On a brisk Friday in Oakland, California, a coalition of ten state attorneys general led by California’s Rob Bonta issued a forceful joint rebuke of President Trump’s latest moves against nonprofits and critics, marking a dramatic escalation in the country’s ongoing debate over free speech and government power. The statement, made public on October 10, 2025, comes in direct response to a September 25 memorandum in which President Trump ordered the Department of Justice to investigate and potentially prosecute nonprofits, charities, and their supporters whose causes run counter to his administration’s agenda—ostensibly to combat “political violence.”
Attorney General Bonta, joined by colleagues from Minnesota, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, and Washington, didn’t mince words. “Charities and nonprofits are woven into the fabric of American society, in every state and community,” the coalition declared, as reported by Davis Vanguard. “Any attempts to target nonprofits for simply fulfilling their missions, no matter their beliefs or worldview, is a gross violation of their and all Americans’ First Amendment rights to free speech and free association.” They cited a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling underscoring the vital importance of protecting dissident expression from majority suppression.
The attorneys general further condemned what they called the Trump administration’s “naked effort to intimidate charities from fulfilling their missions and donors’ intent.” As chief regulators of nonprofits and charitable trusts in their states, they pledged to defend these organizations against what they see as government overreach and a chilling of constitutional freedoms. “Our message to the nonprofits and charities we oversee is: You keep fulfilling your missions, and we will keep fighting against attempts to weaponize the government to suppress your legitimate activities and constitutional freedoms.”
This latest salvo is one in a series of confrontations between the Trump administration and those who challenge its policies or rhetoric. According to Davis Vanguard, Bonta has previously decried the administration’s use of prosecutorial power for political retribution, referencing the controversial indictment of former FBI Director James Comey as a prime example. He also criticized Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr for actions that led to the removal of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show from the airwaves earlier in 2025, highlighting what he called a campaign of censorship and intimidation against media figures critical of the president.
But the furor is not limited to the nonprofit sector or late-night television. As detailed in a comprehensive report by Vijesti, the Trump administration’s campaign against critics has grown increasingly sweeping and punitive since the assassination of MAGA advisor Charlie Kirk in Utah earlier this year. In the wake of Kirk’s murder, President Trump announced investigations into what he called “networks of radical leftist maniacs,” designating Antifa a domestic terrorist organization. Vice President J.D. Vance, once a self-styled defender of free speech, urged Trump supporters to report anyone expressing joy over Kirk’s death—a move that led to a wave of job losses for Americans accused of such offenses.
The administration’s pressure campaign extended to the Walt Disney Company, which temporarily suspended host Jimmy Kimmel after he criticized Trump’s reaction to Kirk’s assassination. Kimmel had mocked the president’s response, saying, “That’s like a four-year-old grieving over a dead goldfish.” The show’s removal, and subsequent reinstatement after protests, sent a clear message: dissent would not be tolerated lightly. The chilling effect was palpable, with freedom of expression—long a bedrock of American democracy—suddenly under siege from the highest levels of government.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, for her part, proposed cracking down on hate speech, particularly targeting left-leaning groups, despite the First Amendment’s broad protections. Critics, including legal scholars and journalists, have pointed out that studies consistently show the greatest propensity for political violence in right-wing and far-right circles, notably among white evangelicals and MAGA supporters. Yet, the administration’s crackdown has focused overwhelmingly on perceived leftist threats.
The White House, meanwhile, has made efforts to reshape the media landscape itself. Press briefings are now dominated by pro-Trump influencers and partisan voices, while traditional journalists face exclusion and scorn. The FCC, firmly under Trump’s control, has launched investigations into media outlets accused of “unfairly” promoting diversity and inclusion—values the president has openly derided. In May, Reporters Without Borders published a report highlighting a “worrying deterioration in media freedom” across the United States, a trend that watchdogs attribute directly to the administration’s policies.
These tactics, critics argue, mirror the very “cancel culture” the political right once lambasted. As Jonathan Rauch of the Brookings Institution told The New York Times, “What they’ve learned from the left is that if you can control what people say, if you can make them afraid of being canceled, you can make a minority opinion look like a majority opinion.” The key difference, Rauch noted, is that under Trump, this campaign is orchestrated from the top down, enforced with an unprecedented ruthlessness.
Universities—a traditional bastion of dissent—have not been spared. The Trump administration has accused higher education institutions of harboring anti-Semitic sentiment as a pretext for cracking down on student protests and left-leaning activism. Student leaders and professors have been arrested or detained, sometimes on dubious grounds. Columbia University, for example, paid $221 million in July to regain access to government funding and pledged to better control student protests. The University of California, Berkeley, once a symbol of free speech, handed over the names of students and faculty to federal authorities under pressure from the Department of Education.
Even America’s historical narrative is being rewritten. In March, Trump signed an executive order to “restore truth and reason to American history,” instructing museums and national parks to present a more “uplifting” account of the nation’s past. Employees at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Center and Stones River National Battlefield reported internal debates about removing material deemed “out of step” with the new directive. At Fort Pulaski in Georgia, plans are underway to remove the iconic photograph The Scourged Back, a stark testament to the brutality of slavery. According to the administration, references to genocide or human trafficking are dismissed as “distorted narratives driven by ideology, not truth.”
The campaign’s reach extends even to military bases and educational institutions, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, following Trump’s orders, banned hundreds of books—including works by Maya Angelou and critical studies of racism—from school libraries. Meanwhile, controversial works like The Camp of the Saints and The Bell Curve were permitted to remain, raising alarm among civil rights advocates about the administration’s priorities.
As the country lurches toward its 250th anniversary, observers warn that the United States is at a crossroads. University of Chicago law professor Aziz Hook, writing in The Atlantic, cautioned that the rise of what he calls a “dual state”—one where the rule of law persists for most, while dissenters are systematically targeted—poses a grave threat to the nation’s constitutional order. “They can turn away and not look, while dissidents and scapegoats lose their political freedoms. But once the prerogative state is built (…) it can swallow anyone.”
While the American economy and daily life for many continue as usual, the message from the administration is unmistakable: align with the prevailing ideology, or risk being silenced. For those who remember the country’s founding principles, the current moment feels both urgent and deeply unsettling.
