Booksellers are sounding the alarm over Trump’s anti-antifascist presidential memo.
A group of concerned booksellers recently sent an open letter to the American Booksellers Association and the American Booksellers for Free Expression raising an “urgent concern” about the Trump administration’s NSPM-7 anti-antifascist memorandum. The presidential security memo issued last year specifically targets what the regime sees as leftist ideas in books, zines, and other publications, which is a major concern for all of us that care about books and freedom of expression.
“As we continue opposing book bans and other legislative challenges,” the letter says, “we must also prepare for the potential criminalization of those in our industry.”
The letter was written and signed by Firestorm Books in Asheville, NC, Autumn Leaves Books in Ithaca, NY, Boneshaker Books and Moon Palace Books in Minneapolis, MN, Burning Books in Buffalo, NY, Charis Books & More in Decatur, GA, Pilsen Community Books in Chicago, IL, and Word Up Community Bookshop/Librería Comunitaria in New York, NY.
“Bullies thrive in an environment of silence and isolation,” the letter continues, urging national bookselling organizations to take stronger and more public stances against national and local attempts to criminalize free speech.
The letter is raising the alarm specifically over NSPM-7, a Trump administration memo issued on September 25, 2025 in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder. The memo is a naked attack on freedom of expression and freedom of thought, justified by waving the bloody shirt of allegedly rampant violence.
Titled “National Security Presidential Memorandum-7: Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence”, the memo attempts to ground its argument by gathering unrelated incidents of political violence, protest, and activism under one overly-broad and hazily defined umbrella of surging left-wing violence. These incidents, the state erroneously claims, are all connected somehow, as “a culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns” by “domestic terrorists to wage a violent assault against democratic institutions, constitutional rights, and fundamental American liberties.” There is no evidence presented of who is coordinating this, how they are doing it, or why.
The memo lumps all of these “assaults” under its own definition of “anti-fascism,” which it unironically equates with anti-Americanism:
Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.
This is excessively and intentionally broad. Phrases like “traditional American views on family” are so vague as to be meaningless, allowing the state to define nearly any conduct, speech, or thought as a national security threat, thus authorizing repressive state action against anyone.
This isn’t theoretical. As the bookstores’s open letter notes, a group of protesters who demonstrated on July 4th, 2025 outside the Prairieland ICE detention facility in Texas have already been targeted by this memo. As The Guardian reported, nine protestors were arrested and “a jury found eight of nine protesters guilty of ‘providing material support to terrorists’ … this ‘material support’ included owning a ‘printing press’ used to print anarchist zines and being part of a leftist book club, the federal government argued.”
This “printing press,” for the record, was just an office printer, a paper cutter, and book binding materials. To quote The Guardian again:
The federal government’s focus on the possession of leftwing literature, including zines, and other basic security measures common in our modern era – like owning Faraday bags, meant to block wireless signals to prevent surveillance; using the encrypted messaging app Signal; or dressing in all-black clothing – is alarming to activists.
The sheer breadth of NSPM-7’s mandate allows for common items to be tied to an invented ideology that the administration has defined and built up. It transmogrifies a stapler into an antifa terrorist stapler and justifying the use of crushing of state power and violence.
The sentences handed down to the Prairieland protesters have been cruel and excessive, between 30-100 years in prison. This is effectively a life sentence.
For The Nation, Grace Byron spoke to Autumn Hill, one of the Prairieland protesters who was sentenced to 50 years in prison (longer than some January 6th rioters, Byron notes). Hill is a trans woman, and is currently in a men’s prison.
The entire interview is worth reading, especially for Hill’s thoughtfulness in articulating her beliefs and politics. She’s inspiring, and not speaking in the violent, antisocial rhetoric this regime wants you to fear. Hill believes in a neighborly hospitality and love: “My whole life is driven by this radical love and by this urgent need to see justice done.”
This is exactly the sort of inflated, cruel criminal charge that this open letter is warning about. They’re correct that bookstores are a natural next target.
“We believe that if unchecked,” the letter says, “this administration could bring similar charges against ABA members under NSPM-7’s stunningly broad definition of ‘antifa extremism.’”
The bookstore workers are calling on the ABFE and ABA to take a close look at “the Prairieland case, its relationship to NSPM-7, and the implications for bookstores and our customers.” These are attacks that deserve “to be addressed by the ABFE publicly” and that “the ABA should communicate its intention to defend members from prosecution.”
This craven state action is, of course, completely ahistorical and grounded in nothing other than grievance and authoritarian impulses. But it shouldn’t be lost on the rest of us that America was rather literally founded on radical ideas expressed in short publications. (Howard Zinn’s Artists in Times of War features a wonderful defense of America’s long tradition of radical pamphleteering.)
Pamphlets by concerned citizens, political radicals, and artists are an essential American form. If they were capable of feeling any remorse, shame, or care for others, the Trump administration and all the cops, judges, and flunkies who are lining up to weaponize NSPM-7 wouldn’t be able to face themselves in the mirror.
Keep Autumn Hill’s words close to your heart: there’s “an urgent need to see justice done.”
Image from whitehouse.gov
James Folta
James Folta is a writer and the managing editor of Points in Case. He co-writes the weekly Newsletter of Humorous Writing. More at www.jamesfolta.com or at jfolta[at]lithub[dot]com.
Facts Only
* Booksellers sent an open letter to the American Booksellers Association and the American Booksellers for Free Expression.
* The letter expressed concern about the Trump administration’s NSPM-7 anti-antifascist memorandum.
* NSPM-7 targets leftist ideas in books, zines, and other publications.
* The letter warned of potential criminalization of the book industry.
* NSPM-7 was issued on September 25, 2025, following Charlie Kirk’s murder.
* The memorandum attempts to frame political violence as a culmination of "domestic terrorists" waging assault against democratic institutions.
* The memo lumps various threads of conduct under the definition of "anti-fascism," which is equated with anti-Americanism.
* The broad language, such as "traditional American views on family," allows for the state to define speech and conduct as threats.
* Protesters outside the Prairieland ICE detention facility in Texas were targeted by the memo.
* Nine protesters were arrested and found guilty of "providing material support to terrorists," which included owning a printing press for anarchist zines.
* The federal government argued that possession of left-wing literature, Faraday bags, Signal, or all-black clothing are security measures against terrorism.
Executive Summary
A group of booksellers sent an open letter to the American Booksellers Association and the American Booksellers for Free Expression expressing urgent concern over the Trump administration’s NSPM-7 anti-antifascist memorandum. This memo specifically targets what the regime views as leftist ideas in books, zines, and other publications. The concern stems from the potential criminalization of those in the book industry as they oppose book bans and other legislative challenges.
The letter highlighted NSPM-7, issued on September 25, 2025 following Charlie Kirk’s murder, which is described as an attack on freedom of expression and thought, justified by claims of left-wing violence. The memo attempts to link various incidents of political violence, protest, and activism under a broad definition of "anti-fascism," equating it with anti-Americanism and including concepts like anti-capitalism and hostility towards certain groups.
The letter points to the targeting of protesters outside the Prairieland ICE detention facility in Texas, where nine protestors were arrested and found guilty of "providing material support to terrorists," which included owning a printing press used for anarchist zines. The bookstores argue that this broad application of NSPM-7 could lead to similar charges against members of the book industry. They urge national organizations to publicly oppose attempts to criminalize free speech and defend their members from prosecution based on the memo.
Full Take
The narrative pivots on the transformation of abstract political grievances into concrete legal and physical threats targeting specific cultural and intellectual spaces, specifically book culture. The mechanism driving concern is the application of an excessively broad legal framework—NSPM-7—to encompass a wide spectrum of social and political expression, thereby shifting the focus from specific actions to the mere possession of certain materials or adherence to specific viewpoints. This signals a pattern of state overreach where vague ideological definitions are weaponized against dissenters.
The connection drawn between the possession of simple items (like office equipment) and terrorist activity illustrates a form of semantic capture: an object is retroactively imbued with malign intent based on its association with a defined, hostile ideology. The argument that this process can extend to book industry members demonstrates a systemic vulnerability where the infrastructure supporting free expression becomes a primary target for punitive action.
The defense offered by referencing historical radicalism and pamphleteering suggests that the current action is an authoritarian leap away from American foundational principles of radical thought, framing dissent as inherently criminal rather than a necessary component of democratic discourse. The invocation of specific figures like Autumn Hill provides a counter-narrative emphasizing a commitment to justice and human connection over fear-based categorization. The core implication is whether the state can legitimately define an entire category of thought—anti-fascism—in such a way that it justifies suppressing the physical objects and associations that constitute intellectual life.
Bridge Questions: What specific legal precedents exist for judging speech or material possession based on vague definitions of national security ideology? How can defense mechanisms be established to insulate cultural institutions like bookstores from expansive, context-less executive mandates? What is the long-term societal cost when defining internal dissent as terrorism necessitates silencing those who hold differing worldviews?
Sentinel — Human
LIKELY_HUMAN (confidence: 0.2)