Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate, has been nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The Establishment has raised concerns over her foreign policy positions, which have included criticism of US involvement in Ukraine, and her alleged alignment with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. From the standpoint of the corporate state, Tulsi’s strident opposition to Islamic terrorism notwithstanding, these views and actions make her unsuitable for the post to which she has been appointed.
It is no exaggeration to say that Gabbard is viewed by the Establishment as an enemy of the state. On August 4, 2024, whistleblowers with the Federal Air Marshal Service revealed that Gabbard and her husband were added to a secret Transportation Security Administration (TSA) program called “Quiet Skies,” effectively placing the couple on a domestic terror watchlist. This is remarkable not only given Gabbard’s political career, but also in light of the fact that she has served as a Lieutenant colonel in the US Army Reserve since 2021, having previously served in Hawaii Army National Guard from 2003 to 2020, seeing deployment overseas as both an Army military police platoon leader and a Civil Affairs officer.
The action against Gabbard and Establishment demands for FBI background checks on all of Trump’s appointees echoes past attempts by corporate state elites to discredit, harass, and suppress those whose ideas elites find threatening to the neoconservative and neoliberal status quo.
This is not the first time our nation has been here. Remember the Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO), a tool of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) created during the early years of the Cold War? The list was established in 1942 under Executive Order 9835, signed by President Harry Truman in 1947, as part of the federal government’s broader efforts to root out “communist influence” and ensure the loyalty of federal employees. The list included organizations deemed subversive due to their ties to organizations considered dangerous to US security. The list was made public in 1948. At that time, it included 78 organizations. Over time, the list expanded to include 154 organizations, with 110 identified as communist or communist-front groups. These groups ranged from explicitly political organizations, like the Communist Party USA, to groups accused of covertly advancing subversive agendas.
AGLOSO was a mark of the period popularly known as “McCarthyism” (so named after Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy who famously kept lists on subversives)—witch-hunts with vague and sweeping criteria leading to overreach and infringement on civil liberties. With limited evidence and plenty of innuendo, the Establishment used AGLOSO and other lists to suppress dissent and punish individuals for their political affiliations and opinions.
The lists contributed to a broader atmosphere of fear and political repression, and while the use of AGLOSO waned in the 1950s and 1960s as the Red Scare subsided and public opposition to such measures grew, and one would have hoped that the lessons of Cold War-era excesses in the name of national security would have been internalized and future excesses avoided, the FBI’s CointelPro programs of the 1960s-70s targeting such leftwing organizations as the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement, some of which enjoyed a limited hangout in the high-profile Church Committee hearings of 1975, demonstrated that lessons were not learned. (See The Black Panthers: Black Radicalism and the New Left.)
Nor were lessons learned from the CointelPro scandal. The current actions of the DOJ, the Attorney General, and the FBI echo the AGLOSO and CointelPro, only now they are aimed at allegedly right-leaning groups and individuals, a new iteration of political repression where dissenting voices, particularly those from conservative, libertarian, or populist movements, are subject to heightened scrutiny under the pretext of national security or public safety.
Conservatives and liberal allies point to federal agencies targeting individuals and organizations associated with political movements that oppose the current administration’s policies or challenge mainstream narratives. This scrutiny involves labeling groups as threats due to alleged ties to domestic terrorism and the spread of misinformation (see Church 2.0). Examples cited include investigations into organizations promoting election integrity, opposition to COVID-19 policies, or criticisms of progressive social agendas. (See The “Control of Misinformation” and the Deterioration of the Integral State; The Hi-Tech Custodial/Surveillance State.)
The FBI—the same agency political elites are demanding Trump subject his political appointees to via background checks—has pursued certain right-wing entities, such as parents protesting school board policies, as potential domestic terrorism threats under the USA PATRIOT Act. Similarly, the DOJ’s focus on groups involved in the January 6 Capitol riot lumped thousands of peaceful political activists with a handful of violent offenders. (See MDM is the New WMD: DHS Issues a New NTAS Bulletin; Establishing the One-Party State.)
Like AGLOSO, these measures create a climate of suspicion that undermines civil liberties and democratic freedoms. Government agencies have weaponized their authority to stigmatize political opposition and silence dissent, effectively chilling the exercise of free speech and assembly. The double standard in enforcement, such as the lack of equivalent attention to left-leaning groups, for example those involved in violent protests during the summer of 2020, demonstrates the ideological bias at work. (The same double standard is at work in the UK; see EngSoc—Jail Time for Gendering in the UK? Indigenous English Rise Against Modern-Day Colonialism.) This selective approach mirrors the undemocratic nature of AGLOSO, targeting political affiliations and ideologies rather than specific illegal activities.
The modern iteration of AGLOSO represents a broader struggle over the boundaries of governmental power and the right to dissent. The targeting of right-leaning groups is part of a larger campaign to marginalize movements that challenge the influence of elites, corporate power, or centralized authority, particularly within a framework of managed democracy (see Sheldon Wolin). Such actions have eroded trust in federal institutions, deepened partisan divides, and undermined the democratic principles of fairness and equality before the law. This is why deconstructing the Administrative States and abolishing the Deep State are imperatives in the struggle to reclaim the American Republic. (See Tasks for the Rebel Alliance.)
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