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Labor Notes has recently unveiled a guide intended to support the organization of the highly anticipated May Day general strike in 2028. While the information is beneficial, the countdown clock on their website indicates that we are still 937 days away. Given the current pace of the Trump administration, it is unclear how much of the union landscape will survive by then.
The largely overlooked National Security Presidential Memorandum issued by Trump aims to crack down on various activities, including those of workers. We’ve previously discussed how the administration is manipulating ICE to engineer the workforce by pushing out current workers and replacing them with easily exploitable labor.
Furthermore, the administration has begun utilizing conspiracy laws to target those who oppose authoritarian capitalism in the U.S. or Israel. Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Trump directed the Attorney General to investigate individuals who protested against him, urging her to consider this through the lens of RICO. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche supported this view, arguing that these protestors are part of an orchestrated effort that inflicts harm and terror upon the nation, thereby justifying RICO investigations.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has also promised to dismantle the radical left using RICO and conspiracy charges.
It may be tempting to dismiss this as more of Trump’s rhetoric, yet the domestic front seems one of the few arenas where the administration is acting with a unified purpose. Unlike international targets, they feel they stand a chance against domestic adversaries. Regardless of Trump’s shortcomings, he perceives vulnerability and understands that all our decaying institutions can be bought or coerced. RICO serves as a tool against any obstinate individuals or organizations, with recent examples showcasing its effectiveness.
A notable instance was the RICO charges against Stop Cop City activists in Atlanta, although this state case predates Trump’s second term. These charges were recently dismissed on jurisdictional grounds; however, they had already devastated many lives.
Although Trump himself has been targeted by Georgia’s anti-racketeering legislation, he remains eager to wield it against others. In Los Angeles, a person was charged with conspiracy for providing face shields to ICE protestors; other groups, including pro-Palestinian demonstrators, animal rights activists, and anti-fascist counter-protesters have also faced similar allegations.
A Powerful Weapon
Steffen Seitz, a litigation fellow at the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project at Denver University’s Sturm College of Law and author of Conspiracy and Social Movements, highlights the significant threat posed by the vagueness of RICO to social movements:
The legal standard for conspiracy typically necessitates an agreement to commit a crime and specific intent to join that agreement. However, neither of these requirements provides genuine protection against prosecutorial overreach in cases involving social movements. In fact, both can validate guilt by association. To establish a criminal agreement, prosecutors need only present circumstantial evidence of a tacit mutual understanding, meaning that mere appearances of coordinated action can suffice. Consequently, every social media interaction or face-to-face meeting can become circumstantial evidence of conspiracy. Solidarity can be redefined as criminality. As a deputy director of ICE has stated regarding anti-ICE protestors: “Criminals tend to associate with other criminals. So, when we build a case, we are going to target everyone around them.”
Seitz further elaborates that the intent requirement presents significant issues in social movement cases. While activists generally share some common goals—such as opposing genocide, animal exploitation, or discriminatory policing—prosecutors can highlight this shared intent as evidence of malicious intent. In the RICO indictment against Stop Cop City activists, it was acknowledged that “Defend the Atlanta Forest does not recruit from a single location, nor do all members have a history of collaborating in one place.” However, their unified opposition to constructing the Atlanta Police Department Training Facility served as grounds for conspiracy charges. One interpretation of Trump’s recent order designating “antifa” as a “domestic terrorist organization” is an attempt to facilitate the targeting of otherwise unrelated political figures simply based on shared political agendas.
Moreover, history shows that social movements are particularly vulnerable to conspiracy threats, as evidenced by the prosecutions of labor organizers, Cold War-era Communists, and anti-Vietnam War activists. It can be argued that present-day social movements face unique challenges that render them more fragile compared to past movements.
The case against the 61 individuals charged in the Cop City protest—whether one supports their tactics or not—provides a forecast of potential future prosecutions. While those charged may never face conviction, they could be looking at up to 20 years in prison for conspiracy under domestic terrorism laws. Even if they evade jail time, the RICO case has effectively served its intended purpose.
Cop City opened in May, and the conspiracy allegations alongside the killing of a protestor have successfully stifled dissent. This also acts as a cautionary tale for anyone challenging state power.
Additionally, these tactics infringe upon First Amendment rights. The ACLU notes:
The charges redefine providing mutual aid, advocating for collectivism, and producing zines as markers of a criminal organization. This contradicts First Amendment protections surrounding speech, assembly, and association. The indictment indiscriminately classifies various forms of opposition to Cop City—including speech, peaceful protests, and minor acts of civil disobedience—as felony violations of Georgia’s anti-racketeering law.
Currently, the administration is targeting those who oppose U.S.-Israel atrocities, individuals protesting against police actions involving unlawful detentions, and even those exercising their First Amendment rights. It increasingly appears that workers daring to organize and call for better wages and work conditions will soon find themselves in the same precarious situation.
Ken Klippenstein’s significant piece from September 27 sheds light on how Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” aims to achieve this:
This directive instructs the Justice Department, the FBI, and various national security agencies to combat Trump’s definition of political violence in America. It proposes a restructured network of Joint Terrorism Task Forces focused on “leftist” political violence. This extensive counterterrorism initiative, involving federal, state, and local agents, aims to serve as the “central hub” of this endeavor, as noted by Trump aide Stephen Miller.
NSPM-7 establishes a new national strategy to “disrupt” individuals or groups potentially “fomenting political violence,” even before such actions occur.
Terrorists and Conspiracies (Almost) Everywhere
Similar to RICO law’s application against protestors, Trump’s directive is alarmingly vague. It categorizes “anti-Christian,” “anti-American,” and “anti-capitalism” sentiments as indicators of terrorism, making it broad enough to potentially label nearly anyone as anti-American. However, one notable exclusion from this crackdown on alleged criminal conspiracies is the apparent lack of prosecutions against corporate criminals, which have reached historic lows under Biden and are unlikely to rebound under Trump.
This will present significant challenges for any groups seeking to obstruct weapons shipments to nations committing genocide, as seen recently in Italy, where unions led the charge.
Trump’s NSPM-7 is poised to make organized labor action nearly impossible. As previously discussed at Naked Capitalism, the administration’s immigration policies can largely be interpreted as efforts to create a more exploitable, fractured workforce. The crackdown on First Amendment-protected speech, initially aimed at anti-Zionist sentiments, is now expanding to encompass labor-related issues, complicating matters further.
If “anti-capitalism” is labeled as terrorism, it may effectively spell the end of unions, as any worker dissent will be portrayed as a threat to national security, tainted by association with “antifa” sentiments.
It’s essential to note that ICE is already targeting both unauthorized workers and those who, as authorized refugees, are unionizing. They have also pursued American activists who aim to monitor immigration raids or unmask those behind ICE’s anonymity.
Will attention soon shift to anti-capitalist workers in the U.S.? Consider the recent case of striking Boeing workers in St. Louis, who are involved in producing missiles and fighter jets for the U.S. military and the Israel Defense Forces, now prepping for the production of the next-generation F-47. It appears their work aligns with the administration’s definition of American values.
The 3,200 striking employees are advocating for better pay and a more expedited route to the highest wage tier. The company and the bipartisan political establishment wish to avoid disruption in weapon production while also avoiding fair wages for workers. Consequently, scabs are being employed as replacements. This situation seems to have the backing of both political parties, a direct challenge to organized labor that could inflict considerable damage on the ruling elite. Thus far, unions have largely failed to meet this challenge.
If we imagine for a moment that they did take a stand, possibly shutting down other weapon factories to exacerbate shortages in the “arsenal of democracy,” what repercussions would they face?
Would they find themselves charged with RICO offenses for engaging in un-American terrorist activities? NSPM-7 designates “civil unrest” among its domestic terrorism priorities, suggesting that the FBI may soon direct its resources toward conducting “enterprise” investigations into terrorism or racketeering among any who challenge established power.
Additionally, with the administration justifying the indiscriminate slaughter of alleged drug traffickers abroad by linking them to “designated terrorist organizations,” and the heightened use of the terrorism label domestically, we are witnessing a concerning glimpse into the upcoming decades of an unending “war on terror.”
Elite Feuds and the Rest of Us
Curiously absent from Labor Day speeches from union leadership and Democrat-aligned organizations was any mention of the striking workers in St. Louis or the intentional undermining of labor through guest worker programs.
As Klippenstein points out in his follow-up regarding NSPM-7, it seems Congress is willfully ignoring the implications:
Law firms like Arnold & Porter, WilmerHale, Caplin & Drysdale, Akin Gump, and Elias Law Group have swiftly responded to NSPM-7 by offering guidance on its implications for non-profits and other organizations in their clientele. Yet, almost no members of Congress have commented on NSPM-7. I reached out to various congressional leaders seeking their statements, but received no responses:
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Sen. Chuck Schumer (Minority Leader)
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Sen. Mark Warner (Senate Intelligence, ranking member)
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Sen. Gary Peters (Senate Homeland, ranking member)
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Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (Minority Leader)
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Rep. Jim Himes (House Intelligence, ranking member)
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Rep. Jamie Raskin (House Judiciary, ranking member)
This is hardly surprising, as Trump’s national security memorandum aligns with bipartisan priorities favoring a uniparty that is anti-worker, pro-Silicon Valley and Wall Street, as well as corrupt.
Although there’s some resistance from supposed opposition figures in the U.S., which tends to center on protecting figures like James Comey, George Soros, and Jimmy Kimmel, it is clear that they’re primarily focused on safeguarding their elite circles.
A former Democratic official, Samantha Power, recently made headlines by supporting Trump’s tariffs against India, highlighting how the back-and-forth in mainstream media is often just an inter-elite squabble. Their previous tactics, typically used to divide the working class and instigate chaos in countries worldwide, have now turned inward.
Currently, we are stuck in a manufactured conflict over the empire’s promotional tactics, where the so-called “woke” agenda has retreated as many were never truly committed. Concurrently, Trump appears to be targeting those within the establishment who undermined his previous term through domestic upheaval tactics.
The elite “resistance,” however, remains disinterested in defending free speech for protestors or the organizing rights of workers, as well as the victims of the empire’s actions abroad.
Anyone genuinely caring about these issues is still an adversary regardless of who controls the messaging in Washington, and they could soon find themselves facing charges for “anti-American” actions.
Union leadership, which now represents just about nine percent of U.S. workers, continues to focus on a May Day 2028 general strike. While this goal is commendable, the challenge lies in the fact that NSPM-7 disrupts these plans, instructing the disruption of individuals and groups “before they can instigate violent political acts.”
If the administration persists in expanding guest worker initiatives and pushes forward with threats against anti-capitalist sentiments, it raises the question: who will be available in organized labor to participate in strikes by 2028?
