The president has odd ideas about who constitutes an enemy of the state.<\/b>
\nOn January 6, Donald Trump\u2019s 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 \u201cinciting a violent insurrection.\u201d
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\u2019s long-standing view has become official policy: His supporters are definitionally \u201cpatriotic\u201d 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 \u201cpeaceful\u201d and \u201cpatriotic,\u201d while a single woman attempting to flee ICE agents constitutes a violent attempt to overthrow the government.
It is possible that the ICE officer who shot Good feared that she intended to drive her car into him. But video documentation shows that she was turning her car away from the officer when he shot her. Although it remains unclear whether her car grazed him, videos show the officer running down the street to check on Good, then walking away unaided. As for Good, her ex-husband has told Minnesota Public Radio that she was not a political activist\u2014she had never protested anything, to his knowledge\u2014and that she had merely been caught in the vicinity of the ICE raid after dropping off her 6-year-old at school.
The Trump administration, however, immediately circulated a fantasy version of what happened.
In a message on Truth Social, Trump recited what has become the new MAGA talking points. The president called Good part of a \u201cRadical Left Movement of Violence and Hate\u201d and charged that she \u201cviolently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer.\u201d He added, \u201cIt is hard to believe he is alive.\u201d
Vice President J. D. Vance insisted that the officer was \u201cdefending his life against a deranged leftist who tried to run him over.\u201d The Homeland Security Department described the shooter as bravely saving \u201chis own life, as well as the lives of his fellow officers\u201d from \u201can anti-ICE rioter\u201d engaged in \u201can act of domestic terrorism.\u201d
What\u2019s notable about these hysterical claims is how far they go beyond the simplest possible defense. The administration is not merely insisting that the ICE officer believed Good\u2019s car might strike him, an argument that might have reframed the shooting as a tragic error. Instead, they have presented the shooting as absolutely necessary\u2014an act of patriotism, even\u2014and its victim as an unhinged would-be murderer posing a threat to the republic.
There is no objective standard of conduct that could possibly explain why beating police officers is peaceful but attempting to flee from them is terrorism. This is not an oversight, but the essence of Trumpism. This administration believes that it is entitled to do as it pleases. Its perceived enemies are entitled to nothing.<\/p>\n