Many have watched the video. You probably did too. A 37-year-old man in Minnesota, American citizen, Alex Pretti, killed after an encounter with ICE. Another murder sunken into the headlines, official statements, and sanitized language meant to soften outrage and quiet conscience, just weeks after the murder in Minnesota of another American citizen, a women, mother, wife, daughter, Renee Good.
What keeps echoing is the mindless refrain we’ve been force-fed by this administration and supporters: America First. Protecting Americans. Making America Great Again.
So let’s be clear. Alex Pretti was an American man. I intentionally cite that because it’s supposedly rooted in those missives. If those words mean anything—if they’re more than marketing—then this should matter. Not because one life carries more value than another. Every life does. But because this movement insists citizenship is the line that determines focus and concern. But we see that even that line, disappears when power licenses itself to act without restraint.
There is no longer a meaningful difference between the brutality the U.S. condemns overseas and what is becoming normalized here at home. We are quick to point at North Korea, China Russia, Iran, Iraq—countries labeled repressive—while refusing to acknowledge how familiar those tactics now employed on American soil by American government upon American people. A government that excuses death, undermines the press, attacks public institutions, and governs through intimidation is not projecting strength. It is projecting its own sickness, weakness and desperation on survival-survival of what? A system based on White Elitism, Supremacy and Domination whose scale isn’t just based in race but also economic station.
This has never been about safety. Ask yourself honestly—do you feel safer? It has never been about criminals either. This is the same administration that pardoned January 6 domestic terrorists, high-level drug dealing government officials, money launderers, and swindlers. Justice here is selective. Accountability bends toward loyalty to this administration and party. Mercy flows upward, never outward.
What may be most disturbing is not the cruelty itself, but the cowardice that surrounds it. Republicans who know exactly what this is remain silent, choosing obedience over responsibility. More troubling still are the seven Democrats who recently voted to expand ICE funding, opting for political insulation instead of moral clarity. When women, children, immigrants, and even law enforcement officers who refuse complicity are put at risk, neutrality becomes participation.
Here is the truth that must be stated plainly: if you excuse this, defend it, or champion it, you are not a good or decent person. Not confused. Not conflicted. Not economically anxious. Just not good or decent. Save your hymns and tithes this Sunday. Skip church. Because nothing spoken there seems to carry weight when hate and cruelty is rationalized and baptized as policy.
You might as well abandon your reverence for the Constitution, too. You do not believe in domestic tranquility. You do not honor life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. You do not defend free speech or a free press. What you practice instead is a Constitution of Convenience—one that quietly insists a person of color has no rights others are bound to respect or who is other than Christian. That is not patriotism. It is hypocrisy reinforced by fear.
History will not be kind to this moment, nor to those who hid behind slogans while institutions were hollowed out and lives were lost. Power sustained through intimidation is not strength. It is decay. History will define this a the Fourth Reich, you will draw historical parallels to the Storm Troopers of the Nazi regime and fascist orders such as Italy’s Mussolini and hopefully some of these actors will face the same fate of the Nazi collaborators and sympathizers at Nuremberg. For the civilians who voted, support and excuse it will be as of those who sat idly by while Hitler began his reign of terror.
And understand this clearly: every excuse offered, every vote cast to fund or expand this machinery of harm is like the bullet that killed Alex Pretti. Every one of those votes is a bullet in Renee Good. A bullet aimed at the dignity of innocent human beings who are harassed, hunted, and harmed in the name of policy. Violence does not always arrive with a trigger pull. Sometimes it comes wrapped in legislation, budgets, and silence.
Still, there is work to be done. I pray that people of conscience—rooted in faith, courage, love, and goodwill—continue to stand, organize, and grow together. Not to reclaim a myth, but to build something honest. Something new. A United States worthy of the name, where minds are awakened, hearts are widened, and dignity is not conditional.
That work is unfinished. Silence is no longer an option.
By the way: release the Epstein files.
