Americans are shocked to discover authoritarianism did not stop at the color line

In today’s edition, I’m going to try something different.

Instead of an essay, analysis or interview, I’m going to offer diary-like entries. The reason is practical, but also artistic, if you will indulge the term. These diary entries reflect how my mind works – vestiges, observations, random thoughts – sometimes interconnected but more often not. I wrote them on Bluesky before they appeared here, but have expanded and modified nearly all of them in order to give the impression of a beginning, middle and end. 

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Saturday, January 24, before Alex Pretti was killed.

• I wish white Americans would connect the dots: between a cop murdering George Floyd and an ICE officer murdering Renee Good. Most white people didn’t believe they’d be subject to institutional evil. They ignored a racist backlash that gained momentum and reelected Donald Trump. Will they see and prevent the next backlash? I can’t say I’m hopeful about it.
• White American should educate themselves on the meaning of “race traitor” and what white power has done, and is currently doing, to those of us who are disloyal to it. White power does not recognize a diversity of opinions and interests. You are a friend or an enemy. Even sympathy can be seen as an act of betrayal. I think liberals generally underestimate the role of “race traitors” in white supremacy.

Saturday, January 24, after Alex Pretti was killed.

• Key details: ICE shot Pretti in the back. He was on the ground, on his knees, restrained. He did not “brandish” his gun. He was unarmed. One of the CBP officers took it. (Pretti had a legal permit.) Another officer stood directly over him and shot him in the back. He was shot again and again after collapsing. Then one asked “where’s the gun?”
• In my view, the focus on the “poor training” overlooks intent. It’s said that if ICE officers had better training, they wouldn’t have killed Good and Pretti. That’s wrong morally and politically. They intend to kill. They are merely looking for opportunities. They must be forced to prove otherwise. Even George Will gets it. Why can’t some Democrats?
• When moderates focus on training, they give ICE the benefit of the doubt. Why do that? What outcome do moderates hope for with “better training”? As of now, the murder and mayhem in Minneapolis is amateurish. With “better training,” it would become professional.
• Perhaps the worst thing about the "better training" criticism of ICE/CBP is that it leaves a political opportunity unexplored. Moderate Democrats should accuse them of the worst intentions to force the regime to prove the allegations wrong. That would control the debate.

Sunday, January 25, in the aftermath of Pretti’s death.

• If ICE/CBP continues its campaign of violence without resistance from local law enforcement, all cops are going to be met with skepticism from the very people — white, middle-class, property-owning NIMBY types — who have stood by them every time one of them killed a Black man. There’s potential for state and local business elites to be in open revolt against their own police departments. That hasn’t been conceivable but it is now. No one knows what chaos would be in store.
• This is an opportunity for liberals to push back against the “originally stated goal” of deporting only immigrants who have committed violent crimes. That was a lie. The murder and mayhem in Minneapolis is the evidence of that. It’s time to end the era of immigration understood as a matter of crime and punishment, and begin a new era in which immigration is understood as a matter of freedom and opportunity.
• I think Noah Berlatsky is right. “Communities targeted by ICE should be granted citizenship immediately,” he said. “This is both a matter of justice and an imperative if we're going to crush fascism.” That should be the moderate position. These people want to be Americans. They want to work for it, even pay for it (indeed, they are paying for it with their taxes). Make them all Americans now to end this crisis.

Monday, January 26.

• Economist Trevon Logan said: “I once asked my late uncle what he thought ended the legal Jim Crow era. He immediately responded that the murders of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner in 1964 were the moment Jim Crow died. When I asked him why he said: ]When white folks fight white folks, it changes everything. Enough was enough.’”
• Historian Kevin Kruse said: “When I teach Vietnam, I explain that opposition to the war really grew in fits and starts. Some big rallies and visible protests, but also a steady stream of celebrities and ordinary folks breaking with their priors and taking a new stand. This last month, this last week, feels like a real shift.”
• I don’t mean to be a killjoy but we all felt a shift after George Floyd was murdered and the whole country seemed to be waking up. That energy combined with anti-Trump energy to elect Joe Biden. Then came the racist backlash by elites, softening the ground for Trump’s revival.
• The biggest difference between the Floyd era and now is that the murder victims are white, and white people won’t put up with being treated like George Floyd. I suppose something is shifting, but it won’t last if white people keep hoarding equality and justice. Can they make the connection between a cop killing Floyd and ICE/CBP killing Good and Pretti? Can they see the same evil affects them, too?

Tuesday, January 27.

• Composer Frank Wilhoit in Crooked Timber in 2018: “As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny.”
• Elsewhere, Wilhoit says the law protects inpeople and punishes outpeople. That is the goal of conservatism. Inequality is not only good, but equality itself is against “natural law.” Once you understand that inequality is the goal of conservatism, it’s easy being a liberal.
• Once you understand the goal of inequality is indefensible in a country founded on equality, you understand the importance of lying – or as Wilhoit put it, maintaining “the elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy.” With Good’s and Pretti’s deaths, many lies told to keep “respectable white people” in the GOP camp could fall to pieces.

Wednesday, January 28.

• “Respectable white people” are white people who place the highest value on their social status and reputations for being respectable in the eyes of other respectable white people. More commonly known as swing voters or independent voters, they represent the great globular middle of American politics. They are essential to the long-term viability of the Republicans, but key to holding them is preventing them from being fully aware that the GOP is a white man’s party. This is why conservatives in the United States invest so much in lying.
• We really should not underestimate the impact of two white people getting murdered by the state. The Republicans are recoiling. The Democrats are on a war footing. (In the Senate, threats of a government shutdown. In the House, threats of impeachment.) For God's sake, Trump suggested Pretti deserved death for possessing a gun. White people getting murdered could upend a lot.
• Respectable white people are now keenly aware that the logical conclusion of a decades' worth of anti-immigrant hatred includes murdering white people and they don't like it. They are shocked to discover that authoritarianism did not stop at the color line.