chat

I think we're talking about a few slightly different things so it feels like there's a dissonance when there isn't.

In the most broad sense of history and theory, yes, leftists have and will always be targeted by capital. Trump targeting leftists in that sense, is not new. In the 90s there was this shift to focus on domestic terrorism in the wake of the OK bombing. The right didn't like this and made it their mission to eventually dismantle it. 9/11 brought a refocus to foreign terrorism, which gave the perfect excuse to start shuttling domestic terror programs. During both of these times, feds could and would go after leftists if they were a threat. They never stopped going after leftists, it's just leftists weren't the primary target. Each time this shift of focus happens, there is an escalation because the counter measures and punishments ramp up in parallel. To use the previous examples, the shift from Feds tracking and going after right wing cults in the 90s to Islam in the 00s is accompanied by the PATRIOT act. These increases in surveillance and enforcement make it harder for everyone and also apply to leftists.

During Obama's terms, there was a return to focus on right wing domestic terrorism due to the Tea Party and other big right wing donors pushing it. Obama being Obama also wanted to maintain the focus on foreign terrorism because those same right wingers were calling him a "Muslamic" terrorist. Coincidentally the domestic surveillance program also blows up with new technologies created by companies that are now (in 2025) the very center of our economy. At that point we have massive domestic surveillance so good that they officially shut down COINTELPRO and go all-in. Once more, leftists are still there and are victim to all this, but they are not a main concern.

Once Trump got in, there is a refocus on the left. All the adult-in-the-room feds didn't really like it because Trump being Trump didn't finesse it with all the aplomb of Obama and Clinton and without the institutional expertise of the Bush family. He's just a guy saying it because he's a Cold War boomer without having actually had a hand in intelligence like people in the Bush Admin. But eventually, people got on board with this refocus enough to set the stage for Trump II.

Biden did nothing except try to whiplash it on Jan 6. He did it in a way that just so happened to also apply to leftists.

Now we're here in Trump II and seeing the work laid out in Trump I coming to fruition. The focus seems to be domestic leftist terrorism only. Don't focus on right-wing terrorism at all (which is why right wingers keep doing shootings). Also, to some extent, back off of foreign terrorism despite it being one of the big campaign promises. Probably because it's harder to see and for Americans to care when it's happening overseas. The hogs get a bigger thrill out of watching skirmishes break out in the big lawless cities. The escalation is making all the previous scary stuff public and being like "and that's a good thing" to every norm or violation of rights. The refocus to leftists and then making everyone who says boo a leftist.

This isn't unprecedented. We're essentially returning to the J Edgar Hoover days of the FBI where leftists and anti-capitalists were a prime concern. The difference is that we had labor riots, a strong civil rights movement, etc during that time. We do not have those things now. So who is the reanimated corpse of Hoover going after? Anyone. The refocus on leftist domestic terrorists doesn't mean anything because there are no leftist domestic terrorists. Capital won, got it's way, and now they need a domestic enemy to protect the regime. To some extent, having a healthy leftist insurgency in the US is load-bearing for empire. That kind of thing props up a lot of jobs and laws required to be this nakedly corrupt. Without it, you start losing ground. This is why I think they're going to pull back more on foreign policy. They're going to sacrifice one pillar to bolster another.