A rant about the Trump Administration’s refusal to acknowledge reality, and its insistence on being as horrible as possible
BY: JACOB POLITTE
Online Editor
Writing about the Trump Administration is hard, and that’s probably a significant part of their game plan. Strategist Steve Bannon has said as much. It has almost always been both Trump Administration’s prerogative to “flood the zone” as much as possible. If there’s so much news, it’s nearly impossible to give enough attention to one particular thing. It makes it easier to get away with the things that aren’t popular… or legal.
But regardless of the Epstein List not going away, regardless of some Republicans (including, surprisingly, Majorie Taylor Greene) finally growing a spine over the last few months, regardless of the almost daily controversies and scandals that would make Richard Nixon blush, there’s one story from 2026 that continues to stick with me, and that’s the ongoing siege of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Let’s start with the first major travesty of justice. On January 7, Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother returning from dropping her child off at a Minneapolis school, was shot in the face repeatedly and killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross. After he shot her, Ross called her a “fucking bitch” and other ICE agents refused to allow any aid to be administered to her.
In the aftermath, Donald Trump, JD Vance and the agencies that their cronies run lied repeatedly about the facts of this story. This is in spite of eyewitness testimony and the video evidence that we’ve all seen that proves that Good was shot unjustly. There is no angle of the incident that shows that Ross was in any real danger. This includes an angle that was reportedly shot on Ross’ own cell phone. He was never “run over,” he was never knocked over, nor was Good attempting to run him over. Good was given conflicting messages, and when a gun was pulled on her without provocation, she fled.
The Department Of Justice, led by Attorney General and Trump crony Pam Bondi, has said Jonathan Ross will not be investigated for this shooting. Meanwhile, Renee Good’s widow is reportedly being investigated and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz are also reportedly being investigated. The ridiculousness and lack of human decency shouldn’t be shocking, but somehow, it was.
Of course, the lies continued, and they weren’t even particularly inspired. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has lied repeatedly and tripped over her own words in every single media appearance she’s done this month, and then she gets mad when she gets called out on it or even when a news anchor says Jonathan Ross’s name.
Trump said that Ross was in the hospital, but Ross was shown walking away from the scene looking just fine and getting the hell out of dodge in a personal vehicle, according to some that have ran his license plate number (this is a violation of ICE policy). CBS News, now under the control of Trump ally Larry Ellison and under the direction of pseudo-journalist Bari Weiss, tweeted out an update that Ross suffered “internal bleeding” from the incident with no real named sources and no other information; they were roundly mocked and dismissed. As they should have been. The downfall of CBS News, though, is a piece for another time.
JD Vance, in one of the most despicable displays that I can remember in recent memory, got up on a podium in the White House and called Renee Good a domestic terrorist, saying that “we all owe this officer a debt of gratitude.” JD Vance is probably the most appalling person in public life since Jim Crow laws were in effect, and I’m including his boss in that comparison.
Before I continue, I just wanted to directly address our terminally online vice president in case he reads this somehow. Since he has nothing better to do than argue with the Pod Save America guys and complain about whatever irritates him on the internet, there’s a non-zero chance he’ll read these very words:
You are not worthy of holding any office. You would not be anywhere other than doldrumming in the back of the Senate chamber had Donald Trump not thought you could be a useful pawn who’d never have the courage to stand up to him. People only voted for your ticket last November because of your boss, not because of you. Nobody except for your mom (in her current sober state) likes you, and if they say that they do it’s only because they had to halfway convince themselves because you had an “R” next to your name. If the time ever comes for you to have to lead this country, you will have the respect of no one and the admiration of no one. You also have the charisma of a wet dish rag. Every word that comes out of your mouth sounds like someone just logging off Reddit after an entire day of being an edgelord and forgetting how to talk to women. If you ever assume power, you will not be able to govern the way that your boss does, because you can’t get away with it like he does. Wherever your life takes you, just know that this is the high point… you are destined to be a political failure. You can tweet through it all you want, but you know it’s true.
Nothing about ICE’s involvement is on the level at all. Again, Ross arrived and fled in a personal vehicle, something ICE said it doesn’t allow.
But the appalling actions of ICE have continued in the city of Minneapolis and the city of St. Paul. ICE has been all over the place terrifying citizens. They’ve raided homes, they’ve pulled people out of cars on the road and at gas stations, they’ve even raided a high school. They’ve only escalated their actions, even warning those recording them and yelling at them that they could end up like “Renee.” One officer was even recorded kicking a part of a memorial for Good.
It’s appalling, and it’s even more appalling that the leadership of the federal government approves of it.
In the weeks after, the chaos has continued. More people have been shot. More people have been pulled out of their cars, more people have had their homes raided without warrants. A high school was targeted. Children, even babies, have been caught in the crossfire. And yet, there has been no admission of fault by the Trump Administration or any of the agencies under its thumb. All of them have doubled down, actually.
This all culminated in the disgusting, indefensible and heavily recorded murder of 37-year-old VA nurse Alex Pretti by border patrol agents on Saturday, January 24 just blocks away from where Good was shot. If there was somehow any ambiguity of Good’s murder (there isn’t), there’s absolutely no way to say Pretti’s killing was justified. Pretti attempted to help a woman that agents shoved to the ground, and was maced before being wrestled to the ground by eight agents, shot in the upper back while on a knee, then shot while lying on the ground nine more times.
Anyone who saw that video knows what they saw, an absolutely unnecessary cold-blooded murder. There’s no defense for it, given the video evidence we have. And yet, this administration still tried its best to change the narrative, and Republican commentators like Megyn Kelly are still smearing this man’s character even now.
“I know I’m supposed to feel sorry for Alex Pretti, but I don’t,” Kelly despicably said on a podcast this week. “I don’t. Do you know why I wasn’t shot by border patrol this weekend? Because I kept my ass inside and out of their operations.”
While it’s a minority of people who share these thoughts, it’s a loud one. Kelly, and members of the Trump administration have repeatedly described Pretti as an agitator. Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller and Noem herself called Pretti a “domestic terrorist” with absolutely no provocation (after intense backlash, Noem attempted to throw Miller under the bus for “directing” her).
Any Republican that has yet to fully condemn the incident has used the excuse that Pretti had a gun on him (records show that he had a gun permit), even though he never once drew his gun and as a matter of fact, the gun was removed from his concealed holster before shots were ever fired by the Border Patrol agents. Video proves all of this, and that the Trump administration is lying.
Another thing: it’s incredibly concerning, but not surprising, just how many Republicans and Trump supporters are suddenly not very cool with a man legally carrying a gun when they’ve spent their entire careers and in some cases, lives, being gun-toting fanatics.
Here’s the bottom line: Minneapolis, essentially, is under siege by the Trump administration. And yet, despite the chaos, and in spite of the horror, Minneapolis has endured.
The citizens of that city are not taking this invasion (that’s what it is) lying down. They are in the streets, filming these “officers” breaking the law. They are following ICE agents around, as is their right (no matter what this administration says). They know their own rights. They are warning their neighbors. And they are confronting racist people coming to their city attempting to co-opt the situation for their own benefit and shutting them down.
These scenes are horrific. And there will likely be another Minneapolis like situation, and possibly multiple before this nightmare finally ends. In spite of this administration and its abominable actions, the people of Minneapolis have inspired me. They have held firm, they have shown that there is hope and that there isn’t as much indifference to their administration as I thought there was.
There are three years left of Donald Trump, and I can’t imagine that this term is anything other than MAGA’s last gasp. People, by and large, are not happy with the ways this administration conducts business. Even some of the people who wholeheartedly voted for him.
But it is truly a shame that Renee Good lost her life because of these bozos. It is reprehensible that Alex Pretti was unjustly murdered on the street while defending a member of his community. Their deaths should be a stain of shame on this Presidential Administration, two totally avoidable events that their own policies and goals enabled.
But this administration does not know how to feel shame, I fear. Don’t let Trump’s “retreat” and response to Pretti’s murder fool you… he’s not mad this happened. He’s mad his goons are stupid enough to do it in broad daylight in front of witnesses.
The only way to beat them, and maybe make them feel an ounce of shame and/or regret, is to beat them and their ideals at the ballot box. And that’s assuming that the elections are on the up-and-up… I wouldn’t put it past this administration to try something, especially after raiding election offices in Georgia this week. These are not people who are acting as if their power actually has an expiration date.
Another note as well for all of us here in the Gateway city: ICE operations have hit home too. They were spotted on the streets of Soulard just last week. They are in North County.
Any Democratic contender, especially those vying for the Presidency in two years, needs to condemn ICE to the fullest. And they need to promise total reform. I’m not sure ICE will ever be fully abolished, as much as political figures like the new mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, think it should happen. As much as it needs to actually be dismantled permanently. This country is still too traumatized from the Sept. 11 attacks to ever fully get rid of the organization that was created in 2002.
But it can be rebuilt from the ground up. You can weed out every single bad apple. It is possible to do immigration enforcement humanely; Obama and Biden did just that at a more successful rate than Trump. But Trump and his cronies are not interested in what is humane. They want chaos. They want division.
They’ve definitely gotten chaos. But they have not yet achieved division. Not in Minneapolis.
Don’t give it to them.
