USA: Activists face increased risk of extrajudicial action and vigilante attacks

An intelligence assessment originally published in Intelligence-Led Activism on 7 March 2025.

In a nutshell¹

• Trump’s return to the White House poses an increased risk of extrajudicial action and vigilante attacks against dissident activists.
• This extrajudicial action may occur both in the virtual and physical worlds and take the form of intimidation, infiltration, disruption and physical violence.
• The increased risk stems from an emboldened post-election MAGA movement coupled with the weakening of judicial controls and non-partisan law enforcement.
• It is possible that once the White House asserts its control over the intelligence and law enforcement communities, federal agencies will directly engage in repressive measures against civil society.
• The risk of repression will peak around the mid-term election and in situations of internal crisis in the Trump administration and the MAGA movement.

• Trump’s second term in office increases the risk of vigilantism and extrajudicial suppression of activists.
  • The incendiary rhetoric from the White House and the MAGA movement more generally contributes to a more aggressive atmosphere among Trump followers.
  • Trump and his supporters will draw, when necessary, on vigilante tactics. They have done so before, most notably in the failed putsch of 6 January 2021.
• Trump and his supporters will draw on an already elevated level of repression of civil society. Some causes, especially the campaign against the genocide in Gaza, have faced exceptional pressure and continue to be particularly vulnerable.
  • Powerful lobbies have mobilised against activists using deceptive, manipulative media campaigns, smear campaigns and orchestrated online harassment.
  • Over the last 16 months, an orchestrated nation-wide campaign has left anti-Zionists and outspoken critics of Israel facing threats to their employment and livelihoods.
    • This is part of a broader bi-partisan political willingness to publicly flaunt international law and domestic legal standards in support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
  • Direct physical attacks on activists have been relatively muted and included, for example, the assault on the anti-genocide encampment at UCLA.
  • Some lobby groups are maintaining surveillance programs that are used to monitor and disrupt environmental, social and labour activism.
    • Project Veritas is an example of an ongoing, privately funded undercover operation targeting perceived liberal activists.
    • Some extreme groups, like the Zionist Betar US, are reportedly collecting names and details of potential targets.

• The proliferation of social media and the increasingly restrictive control of mass media, have created the conditions for the intensification of pressure on activists. This potential is yet to be fully realised.
  • Media owners are politically compromised. Some media moguls are ideologically committed to far-right causes (e.g. Murdoch, Musk) while others depend on government contracts and subsidies for their non-media businesses businesses (e.g. Bezos), or on legislative compliance to support their monopolies and invasive business models (e.g. Zuckerberg). Media moguls are likely to support White House endeavours to control civil society.
  • Social media are becoming increasingly important sites of repression of activists.
    • Online bullying of activists has become common. This can range from crude political censorship by social media to direct threats and abuse.
  • Foreign governments (e.g. Israel, Russia) run overt and covert social-media campaigns to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt, and to silence criticism and subvert civil society.
    • In the leadup to the 2016 presidential election in the USA Russia sought to create social strife by pushing activists and vigilantes to violently confront each other.
  • Social media companies use their position to facilitate complex targeting and across society for both commercial and political purposes.
    • Israeli intelligence has reportedly worked closely with Meta to surveil, deceive, manipulate, control and disrupt what Israel perceives as hostile activists.

• The White House is degrading the capacity and willingness of law enforcement to confront MAGA-inspired vigilantism. Federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been decapitated and are being radically overhaled. Professional leadership is being replaced with political loyalists. Job security has been abruptly eliminated and many staff have been sacked, while extensive political purges are underway.
  • The appointment of Kash Patel and Dan Bongino to lead the FBI is instructive. Neither has experience or support within the agency. Bongino slammed the FBI’s investigation into the 6-January-2021 putsch and has promoted conspiracy theories about the FBI planting pipe bombs around DC ahead of the putsch.
• Activists are likely to encounter more pressure especially where
  • the activist population is vulnerable (e.g. when many activists are non-citizens or naturalised citizens);
  • the cause has been opposed by Democrats as well (e.g. pro-Palestine activists); or,
  • the causes threaten major powers that are associated with MAGA (e.g. environmental activism, immigrant support, mobilisation for sexual minorities’ rights and labour activism).
• In addition, several scenarios will increase even further the likelihood and severity of the targeting of activists. These include
  • frustration within the MAGA movement over the tardiness of major achievements;
  • the regime’s loss of broad corporate support or political legitimacy;
  • substantial successes by activists in frustrating the MAGA agenda; and,
  • internal conflict within the MAGA movement, especially conflict involving militant factions or groups that might feel marginalised or antagonised within the movement.
• The risk will increase around the mid-term elections when the political stakes are high.
• It is likely that Trump’s administration plans to tame the federal intelligence and law-enforcement agencies and then use them to facilitate the pursuit of their agenda.
  • With precedents such as the COINTELPRO program – when federal agencies engaged in a domestic program of neutralisation of US dissidents – it is possible that similar programs may be launched against activists.
  • This may take some time, though, as a hostile takeover of a recalcitrant intelligence or law-enforcement community takes time.

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1. The analysis is current for 5 March 2025. ↩︎