On Jan. 7, Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed inside her vehicle by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Minneapolis. Between Good and the officer who killed her were not only bullets, but two incompatible visions of the United States: one that sees protest as a democratic duty, and another that treats dissent as a threat to be neutralized.

Good took her last breath less than a mile from where George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, uttered his last words—“I can’t breathe”—as Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck in 2020. For a brief moment in the protests that followed, the country appeared to stand at the edge of a reckoning that promised accountability, restraint in policing, and a more inclusive understanding of who democracy is meant to protect. 

That vision provoked a fierce backlash. It is that backlash—hardened, organized, and now fully empowered—that I believe defines President Donald Trump’s second term, advancing not through persuasion, but through force against anything deemed oppositional.

Good was a white 37-year-old mother of three, described by her loved ones as “one of the kindest people,” “compassionate,” and a “devoted Christian.” She was one of countless Americans moved to protest the detention of their neighbors and the

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