The word “terrorist” in American political discourse is under transformation from legal category to tribal marker. It now means “enemy” and nothing more.

This isn’t hyperbole. It’s the operational reality of how the designation framework functions under the current administration—and why it functions that way.

The Residue of a “Both Sides” Civil War

The United States has no domestic terrorism statute. No mechanism exists to formally designate purely American organizations as terrorist groups. This isn’t a gap waiting to be filled. It’s a firewall to protect losers of Civil War.

Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designations unlock specific powers: material support prosecutions, financial sanctions, military authorities. The FTO list made headlines when Trump designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. His man-with-too-many-hats Rubio designated Mexican cartels and Tren de Aragua as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.

The stated purpose is banking access and law enforcement tools. It’s a lie. Those already existed through money laundering and RICO frameworks.

What FTO designation adds is military authorization language. It is for war. The Trump administration called its relentless bombing of Venezuelan day laborers, killing over 100 in small boats at sea, justified as “War Department” efforts to stop WMD (drugs) being dropped (sold in a market) by terrorists (fishermen).

John Walsh, director for drug policy and the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), said drug cartels lack the organisation, armaments and political motives to be considered “combatants”. […] “The WMD designation is meant to underscore the administration’s narrative that these are fearsome armies and invading forces that have weapons of mass destruction at their disposal. But again, I think that doesn’t have any basis,” Walsh said. He raised concerns that the designation could be used to “unlock authorities” for the administration to conduct strikes inside the US.

Rubio’s careful phrasing about “imminent threat” and crossing “into our borders” isn’t law enforcement vocabulary. It’s specific authorization-for-force vocabulary to wage wars foreign and domestic on non-combatants without declaring wars, to strategically avoid laws. The designation of TdA, attributed to Maduro’s Venezuela, built the legal fiction for the disproportionately massive military January 2026 invasion that captured one man. No police force in the world, not even America, flies hundreds of planes and strikes critical infrastructure to knock out power to 3 million people, just to serve an arrest warrant on one guy for drugs. “Counterterrorism” and a “war” was spread as propaganda, to upsell from drug enforcement or even regime change. And after kidnapping, the same propaganda machine rapidly deflated its own rhetoric by fraudulently retroactively claiming “police action”, trying to scrub all its pre-invasion war rhetoric.

Meanwhile, the domestic gap stands as a monument to white supremacists, especially those running drugs like the Sacramento cells. The KKK has never been designated. Atomwaffen Division, despite cells across multiple countries, wasn’t designated even when RIM was—because Atomwaffen is in the U.S.; domestic designation would shift statutory interpretations of “foreignness.” The administration designated a little-known Russian organization with no U.S. activity, declared victory against white supremacist terrorism, and left ALL the directly comparable American hate networks untouched.

White Privilege Protection

The KKK isn’t undesignated because of a legal gap. The legal gap exists because the KKK’s ideological descendants hold power.

As I’ve pointed out before, Jeffrey Beauregard Sessions the Third was the third generation name for Confederate leaders of the Civil War who wanted to destroy the Constitution to preserve slavery. And he was appointed with that overt KKK name to head the DoJ, an institution created by President Grant to destroy the KKK. It would be like Germans appointing a guy named Hitler Goebbels the Third to read the radio news. America prevented that from being possible in a foreign country, while doing exactly that at home.

Pete Hegseth was flagged by the military as a threat to the country, so after leaving he covered himself with even more crusader iconography and pushed for war criminal pardons. Those were then deemed by Trump his qualifications to take over the military.

Trump in Charlottesville, “stand back and stand by,” dinner with Nick Fuentes. Stephen Miller. The Proud Boys—pardoned. The Oath Keepers—pardoned. Patriot Front marches openly. The through-line from Klan to current administration isn’t subtle.

It’s the explanation.

Fuentes recently boasted 40% of the White House already are Nazis.

If domestic designation existed, the machinery would eventually point at them. So they keep the domestic gap intact to protect the base, inflate foreign designations for cartels and gangs and whatever serves the news cycle, and ironically use “terrorist” rhetorically against their domestic opponents without legal mechanism.

It’s like how Ronald Reagan as governor of California called himself a gun rights advocate while demanding Blacks have their guns taken away. That man was not subtle about his racism, and he was elected President because of it.

The rhetoric does the work without the legal exposure. Throw chaotic shifting “terrorist” insults at protesters because they differ in political views, treat them as terrorists and murder them at shock troop checkpoints—but never formally designate, because formal designation establishes law and order through records, standards, potential judicial review.

Double Standard Visibility

	Iran Protesters	American Protesters
Deaths	100+ confirmed, 70 bodies to one hospital in single night	30+ dead in custody (2025), citizens shot at checkpoints
Trump response	“If they start killing people”—after killing already documented	Protesters “brainwashed,” resistance to federal forces criminalized
Designation	Iran’s label: “enemy of God”	DHS label: enemy of State “terrorists”
Consequence	Justifies military intervention	Justifies blackout, no investigation

Iranian deaths are being used to justify a military action long desired. American deaths are being ignored as inconvenient—information to suppress because acknowledging them would expose the administration puts over half of America Last based on race.

Trump’s “if they start killing people” rhetoric after Iran has been killing hundreds of people performs the same function as the loose FTO designations. It creates a false starting point from which all subsequent action appears reactive. Future military action is being staged now as a false “response” rather than aggression.

Historical Through-Line

Ruby Ridge (1992): Federal agents kill white separatist’s wife and son. Two deaths. Congressional hearings. Settlements. Cited for three decades as proof of federal tyranny. The militia movement builds its entire persecution narrative around it. It’s been the canonical NRA story for why everyone needs to open-carry assault rifles with banana clips and prepare weekly for violent response to federal agents.

January 6 (2021): Coordinated political violence to overturn election. Cops beaten. Capitol breached. Textbook domestic terrorism by any behavioral definition. Pardoned. Families compensated. Participants in unprovoked violence against federal agents called “patriots” and “political prisoners.”

2025-26 Reversal: American civilians shot to death at checkpoints. Killed in custody. One ICE agent texted after shooting a Chicago woman: “I fired 5 shots and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.” No hearings. No settlements. No investigation. No Ruby Ridge invocations.

The math: 2 dead produced decades of outrage and congressional action, a template for resisting federal agents or worse. Now 30+ dead in Trump custody produces silence. 4+ shot by Trump’s agents produces “put that in your book.”

Ruby Ridge was held up to warn government will kill citizens. That was supposed to be the thing that justified decades of anti-federal organizing and militancy. Now the Ruby Ridge types are the federal government, and they are doing the killing, and the lesson… evaporates. The outrage was never about freedom for citizens. It was about government killing specific citizens.

Friend/Enemy

Carl Schmitt, the Nazi jurist, defined politics as the distinction between friend and enemy. The terrorist designation framework now operates on exactly this principle.

January 6 was terrorism defined: coordinated, politically motivated, violent, aimed at influencing government. But they’re being reclassified as our terrorists, so they’re treated as patriots.

Protesters opposing extrajudicial execution by federal shock troops are their people, so… they’re treated as terrorists without any designation—because that designation would mean a legal process, and legal process might produce accountability in a regime that operates instead like dictatorship.

Foreign protesters get “God-given rights to freedom.” Domestic protesters get shot by God-given bullets at random checkpoints.

Same acts. Opposite designations. Based entirely on tribal membership.

The American treatment of the word “terrorist” is now pure friend/enemy marker to curate white power. The legal architecture exists to formalize that marking against foreign targets, for purposes of asset seizure, while protecting domestic allies from ever facing the same machinery for asset capture and hoarding. The asymmetry is the design.

The BBC report over 100 protestors have been killed including security personnel, with 70 bodies brought to one hospital in Rasht in a single night, staff at three hospitals “overwhelmed with the injured and dead,” direct shots through the eyes and hearts, with over 2,500 arrested.

This has been very public, documented, verified, despite the communication crackdown operating like the recent White House censorship of a 60 minutes investigation.

Trump has responded to the news by threatening to attack Iran “very hard” if they “start killing people”, long after people already have been killed in droves.

If…?

He knows.

His use of “if” isn’t a bald statement of ignorance, it’s his spin style. He wants to warm his military up to Iran First, an Iranian lives matter operation, despite everyone seeing that American lives don’t.

	Iran	United States
Protesters killed by	Security forces: 100+ confirmed dead, 70 bodies to one hospital in single night	Security forces: 30+ dead in custody (2025), seven dead in December alone, citizens being shot in vehicles and on the streets
Trump’s response	“If they start killing people” when they already have	Falsely accuses protestors of being “brainwashed” and frames all resistance to federal shock troops as criminal.
Threat level	Threatens military strikes	Expands crackdown enforcement, doubles security force, shortens training to 6 weeks, ignores courts
Government transparency	Condemns Iran’s internet blackout	Forces illegal oversight ban a day after execution of citizen, defying courts; pressures networks to suppress critical coverage
Rule of law	Demands Iran respect protesters’ rights	Demands protestors abandon rights, ignores security force crimes and defies court orders; judges rule administration “lied” about threats
First Amendment	Condemns suppression of dissent	Continues suppression of dissent. Targets political opposition for security force intimidation. Federal judge: Trump has “no respect for First Amendment rights”
Official designation of protesters	Attorney General: “enemy of God”	VP: “brainwashed”; DHS: “terrorists”

The “if” of Trump was a calculated lie. It means the American Pineapple Face is performing regime change theater, with zero humanitarian concern behind the curtain.

Iranian deaths are spun as useful data points, to justify a military action he (e.g. Israel) already wants.

American deaths are inconvenient and being spun the other direction as worthless, since any value would expose the deaths and destruction of rights that Trump “grab-em” actually produces.

The American detention death toll of Trump is staggering. The first year of his second administration has been even deadlier than 2020, when the unchecked COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the high death toll in his facilities.

Calling ICE detention plans a death camp operation would not be an exaggeration.

To be clear, the “if” functions as pre-authorization for more killing. By pretending killing hasn’t started, Trump positions future military action to start killing as being responsive rather than aggressive. That’s his foundational lie, avoiding all accountability.

Meanwhile the actual killing his administration does gets fraudulently reframed as self-defense against “terrorists.” That’s the expanded lie, avoiding all accountability.

Foreign protesters are framed with “God-given rights to freedom.” Meanwhile the domestic protesters have no rights, preemptively redefined as criminals for even daring to think they are free. Foreign governments killing protesters is an outrage justifying military intervention. American government killing Americans is blackout stuff, nothing to see, no investigations.

Same playbook, opposite spin, based entirely on which lie serves the American Pineapple Face agenda and avoids accountability for killing.

Killed by Trump’s shock troops:

• Renee Nicole Good, 37, Minneapolis – January 7, 2026. US citizen, poet, mother. Shot at a traffic checkpoint. Governor declared “Renee Good Day.”
• Keith Porter Jr., 43, Los Angeles – December 31, 2025. US citizen, father of two. Shot by off-duty ICE agent during New Year’s Eve celebration.
• Silverio Villegas González, 38, Chicago – September 2025. Father, cook. Shot at a traffic checkpoint.

Despite the blackout attempts by Trump we know of sixteen shooting incidents, four dead, seven wounded.

One of Trump’s agents bragged in texts after shooting a Chicago woman:

I fired 5 shots and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.

If she’d been storming the Capitol to install Trump, she’d be pardoned by now and her family paid millions. If she’d been storming Tehran, she’d be a glorified “freedom fighter.” She was in the wrong city, opposing the wrong injustice, so the agent keeps his “book” open for the next American to fill with Pineapple Face holes.

In December 2025, a federal judge ruled that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem could not require members of Congress to give seven days’ notice before visiting ICE detention facilities.

Contrary to Defendants’ suggestion, then, (appropriations law) does entitle Members of Congress to access ICE facilities without being subject to a notice requirement.

The court found that facility conditions change too fast for a seven-day delay to mean anything and that denying access causes “tangible harm” to constitutional oversight. DHS responded by defying and defiling the court, publicly displaying flagrant and open disregard for the law.

The law is clear: congressional oversight of facilities funded by congressional appropriations cannot be obstructed by the executive branch.

On January 8, Noem ignored the law again and reissued the same policy in violation of the court. The theory for ignoring the court order is brazenly circular, and appears to be criminal.

DHS falsely claims they have a loophole, because their ICE facilities are now funded through “One Big Beautiful Bill” as a reconciliation package. They believe this didn’t follow the appropriations process for funding, so the court’s ruling doesn’t apply to the funding. Stupid, I know. The judge said you can’t block oversight of congressionally-funded facilities, so Noem declared (in her own mind) these are not congressionally-funded facilities, even when they still are.

I can’t believe I have to say this but reconciliation bills are congressional funding. Congress allocated the money either way. The oversight authority derives from Congress’s power of the purse, the act of funding, and not from whatever vehicle delivers the funds.

DHS is not making a good-faith interpretation of law. It’s bad faith disregard for law, a demonstration that law is now what a dictator says it is. Notably, Trump has been using Pineapple Face (foreign intelligence and drug money) logic to establish parallel oil-money bank accounts to bypass all congressional appropriations. Unaccountable executive action is rushing to be funded outside legislative control.

The timing is instructive.

Noem issued the new directive one day after the Minneapolis ICE execution of an innocent citizen, citing “escalating riots and political violence” as justification. A pretext from ICE violence and abuse was created, and she used it. The pattern is familiar: manufacture or exploit a crisis, then claim emergency powers that happen to accomplish what you wanted to do anyway.

Huge mass of agents in a standoff, weapons drawn as Reps. Ilhan Omar, Angie Craig, and Kelly Morrison attempt to conduct congressional oversight at the Whipple Building, which has been HQ for thousands of ICE agents.

The one-day-after timing removes any pretense DHS acted on safety. A genuine security response to the Minneapolis shooting would address the shooting, particularly the part about premeditated killing by an ICE agent of an innocent American citizen. Reimposing a blocked policy about congressional visits addresses only congressional oversight.

The “only Noem can waive” provision is the architecture of a Pineapple Face dictatorship. It’s not a policy, it’s a loyalty test. Access becomes a favor dispensed by the sovereign Pineapple Face rather than a constitutional right exercised by a coordinate branch.

Noem is clearly disobeying laws and in direct violation of the Constitution, to consolidate power for Pineapple Face shock troops to commit violent crimes without oversight.

The homeland security secretary seemed to hint that ICE agents would continue to make arrests based on the same grounds that were recently prohibited by the judge

What requires hiding?

Over 170 U.S. citizens have been detained by immigration agents in the past nine months. Many were held for days without access to attorneys or phones.

Congressional investigators have documented reports of squalid conditions, overcrowding, and inhumane treatment.

Senator Durbin has been denied access to the Broadview ICE facility four times—unprecedented in his decades of congressional service spanning multiple administrations of both parties.

When an agency systematically blocks oversight while reports of abuse accumulate, the logical inference is not complicated.

The hundreds of citizen detentions, the denied phone calls, the days-long holds—those are the cases that leaked. The denominator of cruelty to Americans is much larger.

ICE hides what oversight would reveal.

The mechanism matters. Noem isn’t claiming the authority to block congressional visits outright—she’s requiring the seven-day notice requirement be her sole discretion.

This transforms oversight from a congressional right into an executive privilege to be dispensed at her whim, based on her dictatorship loyalty. The architecture of accountability gets inverted into abuse: those being investigated control whether investigators can investigate.

Courts have ruled against this.

Congress has legislated against this.

It continues anyway. Are we now in Iran?

The parallel is the blackout. Iran is hiding crackdowns, Noem is hiding crackdowns. Show me a difference.

The word for an executive that defies judicial rulings and obstructs legislative oversight while operating detention facilities under conditions it refuses to let anyone see is not “administration.”

There’s a more precise term, and Americans are going to have to start using it.