Trump Administration Targets Activists as “Terrorists”: How Bad Is It?

By Phyllis Eckhaus

Are progressive activists now being targeted by the feds as “domestic terrorists”? That question was the key focus of a wide-ranging discussion,”From Activists to ‘Terrorists,’” at Manhattan’s Ethical Culture Society, April 6, featuring high-profile activists and experts.

The rhetoric and policy coming out of the Executive Branch suggest a “yes.” Two Trump orders signed in September laid the groundwork — first, an order designating “antifa” (short for antifascism, which some would argue is an ideology, not a group) as a domestic terrorist organization and second, a National Security Memorandum, NSPM-7, “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” which seeks to establish joint terrorism task forces to “investigate, prosecute, and disrupt” antifa and other alleged groups deemed dangerous.

In March, President Trump explicitly equated “environmentalists” with “domestic terrorists.”

Attacks on activists

Panelist Shayok Mukhopadhyay, an activist with Extinction Rebellion, described his experience. Motivated by “weird climate events” such as the tide rising up through the sewer system to his knees on a rainless day in his native India, the naturalized U.S. citizen committed nonviolent civil disobedience in New York. In 2023 he disrupted a semi-final match of the U.S. Open for 49 minutes, by gluing his feet to the cement, shouting “No tennis on a dead planet!”

He has since seen his daughter — who shares his last name — repeatedly targeted by TSA and transportation agents in India. Though he has moved multiple times, FBI agents have time and again shown up at his door, demanding (and being refused) entry.

Asked whether he thinks the feds seek to intimidate him or to prosecute him, Mukhopadhyay responded, “There’s no way of knowing. It’s a black box,” observing, “The process can be the punishment….They can bankrupt you just by taking you to court. They don’t have to convict you.” Now living upstate, he has stepped back from activism.

By contrast, panelist Nate Smith of Extinction Rebellion and Climate Defiance has been inspired by the increased opposition: “It’s hot right now, but it’s also a moment of opportunity. [The feds] going so cartoonishly ghoulish should be a moment for us to rally together, and seize back power.”

Theater-trained Smith has specialized in theatrical stunts, some of which have gone viral, from proclaiming “No theater on a dead planet!” during a . Broadway production of An Enemy of the People, to offering Democratic Congressman Tom Suozzi adult diapers during a public forum at a synagogue, the diapers to protect Suozzi from “peeing himself” in his eagerness to support Trump — voting for additional ICE funding after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by ICE agents.

Department of Justice civil rights head Harmeet Dhillon announced DOJ is investigating the diaper incident as a federal crime, but so far that does not appear to be the case.

Cameron Jones, a Columbia University senior active with Jewish Voice for Peace as a non-Zionist Jew, focused less on the feds and more on Columbia as an institution increasingly allied with the Trump administration. In a detailed account of how the university had cracked down on pro-Palestinian protest, he described what had happened to his green-card holding friend, graduate student and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, who had emailed the school administration “saying ‘I’m scared for my life, I’m getting all these threats,’ and they did nothing. They did not respond, and instead they worked with Trump and the federal government to get him kidnapped [by ICE].”

Jones faces two muti-million dollar lawsuits because of his protests of Israel. One suit claims he and his peers had prior knowledge of Hamas’ October 7 attack. Asked if he is intimidated, Jones responded that in his experience, people with the least privilege are bearing the brunt of harassment so that people like himself, a white, male American citizen must “continue to show up and do what they can do.”

He also took hope from Mahmoud Khalil and other Palestinian students who have sued Columbia on free speech grounds. “They have got the green light to go into discovery…so they’ll now be able to access a bunch of documents [showing]…the university collaborated with the federal government to attack free speech and to kidnap my friends.”

The experts weigh in

Among the experts, American University sociologist Dana Fisher suggested that federal repression of activists would likely backfire, observing “activism is a renewable resource.” She said that the activists she interviewed at ‘No Kings’ marches, increasingly have expressed a willingness to become “more confrontational.” But she also cautioned that the demographics of the protests — skewing older, white, and highly educated — limit their effectiveness to spark change. Fisher recommended concerted outreach on a local level to groups with more diverse demographics.

Brennan Center senior attorney Emile Ayoub described the Trump administration orders as both conspicuously unconstitutional and cause for grave concern. On the one hand, the executive branch has no legal authority to designate a domestic organization as a terrorist organization, nor can it investigate “domestic terrorism” in the absence of an underlying crime. On the other hand, the Trump administration is “directing federal agencies and their resources to clamp down” on what they deem anti-fascist, anti-American, anti-capitalist, and anti-Christian.

Civil rights attorney Ron Kuby emphasized that he has not seen investigations or prosecutions “yet” but that things could change. He also urged noncitizens not to risk arrest, and protesters very carefully to avoid touching federal agents or their property, such as their vehicles.

Asked to predict “what’s going to happen,” Kuby demurred, “I have no idea….All I know is I think there’s a moral imperative that we all have to resist this, and to challenge the terrible things our government is doing. And if it works, that’s great. And if it doesn’t, then we all at least go down together, knowing we tried our very, very bestest.”

A video of the event, moderated by human rights attorney Steven Donzinger, is available on the YouTube channel of the New York Society for Ethical Culture.

Published in the June 2026 issue of the Village View.