The MAGA Response to Renee Good’s Murder: We Can Kill You

Protesters gather Saturday at the site where Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. John Locher/AP

It’s often hard to recognize a turning point while you’re living it. The murder of Renee Nicole Good feels like a pivotal moment, though there’s no telling yet if this tragedy will fade or the tremors it has detonated will lead to political shifts and change. But it’s impossible not to dwell on this horrific episode, for it reveals so much about what’s going on. Here are few notions in that regard.

The true nature of authoritarians. Autocrats and members of their posse tend to be vindictive peddlers of hate and division. They are not decent and compassionate people. This was on full display following ICE agent Jonathan Ross’s extrajudicial execution of Good. Before her family could claim Good’s body, Donald Trump, Kristi Noem, and JD Vance—along with plenty of their MAGA henchmen and henchwomen—launched a brutal smear campaign of Good predicated on lies and baseless assumptions. There was no sincere recognition that a tragedy had occurred. Instead, they scurried to brand Good a domestic terrorist who had tried to kill Ross. Nothing in the videos of the incident suggest that. In fact, they show her engaging with Good shortly before the killing in a manner that indicated he had no reason to fear her.

Once upon a time—before Trump made malice a political virtue—in a situation like this, even one fraught with politics, responsible leaders would have noted the sad loss of life, appealed for calm, and urged the postponement of judgement until after an investigation. Genuine thoughts and prayers. Yet not for a moment did Trump and his crew seriously acknowledge the sadness here: a 37-year-old mother being killed next her to wife. They kicked into gaslight mode immediately.

Vance was in some ways the worst. The day after, he accused Good of being “brainwashed” and committing “terrorism.” During a combative appearance at the White House briefing room—in which he truly snarled like the political attack dog he is—Vance called the shooting a “tragedy of her own making” and a “tragedy of the far left” and the “lunatic fringe. “This was an attack on law and order,” he barked. “This was an attack on the American people.” His not-too-subtle point: She got what she deserved.

Vance, like his compatriots, showed not an iota of grace. Writing in the National Catholic Reporter, John Grosso, its digital editor, contended that Vance was dishonoring his Catholic faith:

As a Catholic, Vance knows better than to peddle this brand of gaslighting and agitation. Vance knows that, by virtue of her humanity, Good was endowed with inherent dignity, made in the image and likeness of God. Vance knows that only God can take…Vance knows that lying and killing are sins. 

The vice president's comments justifying the death of Renee Good are a moral stain on the collective witness of our Catholic faith. His repeated attempts to blame Good for her own death are fundamentally incompatible with the Gospel. Our only recourse is to pray for his conversion of heart.

These are our rulers, people with no compassion, no conscience, and no compunction to lie and demonize. They are soulless. Otherwise, how else could they serve Trump?

Defy and you deserve to die. Trump and his allies tried to justify the shooting of Good by claiming that she had attempted to kill Ross. Trump even said that she ran him over. (She had not.) Other Trumpers said she was trying to do that when the ICE agent fired his weapon. The available evidence indicates that’s not true. Just look at the wheels of her car. They are turned away from Ross. Whether or not there was any contact between Ross and the car, Good was clearly attempting to flee from him and the other ICE officers.

Several MAGA Republicans went beyond this bogus argument to say that Good deserved to die because she dared to challenge ICE. Rep Randy Fine (R-Fla.) asserted, “If you impede the actions of our law enforcement as they seek to repel foreign invaders from our country, you get what's coming to you. I do not feel bad for the woman that was involved.”

Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas) declared, “The bottom line is this: when a federal officer gives you instructions, you abide by them and then you get to keep your life."

These men are both wrong, and this sentiment they expressed is extremely dangerous: You can be shot and killed for not obeying a law enforcement officer. That’s not the law in the United States. If a police officer orders you out of your car and you refuse, he’s not allowed to shoot you in the face. Cops and ICE agents are not unilateral executioners who can at their own discretion kill people who do not follow their commands. That is what happens in a police state, not a society in which the state’s use of violence is governed (or supposed to be governed) by strict rules.

In the United States, people are permitted to observe and even protest law enforcement actions. If they truly interfere, cops are allowed to make arrests—not mow down those impeding them. Deadly force is reserved for unique circumstances in which there is no other choice. Suggesting that citizens must do whatever a law enforcement officer says or risk losing their lives is a giant step toward authoritarianism. Whatever happened to conservatives’ skepticism of government overreach and excessive state power?

In their statements blaming Good, Trump, Noem, and Vance similarly implied that if you mess with ICE, you will be considered a villainous criminal and could meet the same fate. In a tweet, Vance pointed out that ICE agents approached Good’s car because she was “violating the law: namely, she is obstructing a lawful enforcement operation. You're not allowed to walk up to or drive up to people who are enforcing the law to make it harder for them to do their jobs…Again, you're not allowed to interrupt a lawful enforcement operation, which is exactly what this woman was doing.”

Trump said much the same on Air Force One on Sunday night. Asked if deadly force had been necessary in the Good case, he replied, "It was highly disrespectful of law enforcement. The woman and her friend were highly disrespectful of law enforcement…These are professional agitators. Law enforcement should not be in a position where they have to put up with this stuff."

You could interpret Trump’s and Vance’s comments to mean that ICE agents can decide on their own to deploy lethal force when they are hindered. But Fine and Hunt said it straight out—a sign of how deep the authoritarianism impulse runs within MAGA.

This is a warning. One important question is whether Good’s murder will become a warning to ICE or a warning to the rest of us. Look at this video recorded in Minneapolis of an ICE agent harassing and assaulting a bystander and saying, “Have you all not learned from the past couple of days?”

This is just one interaction, but it highlights an important point. ICE and the Trump gang want this shooting to stand as a threat to those who would oppose them. What could be more intimidating? Yet for the sake of American democracy, this crime needs to become a warning to those government agents who would murder, not to those who might be murdered by government agents.

That’s why it’s critical Ross be held responsible. Vance has (wrongly) claimed that Ross has “absolute immunity”—which would mean that ICE can operate outside the law with no restrictions and function like a secret police in a repressive regime. And as of now, with Kash Patel’s FBI in charge of the investigation—and trying to block local agencies from conducting an inquiry—there’s much reason to doubt the probe will be on the up-and-up. Patel is a total Trump lackey, and Trump and the feds are clearly on the side of this ICE agent.

Turning point or not, this is a critical moment for the nation. The investigation will determine whether Trump’s police-state-like violence can be restrained. If Good’s murder is not fully investigated and Ross escapes accountability—if Good, in death, is denied justice—the message will be stark: We can kill you. That is the hallmark of a tyranny,

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland.corn@gmail.com.

Last week, Trump’s interview with the New York Times drew much attention for his comment that the only restriction on his global powers was “my own morality, my own mind,” not international law. Another disturbing remark that received far less attention was the explanation he gave to the newspaper for his desire to acquire Greenland. Let’s go to the tape:

The president’s insistence that Greenland must become part of the United States was a prime example of his worldview. It was not enough to exercise the U.S. right, under a 1951 treaty, to reopen long-closed military bases on the huge landmass, which is a strategically important crossroads for U.S., European, Chinese and Russian naval operations. 

“Ownership is very important,” Mr. Trump said as he discussed, with a real estate mogul’s eye, the landmass of Greenland—three times the size of Texas but with a population of less than 60,000. He seemed to dismiss the value of having Greenland under the control of a close NATO ally.

When asked why he needed to possess the territory, he said: “Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success. I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do, whether you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”

Ownership of Greenland would yield “psychologically” a “success.” I’m not sure Trump was merely saying that when you own something you take better care of it. In this context, it seemed he was signaling that unless he comes to possess Greenland outright—instead of expanding US military bases there—he will not fulfill his own imperial ambitions. It will be a psychological letdown. The emperor will be disappointed.

His obsession with conquering Greenland is both troubling and bizarre. The other day he said:

We are going to do something on Greenland whether they like it or not because if we don't do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland. And we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor…If we don't do it the easy way, we're gonna do it the hard way.

First off, Russia is indeed a neighbor of the United States. Its mainland is 55 miles from Alaska, across the Bering Strait. Greenland is about 3,000 miles from the United States. Second, here’s Trump sounding like a mob boss, threatening an American ally—and doing so in a manner that could blow up NATO. He’s a dumb Tony Soprano wannabe driven by the urge to achieve global domination. This won’t end well.

Wicked: For Good. Are the two Wicked movies the most subversive mainstream cultural fare of the Trump 2.0 Era? Together, these flicks have grossed nearly $1.3 billion at the box office, making them the No. 1 and No. 3 top-grossing film adaptions of a Broadway musical, according to Billboard. Though the Broadway production hit the boards 23 years ago—and the novel it was based on published in 1995—a main plot of the show and the motion pictures is eerily anti-Trump: As a move toward imposing authoritarianism, the con man who rules Oz as the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) mounts a crusade against animals—in Oz animals talk and are sentient beings—that strips away their civil rights and their power of speech. The animals are locked up or forced to flee Oz.

Does this othering sound familiar? When Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), a green-skinned girl with psychokinetic powers who’s a student at Shiz University—a prestigious institution grooming her and her classmates, including her best pal Galinda (Ariana Grande), to be part of Oz’s elite—realizes what’s afoot, she is radicalized. Now an outcast, Elphaba tries to use her powers to oppose the regime. For that, she is demonized by a massive government disinformation campaign as a wicked witch—Oz’s version of a domestic terrorist.

It’s quite the allegory for today. In Wicked: For Good, the second and concluding installment, Elphaba continues her one-woman resistance, and the key question is whether Galinda—now functioning as a shill for the Wizard as Glinda the Good Witch—will wise up, see the evil she’s enabling, and reject her privilege to join the opposition. Which side are you on, Glinda? Of course, there’s much ado about who’s in love with whom and who will end up together. It’s a musical.

There was no need to tweak the original to land these themes of government fakery and autocratic deception. But the team that made the films—which included the Broadway musical’s scriptwriter (Winnie Holzman) and songwriter (Stephen Schwartz)—took it a step further. There’s a pivotal scene in both the show and the films in which Elphaba confronts the Wizard, who attempts to persuade her to join forces with him. He sings the song “Wonderful,” explaining why it’s so grand to be admired by the masses. In Wicked: For Good, this tune begins with a new introduction from the Wizard, who says, “They’ll never going to stop believing in me. You know why? Because they don’t want to.”

He then sings lyrics that were not in the play: “Take it from a wise old carny / Once folks buy into your blarney / It becomes the thing the most hold on to / Once they’ve swallowed sham and hokum / Facts and logic won’t unchoke them / They’ll go on believing what they want to / Show them exactly what’s the score / They’ll just believe it even more.” When Elphaba, mid-song, declares that the Wizard has lied to the people about the purported threat they face from animals, he says, “Well…only verbally. But those were lies they wanted to hear.” He returns to the tune: “The truth is not a thing of fact or reason / The truth is just what everyone agrees on.” It’s not too subtle, but well done.

Wicked: For Good is a satisfying finale. Its narrative intersects with the arrival of Dorothy, who becomes an unknowing pawn in the battle for the soul of Oz. The color-saturated film, directed by Jon M. Chu, deftly focuses on the behind-the-scenes tale, turning the girl from Kansas into a subplot. Her presence doesn’t change the big truth of Wicked: This is Elphaba’s story of defiance. And in these days of Trump administration deceit and attempted repression, a story for us all.

Rachel Bobbitt, “Furthest Limb.” I was listening to my local low-power radio station, WOWD, which offers an eclectic mix of local news and music shows curated by eccentric DJs, and heard this track that had a beautiful dreaminess to it that reminded me of Regina Spector. I whipped out my Shazam app and discovered it was “Furthest Limb” by Rachel Bobbitt. Later, I did the Google thing. There’s not a lot of info about Bobbitt. This is the full bio on her website: “Rachel Bobbitt is an artist from Nova Scotia, Canada. Now based in Toronto, she draws inspiration from her music from movies, books, & friends.” Okay, then. But I see that in 2019, while she was in college but on summer break, she put out an album with Justice Der, a Canadian hip hop artist, and two tunes from that collaboration have each surpassed 1 million listens on Spotify.

“Furthest Limb” comes from an album Bobbitt released in October called Swimming Towards the Sand. “Sweetest Heart,” the single off the album, is an ethereal love song. There are plenty of talented young indie musicians out there. Keep an eye on her.