The Thought Police
Mainstream media is ignoring NSPM-7. Here's why you should pay attention.
There’s a new government order from President Trump that isn’t getting the attention it deserves.
Trump has quietly signed a national security directive — something most people have never heard of.
It’s called National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, or NSPM-7. And it defines certain political opinions as potential signs of terrorism.
According to the document, people who express anti-Christian, anti-capitalist, or anti-American views can now be flagged as possible indicators of “radical violence.” It also lists hostility toward what the White House calls traditional American values — on religion, family, and morality.
Let that sink in.
If you criticize Christianity as an institution, question capitalism, or challenge the government’s idea of “traditional morality,” you could now fall under federal scrutiny — not for what you’ve done, but for what you believe.
If you express support for the rights of trans people, they could put you on the list. Support for DEI, the rights of non-Christians, the separation of church and state, the right to protest the government, the right to protest the president — all these things and more are positions President Trump has described as being against “American values,” as he defines them.
Journalist Ken Klippenstein uncovered the details on Substack. I highly recommend subscribing.
He reports that Trump’s new order directs the FBI and the Justice Department to retool their Joint Terrorism Task Forces — the same ones created after 9/11 — to focus on what it calls “left-wing political violence.”
That means thousands of federal, state, and local agents could start watching for these “indicators” — in speech, writing, or online posts.
The directive itself states:
“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.”
That’s pre-crime — the idea of stopping crimes before they happen. It’s the same post-9/11 mindset that justified drone strikes overseas and mass surveillance at home. Now, that same apparatus is being pointed inward — at Americans.
Under NSPM-7, political activity or speech itself can become an investigative target. And unlike earlier national security orders written after Watergate, this one doesn’t even mention the First Amendment or the right to protest.
This isn’t just another executive order. National security directives operate at a deeper level — inside the defense and intelligence world — and often bypass Congress entirely.
Civil-liberties experts say it’s dangerously vague. Who decides what counts as “anti-Christian”? What counts as “anti-American”? The wording leaves wide open the power to label any political opponent a terrorist.
This is about policing thought — and policing speech. Trump adviser Stephen Miller has already said that criticism of ICE or opposition to deploying troops in U.S. cities amounts to “terrorism” and “insurrection.”
And yet this story has barely made a ripple in mainstream coverage. Just a few independent journalists like Ken Klippenstein are raising the alarm while the rest of the press follows the spectacle. And people pay a lot more attention to things like Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension than to something that affects all of us.
If dissent and criticism can be written off as terrorism, democracy itself is in danger. Because once the state decides which ideas are acceptable, it no longer matters whether you agree or disagree — it only matters whether you comply.