Midweek, a friend sent me an article from The Nation that I want to recommend. It could be especially important to anyone who might find themselves confronting ICE or who is thinking of joining a protest march of any kind. It could be important to anyone not thinking about those things, too, because you might find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time and still face penalties from appearing to think differently than our current government’s administration.
The article is by Hannah Riley Fernandez titled “The Chilling Trump Order Threatening All Americans. Why National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 is so important” (Aug. 4, 2026; online). Please note that The Nation, while representing a left-of-center view for 160-plus years, is not some Red Commie rag. Founded by abolitionists in 1865, this magazine carries well-researched and -reasoned pieces of independent journalism about politics and culture, topics we all share even if we don’t share this publication’s positions.
Donald Trump signed National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7) on Sept. 25, 2025. The article details what that means and how it is beginning to be implemented. It starts by contrasting two cases in which people were arrested and charged with conspiracy, one in 1969, the other in 2025, then shows the before-and-after results of this memorandum.
The 1969 case was the raid of New York Black Panther Party members, 21 of whom were incarcerated and charged with 156 counts of conspiracy. Prosecutors for the U.S. relied on the conspiracy doctrine, which “requires only agreement with the idea of an action, not action itself.” In other words, it’s not what you do, it’s what you think. The jury didn’t buy it, however. After ‘way too long a trial, they voted in less than two hours that all defendants were not guilty.
In July 2025, twenty-two people were arrested at a “noise demonstration” outside the Prairieland ICE detention facility in Texas, just one of many demonstrations at such facilities across the nation last year. A man at that demonstration had fired a gun at an agent who was aiming to shoot another protester, an event that may have triggered the sweep that followed. One of those arrested was a man named Estrada who was not at the demonstration, though his wife was. He was arrested as he attempted to move a box of his political magazines from their home. His sentence for that crime is 30 years. His wife’s sentence is 70 years “for her presence at a protest where someone else fired a gun.”
The article continued “In all, the Prairieland defendants drew a combined five and a half centuries in federal prison. They were largely found guilty due to mere proximity — being in the wrong place at the wrong time — and their political beliefs.” Not for violence.
Fernandez laid out our nation’s history of “conspiracy” persecution of the left and the legal protections used to defend freedom of speech — our First Amendment right — in response. These successes were seen as failures by the most right-wing elements. “NSPM-7 is best understood as both a response to those failures and the latest attempt to transcend them,” she wrote, adding that now, with our advanced surveillance technology and these administrative strategies, “earlier attempts (at persecution) look meek.”
One of these strategies is pure name-calling. Days before signing NSPM-7, Trump signed a separate executive order designating “Antifa” as a “domestic terrorist organization” even though there is no organization. (To be “anti-capitalist” also qualifies as terrorism under NSPM-7.) Note that “membership” in Antifa is purely a thought process. So now all you have to do to be prosecuted as a domestic terrorist is think Antifa thoughts — which means, by the way, “anti-facist.” I was raised by parents who were young adults in WWII. Almost everybody in the country then was anti-fascist, and they raised kids to be anti-fascist. To be anything else was unpatriotic or borderline evil.
In case you think I’m overreacting, one of the “overt acts of conspiracy” listed in the indictments of 15 Minneapolis protesters appalled by the ICE operations there (becoming enraged when two protesters were killed,) was that one wore a gag sweatshirt which said “I’m Antifa.”
I’m antifa. I think most of us are, in thought if not actions. I’m against a lot of greedy capitalists and thought-police communists, too. That doesn’t make me a domestic terrorist or a member of anything except the United States of America. Or so I thought. Should I put that in print?
Trudy Wischemann is guilty of letting others do her protesting for her. Send her your repression-combatting ideas c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247. This column is not a news article but the opinion of the writer and does not reflect the views of the Mid Valley Times newspaper.
