In a new blog post, Cato Institute Senior Fellow Patrick G. Eddington warns that President Trump’s new Presidential National Security Memorandum mirrors the Cold War–era Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations and opens the door to sweeping crackdowns on disfavored groups.
As Eddington noted, if you were a federal employee during the Cold War, “Simply hanging out with the ‘wrong’ people or engaging in speech in support of unpopular political concepts was enough to get you investigated by the FBI and blacklisted for federal employment,” Eddington writes. “President Donald Trump issued a Presidential National Security Memorandum that makes Truman’s look tame by comparison.”
Eddington says the memo “cynically uses recent and incredibly tragic acts of violence … to justify the use of Joint Terrorism Task Forces to target groups and ideologies highly disfavored by the regime.”
That danger is already visible: Trump recently federalized 200 Oregon National Guard troops over the objections of state leaders, who have since filed a lawsuit. “Week by week and step by step, Mr. Trump is creating his own list of ‘subversive’ organizations and persons,” Eddington warns.
Asked whether the country has reached authoritarianism, Eddington replied: “We’re already there.”
Media Contact: Emily Salamon — esalamon@cato.org
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