not to Fall for It” StopCVE.com (Los Angeles, 2020), http://www.stopcve.com/uploads/1/1/2/4/112447985/white_supremacy_toolkit__4_.pdf.

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30. Michael Levenson, “As Protests against Police Violence Surge, Florida Passes a Bill to Combat ‘Public Disorder,’” New York Times, April 15, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/15/us/politics/florida-public-disorder-bill-police.html.

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31. American Civil Liberties Union, “Court Rules No Fly List Process Unconstitutional and Must Be Reformed,” 2014, https://aclu-or.org/en/cases/court-rules-no-fly-list-process-unconstitutional-and-must-be-reformed-0.

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32. J. Edgar Hoover, “Counterintelligence Program” (Washington, DC, 1967).

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33. Don Mulford, “Mulford Letter to Arthur E. de La Barra,” 1967, https://sites.law.duke.edu/secondthoughts/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2020/04/Mulford-Letter-1.pdf.

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34. Stanford Research Institute, “Firearms, Violence, and Civil Disorders” (Washington, DC, 1968), 11, 14, https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Photocopy/11802NCJRS.pdf.

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35. Ashley Halsey Jr., “Rifleman Fire Back,” Miami News, May 20, 1967, https://sites.law.duke.edu/secondthoughts/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2020/04/NRA-Press-Release.pdf.

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36. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Domestic Violent Extremism Poses.”

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37. Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Black Identity Extremists Likely Motivated to Target Law Enforcement Officers” (Washington, DC, 2017), https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4067711-BIE-Redacted.html.

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38. John Porter, “DAPL SITREP 168,” 2017, https://theintercept.com/document/2017/06/21/internal-tigerswan-situation-report-2017-02-27/.

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39. Department of Justice, “Brother of San Diego Man Killed Fighting for ISIS Sentenced to 10 Years for Terrorism Related Charges and Illegal Firearms Possession” (Washington, DC, 2018), https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/brother-san-diego-man-killed-fighting-isis-sentenced-10-years-terrorism-related-charges-and; Maryam Saleh, “Excessive Force: ICE Shackled 92 Somalis for 40 Hours on a Failed Deportation Flight. That Was Just the Start of the Abuse,” The Intercept, March 4, 2018, https://theintercept.com/2018/03/04/somali-deportation-flight-ice-detention-center/.

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40. Fahad Nazer, “Syria: Why Fascism Is ‘Never Lesser of Two Evils,’” CNN, February 19, 2014, https://www.cnn.com/2014/02/19/opinion/syria-assad-fascism-fahad-nazer.

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41. Lanre Bakare and Angela Davis, “Angela Davis: ‘We Knew that the Role of the Police Was to Protect White Supremacy,’” The Guardian, June 15, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/15/angela-davis-on-george-floyd-as-long-as-the-violence-of-racism-remains-no-one-is-safe.

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