Trump's NSPM-7 memo casts critics of Christianity as enemies of the state

The memo weaponizes federal task forces to go after those who challenge "traditional American views on family, religion, and morality"

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Last week, when the political world was focused on the Republican government’s assaults on free speech and the impending shutdown, Donald Trump signed a memo ostensibly meant to combat “domestic terrorism and organized political violence” in the wake of the murder of Charlie Kirk.

Trump signs orders he hasn’t read on September 25, 2025 (screenshot via YouTube)

The formal name of it is National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7). It went under the radar in the sense that there wasn’t much media attention on it initially.

But the content of that memo is disturbing. It calls on the National Joint Terrorism Task Force—which works under the FBI—to go after particular threats to our nation. Which threats? Oh, you know, just all critics of conservatism.

There are common recurrent motivations and indicia uniting this pattern of violent and terroristic activities under the umbrella of self-described “anti-fascism.” These movements portray foundational American principles (e.g., support for law enforcement and border control) as “fascist” to justify and encourage acts of violent revolution. This “anti-fascist” lie has become the organizing rallying cry used by domestic terrorists to wage a violent assault against democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and fundamental American liberties. 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.

So the government must be on the lookout for anyone who criticizes America, calls out wealth inequality, condemns the worst aspects of Christianity, accepts transgender identities, and has any “hostility” toward bigots who insist the only good families are single-income households with stay-at-home tradwives who homeschool their 2.5 children. Pretty much my entire social media feed.

This is literally a government attack on anyone who values comprehensive education, doesn’t automatically treat religion as a virtue, and understands that diversity is a net positive.

The “anti-Christianity” bit could also be seen as an indirect mention of atheism itself, because what is atheism, to Christian Nationalists, if not inherently “anti-Christian”?

You might argue this is all a lot of bluster, because criticism isn’t illegal, and the government already has tools to go after legitimate threats, but the memo goes on to say what the Trump administration wants law enforcement to do:

The United States requires a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts. Through this comprehensive strategy, law enforcement will disband and uproot networks, entities, and organizations that promote organized violence, violent intimidation, conspiracies against rights, and other efforts to disrupt the functioning of a democratic society.

The way that’s worded, conservatives could argue that atheist organizations that routinely push for church/state separation, criticize religion, and refute the false beliefs of Christian Nationalists are disrupting the functioning of a democratic society and need to be shut down. This memo gives law enforcement permission to “disband” those groups—long before they’ve done anything to warrant any kind of scrutiny. This isn’t about seeking justice after a group has done something wrong; it’s about going after them on the assertion that they will do something wrong.

As reporter Ken Klippenstein points out, this isn’t merely symbolic like many executive orders. This one actually has teeth:

An executive order publicly lays out the course of day-to-day federal government operations; whereas a national security directive is a sweeping policy decree for the defense, foreign policy, intelligence, and law enforcement apparatus. National security directives are often secret, but in this case the Trump administration chose to publish NSPM-7 — only the seventh since he’s come into office.)

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NSPM-7 is fundamentally a law enforcement directive, and it dispenses with the complications of using the active duty military or the National Guard in pursuit of political violence. It directs the Department of Justice to focus the FBI’s approximately 200 Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) to the new mission. The FBI network of task forces comprises over 4,000 members—including FBI personnel and task force officers (or TFOs) from more than 500 state and local agencies and 50 federal agencies, including special agents, police officers, intelligence analysts and surveillance technicians. First established in New York City in 1980 to systematize FBI and NYPD cooperation, today there are task forces around the country, including at least one in each of the FBI’s 55 field offices.

…

I don’t want to sound hyperbolic but the plain truth is that NSPM-7 is a declaration of war on anyone who does not support the Trump administration and its agenda. Yes, it repeats the word “violent” over and over to purport only to go after citizens who are moved to take up arms, but it also directs monitoring and intelligence collection to map and target the new “evildoers,” to borrow a Bush label he took from the Bible just days after 9/11.

The partisan focus couldn’t be more obvious.

Keep in mind none of these enemy groups have to commit or support acts of violence to be the target of NSPM-7. If they’re seen as undermining Trump or Trumpism, that could be enough. They’re going after thought crimes.

This is the sort of Big Government, Republican-endorsed fascism that so many people are, sadly, not paying much attention to. I’ve seen many liberals talk about how we’re on the road to fascism while missing the fact that we’re already there. It doesn’t matter to Republicans that this would be unacceptable if a Democrat issued a similar memo about conservatives because hypocrisy no longer shames them. They’ll look the other way when conservatives commit actual crimes while celebrating memos like this one that go after liberals for committing fake crimes.

Will they use this to go after peaceful protesters? Groups that send warning letters to schools that violate the Establishment Clause? Authors who write about the problem with conservative Christian culture?

Will they revoke the non-profit status of left-wing groups, making it near-impossible for them to collect the donations that allow them to function?

Since Trump issued that memo, thousands of non-profits have signed onto an open letter condemning what he’s doing here.

“We won’t mince words. No president—Democrat or Republican—should have the power to punish nonprofit organizations he disagrees with. That is not about protecting Americans or defending the public interest. It is about using unchecked power to silence opposition and voices he disagrees with,” the letter reads. “That is un-American and flies in the face of the Constitution, including the First Amendment bar on targeting organizations for their advocacy.”

They wrote that the organizations threatened by the directive “have a mission to serve the public good” and are “composed of everyday people fighting for dignity, safety, and opportunity.”

It’s hard to know how seriously the Trump administration will use this directive to do his bidding until we see who he’s targeting and why, and it’s possible those targets will challenge this in the courts, but that’s part of the problem here. Not every non-profit has the resources to deal with that kind of legal challenge and even the ones that do would have to redirect the important work they’re doing to fight this nuisance.

It could lead to self-censorship, as some non-profits may choose to limit the work they do if they think it’ll upset the Trump administration.

Klippenstein writes:

At root, NSPM-7 is not just about thwarting violent actors — it’s about chilling free speech and association. The directive empowers federal task forces to pursue not only organizations deemed in “support” of violence, but also funders, officers, employees, and indirect financial supporters, which means donors. Under the framework, even speech or advocacy currently considered protected could be swept into criminal exposure.

This memo codifies authoritarianism under the guise of “national security.” By redefining dissent as “terrorism” and treating ideological opposition as a pre-crime, the Trump administration has taken a step far more dangerous than a routine overreach of executive power. This is a weaponization of law enforcement meant to strangle democracy, not defend it.

There’s nothing violent about “anti-Christianity,” “anti-capitalism,” or hostility toward those with “traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.” Republicans just want to delegitimize entire categories of thought, whole communities of people, and the very right to challenge their power.

While people get distracted by racist social media posts from the Trump administration, this memo is a much more salient threat. It calls for using the machinery of the state to surveil, disband, and criminalize their perceived enemies. This is the hallmark of every authoritarian regime in history: the redefinition of dissent as treason.

Don’t dismiss this as political theater. This is justification for state-sanctioned persecution of critics. The danger is not theoretical. It’s here. And it must be met with uncompromising resistance.

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