In the immediate aftermath of the ICE killing of Renée Good in Minneapolis last week, the Trump administration smeared her as a “domestic terrorist,” claiming that she had weaponized her vehicle. They labeled Good a “violent rioter” and insisted every new video angle proved their version of the truth: Good was a menace and the ICE agent a potential victim. That’s despite video evidence to the contrary, showing Good, by all appearances, trying to leave the scene of the altercation, while ICE agents acted aggressively. Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, spent Sunday doubling down, insisting that Good had supposedly been “breaking the law by impeding and obstructing a law enforcement operation.”
So, on Sunday, I joined the throng in Manhattan for one of many dozens of protests held around the country this past weekend. In the middle of Fifth Avenue, surrounded by raucous, defiant New Yorkers, I asked protesters the simple question: What did you see?
“I mean, it seems like the bottomless, self-radicalizing thing that the government is going through,” said Anne Perryman, 85, a former journalist. “Is there any point when they’re actually at the bottom, and they’re not going to get any worse? I don’t think so.”
“I think there’s a small minority of Americans who are buying that,” said Kobe Amos, a 29-year-old lawyer, describing reactions to the government’s gaslighting. “It’s obviously enough to do a lot of damage. But if you look around, people are angry.”
“I saw an agent that overreacted,” he added, “and did something that was what—I think it’s murder.”
If some police officer responded to a person with a “I’m not angry at you” and the person responded by calling the police officer a “fucking bitch” and shooting them three times in the face … that person would straight up get human sacrificed to the death penalty god.
2025:
111 officers killed in duty in 2025.
At least 1,177 people were killed by police in 2025. How many of them 1,177 are now domestic terrorists ?
“At least 1,177 people were killed by police in 2025. How many of them 1,177 are now domestic terrorists”
This timeline fucking sucks. Now the ghosts are becoming terrorists?
At least 1,177 people were killed by police in 2025. How many of them 1,177 are now domestic terrorists ?
If you ask MAGA, Miller, Trump, or Noem, 1,178 of them.
The past as well as the present, are certainly not a good time to side with the tRump terror regime.
The police are not excused for their contribution to bigotry and hate either.
The “leadership” of whatever this nation has become, need more accountability - including the senators enabling the recent tRump coup
When will there be justice? Certainly not as long as any tRrump terrorist regime spporting conspirator holds ANY office in this nation - as we have seen proof of for the last 13 years
Call the regime what it is. They’re fucking Nazis. End of story.
At least Nazis in WW2 believed in something. This administration is cruel just to be cruel.
They believed what they did about Jewish people, the queer community, and communists, about as much as modern MAGAs do about the queer community, immigrants, and “Marxists”, and for basically the same reasons. The Nazis practiced cruel violence for propaganda purposes too. There are differences to be sure, but I don’t think you’ll find they’re not huge or terribly ideological.
We need to use a new word, because they’re proud of being compared to Nazis, and it’s lost its effect.
Call them commies. They hate anything related to socialism, but they’re creaming their pants at the idea of the government giving handouts to the people who “deserve” it (a.k.a. themselves) while everyone else lives like peasants during China under Mao.
I mean the thing all of those have in common is garden variety authoritarianism. Whatever the base system technically is doesn’t matter, if they’re just going to have complete control over everything. It’s all authoritarianism.
But, as you said, they’re proud of being compared to Nazis. Calling them authoritarians would just give them a fuzzy, tickling feeling in their loins—because “authority” and machismo.
If the goal is to describe their own behavior to themselves in a way that they both understand and will blow a gasket over, calling them communists is pretty much a guaranteed way to do it. Most of them don’t actually understand what “communism” or “socialism” is beyond conflating them with Russia and China-flavored authoritarianism. Add on to that they grew up being indoctrinated into unquestionably believing that communism is the antithesis of America, democracy, personal freedoms, and all that is good in the world.
They see themselves as the good guys fighting evil. Calling them “commies” is, in their own minds and in a single word, outright saying they are the pure evil they hate. The cognitive dissonance of trying to reconcile that thought for even a moment would be agonizing.
Why don’t protestors spray ICE with the same pepper spray that they use? That’s a genuine question. It’s not like that’s an attack or anything, and they could easily justify it in court if it was.
It’s not like that’s an attack or anything
Not that they seem to need court rulings to imprison people these days, but ICE jackboots are still U.S. citizens and federal agents. Someone pepperspraying a federal agent would set themselves up for a number of potential charges related to assault with a weapon and interfering with law enforcement.
Don’t forget that with law enforcement officers, it’s “rules for thee but not for me.” You are held to a higher standard than they are, and they have more rights than you.
If a federal agent is conducting an illegal violent action at you, can you not defend yourself? It’s probably smart to study up on specifics for anyone involved in the streets
Dude, they just shot a woman in the face 4 times for driving NEAR them with literally no consequences. You think they won’t just open fire on a group if one of them gets hit with pepper spray?
I genuinely don’t know what they’d do, which is why someone should try it defensively if they’re being attacked. It’s easy to say that sitting in a chair hundreds of miles away from it, but I think protestors need to try other tactics, because just whistles ain’t doin shit.
I genuinely don’t know what they’d do, which is why someone should try it defensively if they’re being attacked.
Someone else should try [violence] defensively if they’re being attacked because YOU don’t know what they’d do in return? When the whole thing is about trying to manufacture justification for martial law? What the fuck is wrong with you?
If YOU want to go get violent with ICE, no one is stopping you. Stop trying to get others to do it for you.
because just whistles ain’t doin shit.
Yesterday, it was the House Republicans whining about protests. Today, it’s the head of DHS whimpering about ICE being called murderers – which is happening where? in protests – and watching his own sweet sweet dream of fascist power slip away as increasing numbers of Americans are stepping up in their own neighborhoods and cities to say, peacefully and in great numbers, that we have had enough:
Hate to break it to you but non-violence IS working, just as it has throughout history, just as it has in Chicago and Portland last fall.
lol read my comment again
I said it’s easy to say when you’re not the one doing it. We, as people against this regime, ought to be trying all kinds of different strategies and observe their reactions to probe for weaknesses. I don’t think outright violence on its own will be productive.
Who do you think isn’t doing what? You personally are free to try all the strategies you want. Stop trying to get others to do them for you “for science” as you put elsewhere, like this is all just a big fucking joke to you. “lol”
I’d like to remind you that it was NON-VIOLENCE in protests that got the National Guard out of Portland in November. From the first paragraph of the final ruling:
While violent protests did occur in June, they quickly abated due to the efforts of civil law enforcement officers. And since that brief span of a few days in June, the protests outside the Portland ICE facility have been predominately peaceful, with only isolated and sporadic instances of relatively low-level violence, largely between protesters and counter-protesters. When considering these conditions that persisted for months before the President’s federalization of the National Guard, this Court concludes that even giving great deference to the President’s determination, the President did not have a lawful basis to federalize the National Guard under 10 U.S.C. § 12406.
https://www.opb.org/pdf/FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW_1762564569662.pdf
And that’s Portland. Today, Minnesota and Illinois filed suit as well, and if the protests remain peaceful, both have every reason to win. Here’s today’s suit from Minnesota against ICE:
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.230268/gov.uscourts.mnd.230268.1.0.pdf
Here’s the Illinois suit:
You should read them. They’re not difficult. And they are how non-violence will win: it’s far easier to fight fascists via the still-operational courts now than to try to evict them once martial law is in place.
Non-violent protests work in all kinds of ways, not just toward the regime but in community and network building, resource sharing, immunizing those present against propaganda that says they’re alone and media distortions of the protests they personally attend, with all the felt solidarity of walking out with people determined to prove that they all feel the same way.
Violent protests – or to use the government term for them, riots – do the opposite. They repulse peace lovers, invite media exaggeration and misrepresentation, are used even years later in propaganda, and above all they are the pretext the government is looking for to institute martial law, by law, across ALL 50 states.
It’s not a joke to me. Stop trying to suggest “various strategies” for your personal entertainment that include violence because they provably do not work.
EDITED to add link to Illinois suit
You’ll be arrested, and even if you get out I doubt you’ll ever feel safe again since the current regime is vindictive.
Or shot.
The past week has shown them that the federal government will defend their claims of “self defence” using flimsy video evidence that shows the contrary. Just imagine how emboldened one of them would be in using disproportionately lethal force against an actual threat instead of a perceived one.
I’m not planning on doing that anytime soon, but I’d like to see what happens when someone does it in a larger group, for science.
