Alex Pretti is dead because he tried to help a woman . . .
. . .who’d been shoved to the pavement by masked, heavily armed federal agents. Maybe he didn’t mean it, but his act of kindness made the ICE agents look bad, so they pepper-sprayed him, gang-dragged him to the ground, beat him, took his (legal) gun, and shot him ten times. If you’ve ever been taken down and pounded by four or five bruisers in tactical gear, you know that Alex was confused and afraid in his last few seconds. My heart goes out to him.
But that’s not the worst part.
The worst part is that our own government has unleashed a terror campaign on the country. The worst part is that the outrageous behavior of these federal agents — pushing people around, detaining folks with no charges, singling out victims for their color or accent, smashing car windows, kicking in doors, gang-tackling pedestrians for no apparent reason, beating and shooting people, then boxing out the legitimate local police — is being done for a reason, and there is ONE PERSON responsible for it all.
That person is Donald Trump. He is afraid of what the voters are going to do to him in this year’s midterm elections. We are going to take away his control of the House of Representatives, and begin to hold him accountable for his outlaw regime and put a stop to his corruption. And Trump is desperate to hold on to power.
Make no mistake: Kristi Noem is not orchestrating this reign of terror. Neither is Stephen Miller, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel or any other of his sycophants and flunkies. None of this could happen without approval from Donald Trump.
The United States has not always lived up to our highest aspirations, namely freedom and justice for all. But Donald Trump is smashing that legacy to rubble. He is putting an end to 250 years of striving. He’s doing it only for himself, and we may never recover.
What Donald Trump is watching and hoping for, is a single act of fighting back, a single gunshot or rock thrown at an ICE agent. If he gets that, he is ready to call it an armed rebellion and declare martial law. There will be no midterms in 2026, no honest elections at all in the foreseeable future, and Donald Trump will be president for life. That may not be very long, but it will be hell, and it will feel like forever.
We must not give him what he wants.
The only answer I have is this: We must throw out as many of Trump’s congressional yes-men and -women in the elections this November as we can. Complicit Senators of both parties need to be fired, too. I know it’s not a great answer. It will be hard, and maybe the elections are already rigged. For sure Trump will have intimidation squads at polling places around the country. Mail-in ballots will be challenged. Bomb threats will be phoned in. But the alternative means bloodshed, and the blood won’t be Donald Trump’s. It will be your blood, your family’s, your neighbors.
Hold your fire. Go to the polls. Cast your vote. Save our nation.