This video on circulating on Threads captures a moment at a Minneapolis protest that is difficult to watch and impossible to dismiss. A MAGA supporter openly celebrates the death of Renee Good, a mother of three killed by ICE, and threatens the crowd with further violence.
Screaming, “We executed one of you yesterday,” the wild-eyed MAGA promises more bloodshed. ICE agents standby appearing less interested in de-escalation than in protecting the man issuing threats against the protesters. One lone woman repeatedly urges calm, attempting to keep the situation from spiraling further.
This is what escalation looks like when it is encouraged from the top.
The United States is rapidly approaching a boiling point, and its leadership is once again stoking the flames. Emboldened by a president who pardons criminal insurrectionists and offers imagined justifications for brutality, and encouraged by a vice president who rebrands extrajudicial killing as “enforcement,” it is no longer clear where the line is drawn. What is clear is that the line keeps moving.
ICE agents behave like people who know they will not be held accountable. A brownshirt kicks over a memorial for the woman killed the day before and smirks as a protester reacts in anguish. There is no visible concern, no restraint, no attempt to lower the temperature. Only confidence.
President Bill Clinton famously once said, “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America,” back in 1992. Watching this video, it is hard not to conclude that what is wrong now is being actively protected, and what is right is being told to stand down or else.
# ICE agents behave like people who know they will not be held accountable.
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**When** this pressure cooker finally explodes, I hope these fuckers (and *all* their enablers) are in for the rudest of awakenings.... they have earned -and deserve- the same mercy they have given their victims.
ICE agents may hide their faces but if Kristi Noem doesn't destroy every copy of their employment applications and hiring approvals they will be prosecuted for their crimes eventually. Investigations into those crimes might even be initiated by a non-MAGA Republican.