We are not alone

I’ve been having trouble sleeping. It’s gotten worse since federal officials killed Alex Pretti in Minnesota while he peacefully protested the ICE invasion. I’ve warned for a decade now that Donald Trump is a sociopathic fascist who has no moral limits when it comes to lying and inflicting violence. But that doesn’t make it any easier to endure the tsunami of gaslighting coming from the administration. 

I know most readers feel the same way. And I know it’s hard to balance the need to protect your mental health with our collective duty to ourselves and others to stay informed and remain vigilant. I can only offer the same advice I try to follow: Don’t check out. Take breaks, sure. (I watched so much “Drag Race”  this past weekend.) But we have to find solace in each other, and the knowledge that we are not alone. The road ahead is long and hard. But I believe we will win.

MAGA is dehumanizing themselves

The rush of information about Pretti’s life and death is a little overwhelming, but I want to single out one story that especially shook me: his parents’ response to the killing. Michael and Susan Pretti released a statement calling their son “a kindhearted soul” and a “hero.” They also wrote, “The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting” and asked the public to “get the truth out about our son.”

This broke me. Not only do these two people have to endure the unimaginable grief of losing a son, but they also have to contend with the most powerful people in the world viciously and shamelessly lying about him. Indeed, MAGA’s endless appetite for propaganda is why Alex is dead. The main reason Stephen Miller and Trump sent ICE into Minneapolis was because they wanted to generate snuff films of fascist violence against “leftists” to keep their base engaged and excited — and to distract them from Trump’s failures.

Obviously, there are mountains of brilliant writing over the decades, especially in the aftermath of World War II, about how fascism tries to dehumanize not just its victims, but also its adherents. At the risk of redundancy, however, I think that bears repeating. 

The targets and opponents of MAGA are literally being called “unhumans” by JD Vance and other GOP propagandists. That’s about legitimizing violence against us, as we saw in the Pretti shooting. But as Pretti’s friends and family show, we can reject that and continue to insist that we are, in fact, human. 

The more enduring dehumanization, in fact, may be what MAGA adherents do to themselves. To keep supporting Trump, they force themselves to abandon their empathy, their morality and even their to belief in what their own eyes tell them. Trump demands their souls, and they happily hand them over. In trying to dehumanize the rest of us, they have destroyed themselves. Most, of course, will ever admit it. 

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Non-violence works

Pretti’s death is devastating, especially so close after the death of Renee Good. But, as hard as it may be to see this right now, it also offers more evidence that the only kind of resistance that will work is nonviolent. I’ve seen too many people on social media dogpiling folks on the ground, such as Will Stancil, for arguing that nonviolence must continue. But he’s right. 

It can feel temporarily satisfying to imagine a situation where someone pulls a gun to defend themselves, instead of being shot in the back, as Alex Pretti apparently was. But that would only make things worse for the resistance. The Trump administration is looking for any excuse to call its thugs and enforcers the “real” victims. By denying them violent responses, protesters are  making that a lot more difficult.

Just look at how the administration blamed Pretti for his own death because he was carrying a holstered weapon. It might have worked, if the killing hadn’t been filmed from multiple angles, indisputable evidence that he died with his phone in his hand, not a gun. Even Republicans are having trouble pretending that it was noble, or even defensible, to shoot a peaceful protester in the back for the non-crime of trying to help a woman get up off the ground. 

I don’t want to get over my skis here, but we can see a few signs that the Trump administration is starting to understand that all this is backfiring on them. They wanted videos of chaos they could use to claim that “the left” is out of control. Instead, they’re churning out endless evidence of how they are terrorizing innocent people. Now top Border Patrol official Greg Bovino is reportedly leaving, after weeks of filming himself abusing Minneapolis residents — and Trump himself seems to be grasping at an excuse to get out. 

This may not be over yet, of course. Minneapolis serves as some kind of punching bag for Stephen Miller’s deep, weird psychological issues, and he’s clearly running the show at the White House. But the pressure within the GOP to leave Minnesota alone is growing — and that’s happening because people in the Twin Cities have shown immense discipline by remaining nonviolent. 

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What we're reading this week

• “‘The Superhuman President,’” Ben Terris, New York

• “State Terror Has Arrived,” M. Gessen, New York Times

• “Yes, It’s Fascism,” Jonathan Rauch, Atlantic

• “Move Over Childless Cat Ladies. There’s a New Broad in Town,” Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, Contrarian

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