This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.

A little-noticed presidential national security directive is now the legal engine behind a wave of terrorism prosecutions against left-wing protesters.

That domestic campaign now has an international dimension, one that American officials had been planning for months, culminating on July 16, 2026, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism drew representatives from more than 65 countries to Washington. The gathering was informally called the “Antifa summit.”

Rubio described antifa-aligned networks as sharing infrastructure across borders and accused Iran and Cuba of helping bankroll the movement, without offering evidence. The White House declared the summit the start of an “unprecedented global offensive” against what it calls “radical left terrorism.”

This offensive is built on the same domestic legal architecture that has now sent American activists to prison for decades.

That architecture is National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-7, issued on Sept. 25, 2025, which for the first time appeared to authorize preemptive law enforcement measures against Americans based not on whether they are planning to commit violence but for their political or ideological beliefs.

Nearly a year later, that blueprint has moved from paper into practice.

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.

House Republicans will bring forward this week a surprising and dangerous form of the voting restriction proposals that President Trump has been relentlessly pressuring Congress to pass for months. That act may well discourage or exclude millions of voters via draconian requirements for presenting proof-of-citizenship when registering, showing rigorous voter ID at the polls, or even purging voter rolls. Previously, Trump has pushed these notorious proposals under the guise of “election integrity,” termed the “SAVE America Act,” repeatedly and loudly, and they have even passed the House. But the proposals have failed in the Senate, for lack of the 60 votes needed to avoid a filibuster, thanks to unyielding Democratic resistance and an assist  from some Senate Republicans. Trump has asked  Senate Republican leadership to abolish the filibuster in order to get the legislation through, and even to fire the universally-respected Senate Parliamentarian, and has been repeatedly refused. It seemed dead. His threat is back, disguised in a new form.