If agents of the federal government can murder a 37-year-old woman in broad daylight who, as videotapes show, was merely trying to get out of their way, they can murder you.
Even if Donald Trump and his vice president and his secretary of homeland security all claim, contrary to the videotapes, that Renee Nicole Good was trying to kill an agent who acted in self-defense, they could make up the same about you.
Even if Trump describes her as a “professional agitator” and his goons call her a “domestic terrorist,” they could say the same about you regardless of your political views or activism. If you have left-wing political views and are an activist, you’re in greater danger.
How can we believe what the FBI turns up in its investigation, when the FBI is working for Trump and is headed by one of his goons, and is investigating possible connections between Renee Good and groups that have been protesting Trump’s immigration enforcement?
What credence can we give federal officials who are blocking local and state investigators from reviewing evidence they’re collecting?
You could be murdered because Trump’s attorney general has defined “domestic terrorism” to include impeding law enforcement officers. What if you’re merely standing in the way — in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or maybe you’re engaging in non-violent civil disobedience?
In October, Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen in Chicago, was in her car trying to warn people about ICE when she collided with a Border Patrol vehicle. Federal officials say she “rammed” the car. Her lawyers say she was sideswiped by it.
The agent then got out of his car and shot her five times. She survived. The Justice Department then charged her with assaulting a federal officer.
You could be next. All of us need to realize this. The people who are being assaulted and murdered are abiding the law.
The regime has also been grabbing people from their homes who are legally in the United States with permanent status — not just visas permitting them to work or study here but green cards — and whisking them away to prison because they’ve engaged in constitutionally protected speech the regime doesn’t like.
This is what happened to Mahmoud Khalil — who graduated from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, has a green card, and whose wife is an American citizen.
Plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents appeared at his apartment building on March 8 and then detained him without charges in a Louisiana ICE detention facility for three and a half months. (He missed his graduation and the birth of his first child.)
The Trump regime continues to try to deport him. A federal court heard arguments on Oct. 22 in the regime’s ongoing deportation case against him but has not issued a verdict.
Khalil did nothing illegal. He was in the United States legally. He has never been charged with a crime. He expressed his political point of view — peacefully, non-violently, non-threateningly. That’s supposed to be permitted — dare I say even encouraged? — in a democracy.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump conceded Khalil was snatched up and sent off because of his politics.
“This is the first arrest of many to come,” wrote Trump. “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it.”
Trump could just as well arrest and expel permanent residents who voice support for, say, transgender people or DEI or “woke” or anything else the regime finds “anti-American” and offensive.
What’s to stop the Trump regime from arresting you for, say, advocating the replacement of Republicans in Congress in 2026 and electing a Democrat to the presidency in 2028?
Renee Nicole Good was murdered. Marimar Martinez was shot, but survived. Mahmoud Khalil was arrested and jailed, and is still fighting deportation. There are many others. The next could be you or someone you love.
What’s at stake isn’t just American democracy. It’s also your safety and security and that of your friends and loved ones. This is personal — to every one of us.
A dictatorship knows no bounds.
We must commit to peacefully fighting this regime, to ending Republican control of Congress in 2026, and to sending this dangerous gang packing in 2028 — assuming we’re still free and alive by then.
- Robert Reich is a emeritus professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
- Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org
