Hopeless? Despairing? You might be an extremist, according to the government.
Shortly before the midterm election, ânational securityâ decided that being pessimistic made you a domestic terrorist.
They called it âEco-Nihilist/Anti-Human Extremism.â Itâs even got an acronym: ENAH.
The government says that ENAH is âan ideological movement that combines extreme environmental beliefs with the view that humanity itself is fundamentally harmful to the planet.â
Not only is this graduate school crap, invented by some state-level âanalystâ to describe an America that he/she doesnât understand, but it is the product of a runaway system that manufactures domestic threats like candy.
So while the American public showed up last week to resoundingly announce that it did care about the state of the country, the world, and the future of the planet, that very public Tsunami is about to meet a grinding seawall of negativism that is dedicated to thwarting their very demand for change.
This threat machine has worked over the past two years to stigmatize immigrants, Gaza protestors, âAntifa,â those who are LGBTQ+, Somali-Americans, and those who are âanti-Christian,â âanti-capitalâ or âanti-Americanâ as âthreatsâ to America. And it continues, despite the epic demonstration of democracy and life-affirmation.
The governmentâs legacy of attacking domestic discontent (and democracy itself) goes back to the days of J. Edgar Hoover. Of course there were Soviet-inspired communists. And there were internal threats to the State, like Puerto Rican nationalists who even attacked the Capitol in 1954. But on the other hand, there was also Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lennon, and a host of other Americans who were never criminals of any kind and who the threat machine sought to destroy.
Now, the Trump administration has designated the âleftâ and âsocialismâ and anyone who is âanti-Americanâ as potential terrorists. And though there have also been time periods when right wing white nationalists or self-declared âmilitiasâ were also in the governmentâs sights, mostly this domestic security apparatus has gone after the âleftâ (or whatever it is that they define as the left). It is a gift that keeps on giving, especially in the post-9/11 period when the priority for these agencies is catching terrorists before they strike and even before they break the law.
To the internal security agencies, this means translating everything from innocent associations to free speech into âindicatorsâ of potential lawlessness. The ENAH report â labeled âFor Official Use Only/Law Enforcement Sensitiveâ â describes an âideological movementâ that clearly doesnât exist. It was prepared by the Minnesota Fusion Center, and is circulating throughout the country in homeland security channels.
The government says that it has newly invented the ENAH category for âthreat recognition.â The âmovementâ could âcontribute to the radicalization of isolated individuals,â it says. âAdherents may argue that environmental degradation and climate change can only be resolved through a drastic reduction in the human population or the collapse of modern civilization,â it continues.
Thus those who are concerned about climate change are treated as if they are an adjunct of al Qaeda, an army of brainwashed malcontents who care nothing about society and represent some threat not just to the American way of life but to western civilization.
Though in one place the report says that ENAH is an âideological movement,â in the fine print it goes on to say that it isnât a movement at all. âWhile ENAH ideas have appeared in isolated writings, online communities, and extremist manifestos, they do not represent a cohesive, organized movement,â the report reads. âThe ideology often overlaps with misanthropy, accelerationism, or apocalyptic worldviews, emphasizing despair rather than constructive environmental solutions.â
Which is it? And this is supposed to be an âintelligenceâ assessment of threats to America?
So, youâre worried? That gets turned into the potential for arson or rioting. You think overpopulation is an issue? Thatâs the equivalent of being part of a movement to âadvocate or carry out indiscriminate violence against people.â Concerned about data centers? That becomes âanti-technology violent extremismâ and a âthreatâ to âcritical infrastructure.â
And all of that becomes the predicate for investigating and spying on the public at large.
The Minnesota report points to a single citizen as proof that this latest category of Eco-Nihilist/Anti-Human extremism exists and is a pressing threat: the suicide bombing by Guy Bartkus in 2025 outside of a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California. Bartkus, the report says: âleft writings expressing anti-natalist and anti-human views, arguing that bringing new people into existence was immoral.â
The FBIâs assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles Field Office told the press that âThe subject had nihilistic ideations.â Retired senior FBI profiler Dr. Mary Ellen OâToole jumped in to tell CNN that this ideation involved a âpreoccupation with themes of violence, hopelessness, despair, pessimism, hatred, isolation, loneliness, or an âend-of-the-worldâ philosophy.â
Now that âanti-human extremismâ has been created as a category of Americans who need to be policed, the Bureau and other agencies think they are justified to look at forum posts, social media discussions, and chat rooms for threats. Nowhere in the Bartkus case is there any effort to explain how he (or anyone like him) threatens âAmerica.â The specific words he wrote down before he died is the evidence, and it is the justification to come to the conclusion that there are other Bartkusâs out there ready to strike.
On that note, the Minnesota report concludes with an explicit acknowledgement that itâs all fantasy:
â... ENAH violence is extremely uncommon but could potentially have high impact. Most violent cases would likely involve lone actors or very small online networks rather than organized groups, and the MNFC [Minnesota fusion center] notes that these beliefs often overlap with nihilism, accelerationism, or other violent extremist ideologies rather than existing as a standalone movement.â
ENAH is part of an even broader and vaguer category of Nihilistic Violent Extremism (NVE) which was supercharged last year. âLaw enforcement has increasingly used the analytical label Nihilistic Violent Extremism (NVE) for a small number of cases in which offenders espouse generalized hatred of society or humanity instead of traditional ideological goals,â the report says.
âA generalized hatred of societyâ? Doesnât that describe every young person from the beginning of Rock nâRoll to the present?
By now it should become clear that the people conceptualizing, writing, editing and approving this report know nothing. That is because no one in any fusion center, not at homeland security, in the FBI, or the intelligence world, or in all of national security is an expert on America â what it means, what makes it tick, what actually threatens the country, or indeed what terrorizes the people.
In the counterterrorism world, the internal threat is not just vague but shockingly ill-defined. As a result, the government can get away with labeling Luigi Mangione or Alex Pretti or Renee Good as terrorists. The FBI might officially say that it does not investigate First Amendment-protected speech, peaceful protests, or political activity, but in fact with the ENAH and NVE categorizations, it does. It just does so in the name of countering âextremismâ or terrorism.
Clearly this machine is wrong about who the American people are. But, despite the outcome of the elections, it will continue to work in the background to now attack elected Muslims and socialists and others, who even under Democrat rule, they will continue to think are a threat to America.
So the question has to be asked: What does any âfusionâ center, or the Department of Homeland Security, or the FBI for that matter really know about America and what threatens it? And when do we take their power to manufacture these threats away?
â Edited by William M. Arkin





Recycling Nixon-era antagonism for the win:
https://politicaldictionary.com/words/nattering-nabobs-of-negativism/
But...What about Elon, the self-described and wildly enthusiastic "accelerationist" who believes life on earth is over and is planning to rocket off with his millions of progeny to distant planets?