The first months of the second Trump’s presidency have been characterized by brutal episodes of repression of pro-Palestine protests which build upon attacks on education – through cuts and suspensions on research funds and threats against entire fields of academia – and the harassment of migrants and ethnic minorities.

While they appear to be the first step in an authoritarian coup taking place in the United States, these moves have long been in preparation, and not only in the US. Since October 2023, defunding, disciplining and policing have been the main response of a number of governments to pro-Palestinian protests. In this article, professor Della Porta identifies three mechanisms of repression, namely: policing, disciplining and stigmatization. While all three of these mechanisms tend to interact with one another and can be perpetrated by different actors, the way in which they function changes: policing represses through the use of force by the state in order to restrict the use of certain forms of protest; disciplining represses through the use of regulatory power, in order to discriminate against social movement organizations and activists; stigmatization represses by negatively labelling forms of protest, organizations, and activists. Having presented a novel theoretical model for the analysis of repression, the analysis of the moral panic campaigns that have taken place in the United States will reveal both the similarities and differences in the dynamics and actors involved. Based on desk research of documents, databases, scientific reports and media coverage, the article singles out some forms of repression that took place in the country and locate them within a social and institutional context, while also considering the main moral panic entrepreneurs involved.

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