The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Terry Bracy
Will it be ballots or bullets? That is the question before America today.
The destruction that has already shaken our democratic legacy will only get worse as Trump’s whining turns to rage when the cheers fade, and former loyalists head for the lifeboats.
His last constituency may be the private army of masked agents who rampage through America’s cities at his command, armed with military weapons and a $40 billion appropriation.
Most opponents like me shook our fists and attended demonstrations, but in reality, saw this madness as an unfortunate era of American history that will be survived and then repaired. (I still hope so). But the shooting of Renee Good signals something new and more dangerous, the work of a trained cop and an apparently pleased President.
Most eyewitness accounts, confirmed by video I have seen, prove that Renee Good was murdered. She was unarmed and a threat to no one. Her attempt to exit the demonstration in her car was rewarded by three bullets leveled at her head at arm’s length.
Before the crime scene had been processed, Homeland Secretary Kristie Noem denounced Renee Good as a dangerous “domestic terrorist.” Noem’s obscene claim was soon buttressed by Vance and Trump, who launched the White House propaganda machine into action to convince Americans to buy the MAGA party line rather than what they saw with their own eyes.
From our earliest days, American governance has had to overcome destructive contradictions. As early as 1835, in his classic Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote of his admiration for the new nation with two exceptions that threatened its future — the treatment of minorities and the tendency to elect men “of mediocre talent and virtue.” Both of de Tocqueville’s exceptions are front and center today.
The killing of Renee Good is really part of a larger story about the abuse of immigrants.
Donald Trump’s route to reelection began at the southern border, which has been largely closed for business this year. This policy success comes with three important footnotes:
First, overall deportation numbers nationally remain roughly the same as in those of the three presidents who preceded him, including two Democrats.
Second, the need for Trump’s unprecedented $40 billion expenditure to build an ICE army would have been sharply reduced if as a candidate he had not destroyed bipartisan immigration legislation set to pass Congress.
Third and most importantly, his program featured a despicable demonization of all immigrants and particularly those who are not Caucasian.
Trump claimed that black and Hispanic undocumented immigrants were murderers, rapists, robbers, and gang members sent from the world’s worst prisons to America. The portrayal of these people as subhuman justified subtracting every human right they are owed. It was all a big lie, but then who is counting?
Worse, Trump’s masked army has grown by the thousands and carries out its orders with increasing cruelty – a legalized Ku Klux Klan.
One of America’s greatest strengths has from earliest times been the separation of church and state. America has prospered as a polyreligious country that made plenty of room for non-believers.
Even that fundamental precept is today being challenged by key leaders of the Trump government, who are employing every available avenue to enforce Christian Nationalism, a merger of the power of governance with a single religion, while Christ’s teachings are violated every day.
Jesus called on us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, act as peacemakers. He summed it up with the Golden Rule: “Do to others what you would have them do unto you.”
It is time to choose.
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