“Renee sparkled. She literally sparkled. I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time. You might think it was just my love talking but her family said the same thing. Renee was made of sunshine.”
The words are those of Renee Good’s wife Becca. They cut to our heart – our humanity. She was shot in the face by an ICE agent, who then muttered: “Fuckin’ bitch.” The murder of this 37-year-old mom as she tried to drive around the ICE guys who stopped her is national news, of course. Almost everyone has seen at least one of the many videos of the incident and, you might say, the national dialogue about virtually anything else has been put on hold.
At least it seems that way. Is ICE keeping us safe from vicious, radical terrorists, along, of course, with those horrific immigrant-invaders, or is it obliterating humanity’s sunshine?
Donald Trump hasn’t simply handed us a new enemy of the moment, something most U.S. presidents have loved to do, certainly in my lifetime: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan . . . uh, Gaza. Trump has declared that our main enemy is here at home, the ones fleeing chaos and poverty in their home countries and crossing our borders – you know, the rapists, murderers, drug dealers, insane-asylum escapees, etc. (Trump explains it all clearly on X.) But the enemy is also you, if you question his racism and belligerence in any way. If you are outraged by the killing of Renee Good and so many others, not to mention the kidnapping of hard-working Americans and their deportation to concentration camps, well, maybe you’ll be next.
Trump is at war with half – maybe two-thirds – of the country. He’s invading the cities – including Minneapolis, where Renee Good lived – that voted against him, that dared to declare themselves sanctuary cities. Where is this all going? Unsurprisingly, a lot of people see a parallel with Hitler and the Nazi era. They call ICE Trump’s Gestapo.
Of course, there’s plenty of disagreement and criticism about this. Come on, this ain’t the Third Reich! And I agree, to an extent. I see little value in comparing Trump to Hitler simply to intensify the insult you’re throwing back at him. But in a larger sense, God help us! What is going on here?
The U.S. has waged hellish and unnecessary wars before, but what’s going on now under Trump is different. What I sense here is looming social change: the undoing of any semblance of democracy. Trump is seizing hold of the hatred and political rancor that exists in this country and is attempting to use it to his advantage. He’s feeding it to his supporters, empowering them with it. He has no interest whatsoever in uniting the country, finding common ground between sides or embracing complex values as he governs. He just wants to eliminate the bad guys, the anti-Trumpers. All of us have a dark side and Trump has been successfully summoning the darkness of his supporters. Go get ’em, boys! And wear your masks.
Whether or not Trump is “being Hitler” is beside the point. He’s feeding not just hatred to his supporters – contempt for the radical left – but he’s also feeding them a chance for actual victory over the left: the chance to create the world they want. This would be a world without political correctness, a world with the freedom to be racist and misogynist and, what the hell, tear down the Statue of Liberty. He and his believers believe they are creating white America.
How do we push back against this? How do we stop it before it gets politically entrenched and starts pulling in the American center? I can’t think of a harder question to answer. So let me quote some more words from Becca Good about Renee:
“Renee leaves behind three extraordinary children; the youngest is just six years old and already lost his father. I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him. That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.
“We thank you for the privacy you are granting our family as we grieve. We thank you for ensuring that Renee’s legacy is one of kindness and love. We honor her memory by living her values: rejecting hate and choosing compassion, turning away from fear and pursuing peace, refusing division and knowing we must come together to build a world where we all come home safe to the people we love.”
Marianne Williamson, who quoted these words in an email post, contrasted them with J.D. Vance’s comment that Renee Good’s real tragedy was that she had been “radicalized by left-wing ideology.” “If that was ‘left-wing ideology,’ Mr. Vice President,” she wrote, “I’ll take it.”
Every life is precious. Never let knowing this be stolen from you. When it comes to reclaiming the country, that’s the starting place, even – especially – when you’re face-to-face with an armed guy wearing a mask.