How Biden Set Up Trump to Use Authoritarian Tactics on Tesla Protesters

In 2021, when the Democrat-controlled Congress and the Biden administration were attempting to set up a new domestic terrorism program, human rights groups—ones that had typically fretted over the rightwing militia groups that the program was designed to combat—were the first to express dismay. “We write to express our deep concern regarding proposed expansion of terrorism-related legal authority,” wrote 157 different signatories, in a letter to Congress. “We must meet the challenge of addressing white nationalist and far-right militia violence without causing further harm to communities already disproportionately impacted by the criminal-legal system.” Meanwhile, a swell of CIA and national security officials eagerly urged the government to create new legal authorities to treat Americans like terrorists.

Now, as Trump’s second term gets underway, the new rightwing government appears to be using the legal and operational infrastructure set up during the Biden years to go after leftwing protesters. Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein is out with a new article on the Trump administration’s blossoming counterterrorism strategy, which, according to government insiders, is poised to target Americans who express discontent about the president or his wealthy allies.

“So-called Tesla terrorism and potential anti-Trump violence is driving new articulations of the threat,” a senior intelligence official told Klippenstein.

Indeed, in recent weeks, the Justice Department has pivoted federal law enforcement away from more traditional enemies and towards people who vandalize Tesla dealerships. Several people arrested and accused of having firebombed the cars will likely be charged with “domestic terrorism” charges, Attorney General Pam Bondi has said. Meanwhile, critics of Israel have also become a target for the government’s roving eye.

As previously noted, the precedent for much of this was set by the previous administration. Under Biden, the government developed its first National Strategy to counter “domestic terrorism.” The strategy, which was designed with input from America’s national security agencies, set up a broad variety of new programs to counter what it perceived as extremism in the homeland, including new task forces and liaisons with state and local law enforcement.

However, as Klippenstein points out, the full scale of the program is not publicly known. He points to a recently published Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on America’s counterterrorism strategy that notes “officials from DHS, DOJ, and State told us that the classified implementation plan includes some additional guidance for classified activities” and that “DHS and DOJ officials told us that they conduct additional activities to respond to the 2021 Strategy that are classified.” In other words: a secret program that spies on Americans and treats them like terrorists is not available for public consumption.

That secret program is now being helmed by the Trump administration, which has very different ideas about who and what poses a danger to this country than its predecessor. The administration is busy revising the strategy to better suit Trump’s needs. Klippenstein writes:

…the rewrite of the National Strategy document is shaping up to comport with Trump’s view of the country, the GAO hints and others say, rescinding the previous approach and altering the focus of counterterrorism actions over the next four years. That includes focusing more on Trump’s political opponents and framing petty crimes taking place at day-to-day protests as terrorism.

Worse still, the head of America’s counterterrorism strategy, Sebastian Gorka, is described as an Israel-loving gun nut who is fond of “secret operations” and “special operators.” Gorka is tasked with overseeing all of America’s counterterrorism operations—both international and domestic.

Klippenstein quotes from a federal counterterrorism manual published in 2021 that lists various so-called “mobilization indicators.” These indicators, he writes, are considered “characteristics that could move people to carry out acts of extremist violence.” Under the government’s domestic counterterrorism mandate, Americans who demonstrate such indicators could find themselves the subject of a suspected terrorism probe—even if they have never committed a crime. Klippenstein writes:

Ever had a heated argument expressing sympathy for Luigi Mangione or HAMAS? Or bought military-style tactical equipment? Or withdrawn from family? If so, you meet the government’s criteria listed in its 2021 “Mobilization Indicators” booklet, a document intended to help local and state police to spot a terrorist. These criteria might strike you as creepy because, as the booklet itself concedes, “many of the mobilization indicators included in this booklet may also relate to constitutionally protected activities.”

In short, if you’ve ever been a super-vocal critic of the current administration or its allies, you could end up being a target of the government’s national security state.

Lots of people—myself included—saw this coming. In 2021, when the Biden administration began pushing for a new domestic terrorism program, I thought it was a really, really bad idea. At the time, I wrote:

For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth the Democrats did about Trump’s authoritarian style, it seems deeply ironic that they would kick off this new moment of party ascendance by pushing for such overwhelming new powers for the nation’s security agencies. Such proposals seem destined to do little except further disfigure the already mutilated corpus of civil liberties that Americans used to take such pride in—but which they now ever more sleepily deride as outdated, impractical, and unsafe.

Now, here we are, some four years later, and a program that offers the government way too much power could easily be weaponized against peaceful political protesters. It’s not a happy time, though perhaps Americans might learn something from it.