The right to peaceably assemble and protest government grievances is right there in our First Amendment:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
But not according to President Trump.
He has repeatedly defamed Renee Nicole Good, the 37-year-old poet and mother of three shot dead by an ICE officer, as “probably a paid agitator.” He maligned Good as “radical violent” despite the fact that she had no criminal or violent record. Vice President JD Vance similarly denounced Good as a “deranged leftist.” Does this mean our Number One and Number Two executives think it’s okay to shoot someone if they are in fact an agitator (paid or not), a radical or a leftist?
Good encountered ICE after dropping off her 6-year-old at school. Her wife, Rebecca Good, wrote of the encounter, “On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns.” Ample videos and bystanders contest the federal government’s narrative that this poet suddenly sought to run over an agent who was forced in self-defense to kill her. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem nevertheless called her actions “domestic terrorism.”
State and local police have been barred from the investigation while the Trump administration, which has already made countless biased statements, puts itself in charge. It is gratifying that the Twin Cities and the state of Minnesota have filed a lawsuit. “We allege that the obvious targeting of Minnesota for our diversity, for our democracy and our differences of opinion with the federal government is a violation of the Constitution and of federal law,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said at a news conference.
The cavalier dismissal of the rights of U.S. protesters is business as usual for this administration. Who could forget how, during his first term, peaceful protesters were tear-gassed for a Trump photo op so he could hold up a bible in front of a church? Some 1,000 protests were held this past weekend in the wake of Good’s shooting. Fortunately, no one was tear-gassed or killed by federal agents this time.
Ironically, as Trump castigates protesters at home and defends the shooting of Good, he is positioning himself as a champion of peaceful protesters in Iran, where the theocratic regime has slaughtered at least hundreds, if not thousands, in recent days.
Also sacrosanct is supposed to be the rule of law.
But as we have recently seen, the current administration thinks that might makes right. Stephen Miller, Trump’s sinister deputy chief of staff, openly says that we live in a world “governed by strength and force.” He stated this approvingly in the context of planning more violent actions following the U.S. removal of the Venezuelan president, such as stealing Greenland from Denmark.
In a long interview with the New York Times last week, Trump literally said he was a law unto himself. When asked if there were any limits on his global power, Trump said: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That’s a terrifying statement.
