From the "Scenes from a Slow Civil War" substack by Jeff Sharlet:
It’s critical to name this bait-&-switch: Using real acts of violence by a handful of unaffiliated individuals to launch an attack on the much greater strength of liberal / left “organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, [and] funding sources.” This isn’t about a manhunt to stop the next murderer before he can shoot; it’s a “new… strategy,” the deconstruction by state power of far less dramatic efforts to build the very step-by-step systemic rule-of-law resistance that is the opposite of violence.
Note the last item on the list: “predicate actions.” What might be the dark “predicate actions” for the donations of liberal billionaires George Soros and Reid Hoffman—both name-checked by Trump Thursday—to efforts such as MoveOn, America Votes, Media Matters, and and peer-to-peer microlending? Capital Research Center, the far right think tank whose “research” the White House is leaning on for the Terror Memo, cites in particular Soros’ support for the Sunrise Movement. Put that next to Trump’s insistence that climate change is a “con job,” and you begin to see how simply naming the facts of fire and flood and heat deaths could come to be construed as “terrorism” subject to investigation.
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The following instruction expands the definition of “terrorist acts” from doxing and violent threats—both of which could reasonably construed as such, and both of which have been pursued by powerful regime allies—to include also “trespass” and “civil disorder”:
The Attorney General shall issue specific guidance that ensures domestic terrorism priorities include politically motivated terrorist acts such as organized doxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder. This guidance shall also include an identification of any behaviors, fact patterns, recurrent motivations, or other indicia common to organizations and entities that coordinate these acts in order to direct efforts to identify and prevent potential violent activity.
These terms bring under the “terrorism” umbrella a nonviolent action as simple as, say, sitting in front of an ICE entrance. Or, for that matter, just chanting from the sidewalk.
https://slowcivilwar.substack.com/p/rubber-glue-fascism
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