In the wake of the killing of Renee Good by ICE officer Jonathan Ross on Jan. 7, the Trump administration, Republican lawmakers and ICE officers have adopted the position that the American people must either accept Trump’s rule by force or face death. Their unofficial motto: Live unfree or die.
“It was highly disrespectful of law enforcement,” President Posobiec’s book.
At the height of the 2024 election campaign, Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that led the Project 2025 plan for the second Trump administration, made the same argument Trump and his allies now make about on-the-ground interactions with immigration enforcement officers in grander terms.
“We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” Roberts said.
Advertisement
The problem for conservatives is that their effort to impose unfreedom at the barrel of a gun is unpopular. It may feed their too-online enthusiasts, but the broader American public is not buying any of this.
That doesn’t mean they will stop. Failing authoritarian governments sometimes see further repression as the only way out of their potential downfall. But the people of Minneapolis are showing that the people still have the power to claim their freedom.
To take the words of one person protesting in Minneapolis immediately after Good’s death: “You can’t kill us all.”
Advertisement
