The president has odd ideas about who constitutes an enemy of the state.
On January 6, Donald Trump’s administration published an apologia for the Trump supporters whom he incited to storm the Capitol five years earlier. The next day, Stephen Miller, in response to news that an ICE agent had shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis, lambasted the Democratic Party on X for “inciting a violent insurrection.”
The juxtaposition of the January 6 anniversary and the shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota the next day is a coincidence of timing. But the echo of language between that which the Trump administration has attacked (alleged violence against federal law-enforcement officers) and that which it has defended (actual violence against federal law-enforcement officers) is striking.
President Trump’s long-standing view has become official policy: His supporters are definitionally “patriotic” and therefore entitled to take any actions on his behalf, regardless of how violent or illegal they may be. His opponents are definitionally terrorists, and therefore constitute legitimate targets of state violence. This is how an organized mass attack to overthrow the government becomes “peaceful” and “patriotic,” while a single woman attempting to flee ICE agents constitutes a violent attempt to overthrow the government.
