We are watching the country fall apart before our eyes.

Live, on TV. Which only adds to how surreal it all feels. And no one seems to be able to do anything about it.

Federal agents shot and killed a 37-year-old man in Minneapolis on Saturday, Jan. 24. It was the third shooting by federal immigration agents, and the second fatal one, this month. Watching cable news talking heads bloviate about a situation they know little about yet is maddening, and predictable — we know how the various networks frame things (like Fox News, whew, practically begging to send in the National Guard).

And the live footage on all the networks was both scary and invaluable. As well as, like everything else in contemporary America, the subject of passionate disagreement.

Like the fatal shooting of Renée Good on Jan. 7, the shooting Saturday was captured on video by bystanders. As in Good's case, there is massive disagreement on what that video shows, or at least what it means. As they did with Good, federal officials wasted no time in characterizing the man as a "domestic terrorist," which is hard to reconcile with what the videos reveal. It's somehow become controversial to believe what you see with your own eyes, which is one of the weirder developments of the last decade.

The widely seen videos of Saturday's shooting show masked agents wrestling the man, identified by several outlets as an ICU nurse named Alex Pretti, to the ground on a snowy sidewalk. After more struggle, agents shoot the man.

The Department of Homeland Security said the man was carrying a gun. Open carry........

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