These two deaths were tragic but they were not the result of chaos or a series of random mishaps. They were the result of a policy that most Americans find profoundly offensive. So the deaths were the fruit of that poisonous tree. It really is that simple.
You write that the deaths will not alter the "discourse. That's obviously false. They have already altered the "discourse." Would you be writing about ICE absent these deaths? Probably not.
In 1970 a large portion of Americans found the Vietnam War "profoundly offensive." The students at Kent State felt their righteousness protected them, they were proven wrong. After days of clashes between students and troops, and outright violence by activists, including the burning of the ROTC building, someone pulled a trigger followed by a volley of panic shooting by the troops. And Americans divided into two camps about the event. I think the parallels are very similar.
Not sure what your point is but that was not Kat’s or mine. We were not discussing morality to my knowledge only whether they were comparable events. In the wake of Kent state you had the Hard Hat Riots and the rise of Nixons silent majority. Not an uprising of Americans demanding an end of the war. Not so sure it will play out differently this time.
It's a really lame trick how you came here to argue and somehow appointed yourself the judge of the argument you started. I promise you do not look smart here.
I did not wish to ague but to comment on a flawed train of thought about something important. I am a close reader and when I see sloppy writing that might influence people who do not read closely or critically I have a responsibility to point it out.
Do you think the below statement is accurate?
“deaths that alters the trajectory of the discourse and the future not even the littlest bit.”
I think I might understand what you're asking but I'm not entirely sure. That's half the sentence and doesn't quite stand on its own.
If you're asking if I think it's accurate that being upset over how things ought to be instead of how they are [...] alters the discourse but not the future then yes, I think that's accurate. If that's not what you're asking then please clarify your question.
"They were the result of a policy that most Americans find profoundly offensive."
What I find profoundly offensive Is that the Left insists on categorizing this behavior of harassment, stalking, hindering and interfering as protesting.
What I find profoundly offensive is that the standards to which we expect to hold law enforcement have been completely abandoned. People get lawless when they see lawlessness, and illegal detentions, escalatory behavior , no accountability, and narratives like Rosenfield’s that declare something ‘as fact’ only to be forced to make a correction because they’re spouting lies by the mouths of federal officials anxious to bypass any investigation. Curious, that impulse.
This has been the line since 2016. Democrats are to blame for x, y, z, and a NEW, great, amazing and frankly people have said unbelievable letter of the alphabet invented by Trump, the GREATEST alphabetter America has EVER seen. The BEST letter! Doing so much for our COUNTRY. It already has the HIGHEST ratings! EVERYBODY is talking about how it’s better than the other 26 combined … In 3 years you won’t even NEED the other letters!!!
Yes, Democrats are always responsible for Trump’s actions. I guess he’s as feeble as they say if the man, in a decade of public service, is too weak to ever take accountability for the consequences of his decisions, actions, and policies.
I cannot make sense of your response. Is it supposed to be mocking, teasing, upsetting? Do you assume that those who disagrees with you to be diehard MAGA people? There's still the common-sense, center of the political spectrum.
But no, democrats are not to blame for Trump. Trump is to blame for Trump. The whole “they’re asking for it” narrative was exhausting, now it’s stupid.
To be fair… Tim Walz is encouraging his constituents to attack law enforcement. He is getting people hurt and killed because he is a corrupt and selfish man.
Republicans shouldn’t have to bend over backwards to prevent progressive violence.
That’s not fair, Adele. You stoop to a personal attack on Tim Walz.
ICE’s actions are responsible and so are the people directing and encouraging and telling ICE they are immune from any act of violence.
I think you know the actions of ICE and of the Trump administration in this matter are wrong but you just can’t accept it.
You can rightfully criticize Biden for his lack of border control and I will join you in that criticism. I treasure my ability to assess reality. It makes me feel mentally powerful.
….Trump is doing the exact same thing as the Obama administration. ICE was never controversial until Democrats needed a cause to rally behind.
That’s the thing. I *do* support what ICE is doing. That’s what I voted for. The difference is that now we have this cohort of people in this country who fancy themselves as resisting a tyrannical government. Why? I think it has to do with privilege and boredom. It seems like a bunch of brainwashed, entitled weirdos pretending to be heroic because they’ve watched too many movies. It’s contemptible behavior. Also. Tim Walz is a complete dirtbag for what he is doing to federal law enforcement.
How do you describe “most” Americans? It seems like Trump won a democratic election on the immigration issue…
Just because people in your bubble agree with you doesn’t mean they represent America. I voted for safe borders and immigration enforcement. I don’t want to see my vote negated by radicals screaming in the street. If you support a more lax immigration policy, then vote. That’s how it should work in a democratic society.
All this logic could add up if Trump hadn’t tanked the first bipartisan effort, ready for passage, to address immigration (in maybe decades?) before he was even elected.
That would make sense if there wasn’t already immigration law that Biden chose to ignore. What Trump is doing is enforcing the law which was passed by a democratically elected legislature. Again, if you want to change the law… make an argument. The performative virtue signaling cosplay of progressives has been truly sickening to behold.
Well as I said they tried to pass the first attempt at comprehensive law reform. Trump tanked it. Strange.
Biden didn’t ignore “law on the books,” (example?) he created his own priorities as a president is want to do. He focused on national security and violent crime — his prerogative. Trump, likewise, created a number of executive orders that opposed the previous administration’s policies. Neither is “breaking the law” until a court says so. Is it different when Biden writes EOs than when Trump does, and why?
None of that last paragraph is germane to my comment so we can both free ourselves from those sentiments (unless performative virtue signaling is illegal somehow?? If it’s performance, that’s freedom of expression, right? I’m sicked out by the right’s authoritarian cosplay as cover for wags they’re enriching themselves but that’s really neither here nor there in this conversation)
Who is cosplaying? ICE? They are doing their job. Biden opened the border without a single vote. Prior to Biden, this was a bipartisan issue. Obama still holds the record for most deportations. Your contention that more laws needed to be signed is… silly and misguided. The laws were already there. Biden decided to ignore them, which is why Trump was elected.
This makes zero sense. A bipartisan bill was introduced *during* Biden. He Opened the border without a single vote? How many EOs has Trump signed without a single ‘vote’? You need to recognize some equivalence here. They both worked within their presumed power to achieve their conference goals.
Who did Biden fire? Laws? That’s … not a thing. I think this discussion is pretty futile as nothing you’re saying is grounded in reality, or basic civics. Confused by your interpretation of my responses, since you have misinterpreted my contention.
But we do, in fact, need comprehensive immigration reform and that will only happen through the legislature. Anyway, Godspeed, may you be blessed with more knowledge about how government works, and quickly.
I don't know, Kat. I remarked on your Renee Good column in agreement. But I think a new reality settled in between Good and Pretti, and I think the protesters in Minneapolis feel that they are protecting their hometown from an ugly autocracy. They rationalize their likelihood of survival the way of any soldier at war, but they also are hyper aware of the risks. Very few soldiers choose to die, but all who lose their lives in the pursuit of justice and a future for their homes merit honor and remembrance, and not pitied as naive players in a video game gone wrong. What is happening is real, and it is bad, and right must win.
Well, this isn’t really about the protesters, but I also find your argument confusing. Your takeaway from the footage of Pretti’s final moments is that he considered himself to be at war with ICE and was willing to die for the cause?
Willing to die is a bit stronger than I intend, but knowingly accepting some risks to stand against an authoritarian force of thuggery that is threatening his home city? Yes, I think he was doing that. And I don’t understand how this can’t be about the protesters. Now you are confusing me. If you haven’t already, you might read the Homans article in today’s NYT. It really describes well what it is like to be living in that city.
I notice that there was a comment on your X feed that read your column exactly the way that I did. So that makes me feel better. Appreciate the dialogue. It’s as important as anything now days!
"Willing to die for a cause" is precisely what Pretti should've been willing to do in bringing a gun to that protest against poorly trained, often thuggish and panicky agents who already gunned down one of his fellow Minneapolis residents, but I'm guessing that wasn't the case, that showing up strapped was just a lot of LARPing - until it wasn't - and ultimately all he did was introduce another lethal element into an already volitile situation that contributed to him getting killed.
We'll never really know, of course. I wish I could ask him.
Yeah, and I don’t know what anyone is ever thinking when they carry a gun out in public, because I don’t own a gun. It seems ridiculous to me in any circumstances and I wish it weren’t legal, but alas it is.
I'm a 2A supporter and perfectly fine with people carrying in most contexts, including arming themselves against a tyrannical government, but hoo boy, you better be *really* prepared for what that means and everything it entails.
Why did Pretti bring a gun to that protest? Was he really willing to fire on federal agents? Really?
Because he'd almost certainly be killed immediately, and if by some miracle he wasn't, then what? It can be hard enough to defend yourself in a perfectly justified act of self-defense against a criminal, but against a federal agent, he'd most likely be looking at life in prison, maybe even the death penalty.
We probably will never know whether he specifically and intentionally brought it to the protest. Maybe he carries it wherever he goes. Mayne he carries it whenever he goes to the grocery store and that’s where he planned to go after he was killed.
But here’s an idea. The supreme court allows prohibitions at public gatherings including protests. What a great time would it be for a bipartisan effort at a federal law to make this sort of carry illegal!
The federal government is not an occupying army. The federal government is the supreme law of the land. Immigration law applies everywhere regardless of local feeling. Organized opposition to federal authority is known as insurrection.
Under the constitution, federal law is supreme. I.E. if there’s a federal law that says certain people are to be deported, and a state or local government disagrees, doesn’t matter. The federal law is supreme.
Seems kind of off to say that the federal government can boss states around, and there's nothing they can do about it.
And one thing the feds definitely can't do is violate the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 8th Amendments, which they have done. They also violated the DHS's rule for lethal force, when they opened fire after he was disarmed. If they can't follow the Constitution, and they can't follow their own rules, what legitimacy do they even have?
There are whole bodies of law on separation of powers and such. You’re reinventing the wheel here. Regardless, there is simply no question that federal officers can go into any state or city to enforce federal law. (The feds cannot, however, co-opt or order state authorities to enforce federal law, so in a sense the feds cannot “boss states around.” Again this has all been worked out and you are adding nothing.)
As for the Pretti shooting specifically, it appears to me that the officer who disarmed Pretti had a negligent or accidental discharge of Pretti’s pistol—which is a design known to have issues with accidental firing. The other officers, having just heard someone say “he’s got a gun,” heard the shot, thought Pretti had fired, and killed him. Tragic and perhaps there should be consequences for the officers, but far from the execution people think they witnessed.
They are acting as an occupying army. They are masked, heavily armed and aggressive. They escalate from 0 to 110 at a hair trigger. They wear paramilitary style uniforms out of step with the "police" they are supposed to be. They're mostly not from here. They do not treat the people as fellow citizens, only as obstacles to be pushed down, beaten, pepper sprayed, and shot.
Their mission is to occupy and terrorize our community and make an example of us because Trump hates our leaders and our particular immigrant community (with one of the lowest illegal populations, by the way.) And to stoke confrontation and create viral videos of LE EPIC ICE OWNING THE LIBS AND IMMIGRANTS!!!1 Well, they got their viral videos, didn't they?
They are masked because Antifa types dox, harass, and threaten them if they are identified. And they are on a bit of a hair trigger because of all the irresponsible rhetoric about them being Nazis and so forth. When people are talking and acting crazy about the police, it tends to put the police on edge. Have you noticed that these kinds of incidents are not happening in Texas, Florida, etc.? That’s because those jurisdictions are cooperating and people aren’t acting crazy.
You're disingenuous. Those are red states, the President is punishing blue states- he's not even trying to hide this. TX or FL don't have 3,000 agents running amok in a city where they outnumber the police force by 5x.
You're seriously defending masks- that's unAmerican. Police were not wearing masks even in the comparatively more violent and radical 60s and 70s. Only in very narrow circumstances like when raiding the Mafia or terrorists has this been normal. So the public is now being treated as (and called) terrorists by the administration.
It's the police's responsibility to be the well trained party, the de-escalators no matter what names they're called or if their feelings are hurt. To only use force, let alone deadly force as a last resort. These guys come on the scene and escalate peaceful interactions into violence in seconds. People who are just standing there watching or recording are viciously attacked.
It's deliberately done to provoke confrontation.
Fair minded observers can see this in almost every video that comes out. If you can't, you're not an honest broker.
More agents are necessary in cities where local authorities don’t cooperate and where the agents are confronted by mobs. Talk about disingenuous, the mask complaint is totally disingenuous. Police wore masks during Covid and no one cared. And neither Pretti nor Good were just bystanders or observers— both were actively obstructing federal law enforcement and subject to arrest.
If protesters don’t want to be treated as potentially violent lunatics, then they shouldn’t openly talk about how ICE isn’t legitimate law enforcement, but an occupying army that should be resisted with violence.
Cloaked in the language of empathy, perhaps, but really just a longer-winded version of the same thing as all the crowing MAGAs in the comment sections of the internet; that it’s his fault for engaging in risky behaviour (that’s only risky because ICE is needlessly and unjustifiably killing people).
Many can’t even really pretend to think the shooting was actually justified this time, so instead they ruminate wistfully on how sad it is that silly protestors thought they could protest when ICE were around- don’t they know ICE shoot people? Oh, if only we knew whom to unequivocally blame!
Any focus at all on how much the guy who was executed for civil disobedience was asking for it by engaging in the risky behaviour of bringing a legal weapon to a legal protest where murderous trigger-happy goons were around is fundamentally nearly identical to focus on how the woman with the short skirt was asking for it walking down that dark alley. If behaviour is risky because of bad people who are liable to do bad things to you, then focus on the risky behaviour rather than the deliberate wrongs being committed is wrongheaded, repulsive and juvenile.
In your reflexive need for the appearance of ”moderation” conferred by a crude splitting of the difference between two positions, you’re openly equivocating about the summary execution of American protestors because they should have known better than to be out in public protesting and engaging in civil disobedience.
Sometimes, events are just clear moral wrongs, with one party to blame, making attempts at “nuance” no more than water-muddying contrarianism.
I wish you had enough clarity of moral thought (or enough willingness to prioritise moral truth over social and economic factors) to recognise this as one of them. I wish you would reflect on how you’ve been audience captured to the extent that you’re taking the same position as the most zealous of blind Trump worshippers (at least the ones too sophisticated to just say yay dead commies), and actively trying to redirect some portion of the blame to the victim for the crime of engaging in non-violent civil disobedience. But I’ve read and interacted with you enough times by now to know that you don’t, and you won’t.
Thanks for a bit of sanity in this tub of pseudo-intellectual morally bankrupt hogwash. This article is a good reminder that people can be both smart enough to trick themselves and dumb enough to fall for it.
A shame that so many people clearly reach for this pseudo-intellectual garbage when confronted with something that might jolt them out of their ideological fug, but an outrage to watch well-funded centrists dutifully shuffle to the new middle as the Overton window is wrenched ever rightward. After some point, it’s hard not to think they’re patiently waiting for it to reach the position they’ve quietly held the whole time.
Doesn't it seem like this sort of loss-of-touch-with-reality is more common on the political left?
I wonder if it is because the Left's narrative has been largely supported by big institutions: public school, elite universities, NPR, legacy media and even Tech. Add to that the self-reinforcing echo-chamber of the internet algorithm, it wouldn't be hard to never hear anything that deviated from the standard leftist Correct Way to Think.
It can be hard to imagine that reality could be any other way. Everyone and everything supports the progressive view--especially in the Twin Cities Minnesota (where I lived for 10 years).
I suspect that conservatives typically face more open opposition and argument, as a consequence of progressive institutional capture.
Hard to say! I think the other side is engaged to a certain extent in their own reality-free LARP— they genuinely do not seem to know or care how much the average person finds ICE’s tactics to be horrifying— but the purity-testing aspect of it is, I agree, more prevalent among progressives who (generalizing) have had less practice in getting along with people outside their tribe for the reasons you mention.
Most intellectualized "everyone is a sheeple, the world has gone crazy except me and my conservative friends"-ass masturbatory take I've ever read. Congratulations. You did something.
"The left" is constantly fighting - not only among themselves, but among the current dominant media: Fox, CBS et al. What are you smoking? What the hell? Have you ever met a "leftist"?
Good luck in the overall Oppression Olympics, I'll be rooting for you.
“The thing that distinguishes a martyr from a casualty of war is desire: the martyr wishes for death, while the casualty is killed while trying to escape it”
Have you never heard of Emmett Till? He didn’t desire to become a martyr, and yet he did. His death galvanized the nation. Pretti and Good do not need to have wanted to become martyrs for their deaths to take on historic significance and meaning.
Of course I've heard of Emmett Till, but I would argue he's a different type of martyr from the martyr-for-a-cause I'm talking about here, and I suspect the circumstances of the protester deaths in Minneapolis will make it hard to put them in that latter category. I'd love to be wrong!
Thanks for the reply. There are differences to Till to be sure, although I would still argue that most martyrs are made after the fact and not through intention. And I do think you are underestimating the bravery of the protestors, especially after Good’s death, when the stakes could not be more clear.
This I find perplexing; I haven’t said anything about the protesters’ bravery or lack thereof at all, but you might infer from my description of Pretti as a casualty of war that I think they’re more brave than not.
I could be misinterpreting your piece, but my overall impression is that you’re saying protestors are engaging in protests as if they were immune to the reality of bullets - as though they had plot armor. If that’s the case, if they’re blundering into this unaware, then I think that would diminish their bravery. Knowing the threat full well, and facing it regardless- that is enormously brave, and I do think protestors are fully aware at this point that there are no restraints on ICE, and they could die.
Your entire essay is about the protestors believing they have plot shields on account of being the protagonists in their stories, that they are, by that implication, foolish rather than brave.
This Nathan Thurm “I never said that” schtick is pretty obscene in this context. I can’t seem to go full Cathy Young on you, but I’m getting sorely tempted.
I’m sorry, but no, it’s not about the protesters. It is about how we as a culture view everything —including the protests—as content, and reach for satisfying narratives to explain what we’re seeing instead of telling the truth about it. You can tell that this is what the essay is about because I *never* talk about what the protesters thought, except to say that Alex Pretti clearly didn’t desire or anticipate what happened to him. Instead, I talk about how we, the audience, think about various events in narrative terms— including but not limited to the protests, because the impulse to tell tidy stories about real people goes much deeper than that. That’s why the essay includes one section about screenwriting craft and another about Alex Honnold that don’t relate to the protesters at all, but do relate to this central thesis.
I will readily concede that this is a complex idea, one that requires a deeper kind of reading and thought than many people seem inclined to engage in right now. But it *is* the idea. I simply didn’t write what you claim I did. If you want to rage out at me about this à la Cathy Young, I obviously can’t stop you, but it seems like an awful waste of everyone’s time.
I’ve only recently discovered your writing, and I’m here to appreciate your viewpoint. I’ve been thinking about your FP piece about Good since I read it, and I lean toward agreeing. This piece continues that line of thinking. I do think you’ve arrived at somewhere important linking what people watch on their phones to the “unreality” of their actions during protest/resistance/observation/direct action. I don’t think, for the most part, anyone wants to hear this nuance or accept it as a way they have been manipulated, but that’s on them. Keep writing about it.
This bad essay is summarized well by this comment:
"Too many intellectuals kneel at the false idol of moderation in all things, which just leaves you standing for truly nothing. Sometimes life throws extremes at you that require extreme stances, having the courage to say with your chest "There is no middle ground here" is a courage many struggle to have."
You claim to agree that Pretti’s killing was wrong, but lament the “fast and furious” social media posts… why shouldn’t people be outraged he was killed? Is expecting federal officers not to kill with impunity a wish for an alternate reality, a “quantum universe”? Isn’t that the expectation that every member of a liberal democratic society should have?
You seem to wish to sidestep these violations by ICE as just “how things are,” instead of “how they ought to be”—so that you don’t have to defend the indefensible. You agree Pretti’s killing is wrong, but you’d rather everyone didn’t talk at all about how wrong it is. Why? Is that because it’s more difficult to spin up some kind of obfuscation about?
Your argument boils down to “fuck around and find out,” while wheedling that you wish it was otherwise. Not only this logically incoherent, it’s cowardly: why not come out and say the protestors don’t have the rights they so arrogantly assumed they had, instead of running interference?
Why don't I come out and say this bizarre and offensive thing, even though it's not even close to what I believe to be true and bears no resemblance to anything I've ever written or said? Truly, Greta, this is a mystery.
I quoted your piece a few times in my comment. You write that ICE’s actions are wrong, that people should not be killed with impunity—but you don’t blame ICE for the violence.
You call Pretti’s killing the result of “avoidable errors on the part of all involved, any of whom could have made different choices resulting in different outcomes.” Yet you conclude with a reminder to the protestors that if they keep this up they’re going to get shot. Seems like you’re really only interested in reforming the choices made by the protestors, not ICE. Why pretend to equivocate?
As your response suggests, you know your position can’t be defended, so you’re muddying the waters instead. Most people can plainly see it’s just not that complicated.
I cannot agree that plucking two or three words out of context and saying they "seem" to argue some point -- one that is either not in the piece or even explicitly contradicted by it -- counts as "quoting." In truth, you seem belligerently opposed to understanding my actual arguments: even when I'm right here, explaining them to you, your response is to accuse me of lying. It's truly bizarre.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to engage with your criticism of the actual substance of my actual written words if you have one. But at the moment, I'm just kind of confused about what you're doing here or what you want to accomplish.
Well, you haven’t addressed any of my claims, but I’m happy to do you the decency of addressing yours. On top of quoting you clearly (and in good faith) in my previous comments, here’s my outlined points—would be happy to see you rebut them, instead of complaining I misunderstand you. Let me know what I misconstrued:
1. You lament that the social media posts about Pretti’s death came “fast and furious,” and say that we need to “reckon with how things are” rather than “weep over how things ought to be .” This language implies the grief and anger over his killing is overblown. I asked you, why shouldn’t they be outraged, if (as you acknowledge) ICE killed him with impunity?
2. While you say that ICE shouldn’t be menacing protestors (“You should be able to heckle and antagonize ICE without risking your life in the bargain”), you ultimately locate the blame not with ICE but with protestors like Pretti, reprimanding them as children having a tantrum and warning: “You will not survive to see how the story ends; you will not be canonized in death.” But you only suggest reforming the choices made by the protestors, not ICE. Before you reach that conclusion, you acknowledge that “any of [the officers or Pretti] could have made different choices resulting in different outcomes”—why do you only warn off the protesters, if the blame is (at least) shared equally? I suggested your initial equivocation was false and gave you pretense to get to your real verdict, which is a reprimand and a dismissal.
3. You lament equally that the agent “pulled the trigger,” that ICE “charged across the street to confront Pretti,” and that Pretti was “there at all.” Was Pretti equally responsible for his death just by being present (with a permitted gun)?
I think my second point is why you say I’m misconstruing you; but I’m simply pointing out the contrast between what you concede and what you’re ultimately arguing—that because the protestors can be shot, they shouldn’t be there at all, and that their presence gives them equal responsibility for their own killing.
>>You lament that the social media posts about Pretti’s death came “fast and furious,” and say that we need to “reckon with how things are” rather than “weep over how things ought to be .” This language implies the grief and anger over his killing is overblown. I asked you, why shouldn’t they be outraged, if (as you acknowledge) ICE killed him with impunity?
I don't "lament" these things. I describe them, and also say in the piece that I share in the outrage. Surely you understand why it's hard for me to answer this question given that I think the premise is completely backwards and explicitly contradicted by the text.
>>While you say that ICE shouldn’t be menacing protestors (“You should be able to heckle and antagonize ICE without risking your life in the bargain”), you ultimately locate the blame not with ICE but with protestors like Pretti, reprimanding them as children having a tantrum and warning: “You will not survive to see how the story ends; you will not be canonized in death.” But you only suggest reforming the choices made by the protestors, not ICE. Before you reach that conclusion, you acknowledge that “any of [the officers or Pretti] could have made different choices resulting in different outcomes”—why do you only warn off the protesters, if the blame is (at least) shared equally? I suggested your initial equivocation was false and gave you pretense to get to your real verdict, which is a reprimand and a dismissal.
Here, too, you're mistaking a descriptive statement for a normative one. "You will not survive to see how the story ends" is a horrible truth stated plainly; nobody is being reprimanded or blamed, nor is ascribing blame the point of the post. I'm not writing about ICE, or the protesters, or the clash between the two. I'm writing about how the contemporary media landscape makes it dangerously easy for the rest of us to tell stories about these things instead of telling the truth.
>>You lament equally that the agent “pulled the trigger,” that ICE “charged across the street to confront Pretti,” and that Pretti was “there at all.” Was Pretti equally responsible for his death just by being present (with a permitted gun)?
Again, "lament" is a loaded word. I'm describing what happened, and how it wouldn't have happened if literally anyone involved had made different choices; more importantly, I'm doing this within a specific framework. The thesis of this piece is not "who is to blame for this horrific tragedy?" It's "what is the story we tell about this tragedy in order to understand it"? That's why the through line in each section, including the one about Alex Honnold summiting Taipei 101, is not the behavior of the players in any given event, but how the rest of us respond to it. Does this make sense?
I suspect that these answers will be unsatisfying to you because they don't comport with your reading of the piece, but if you can't bring yourself to believe I'm telling the truth, we really are at an impasse.
1. You say it’s hard to answer that because you clearly disagree in the text, but I honestly read you as being derisive of the outcry in both of the quotes I used. Are you saying you do think the outrage is justified?
2. You left out the more slanted part of your own quote—I’m trying to quote you fully in-context! “You will not survive to see how the story ends, you will not be canonized in death.” Is that also simply a horrible truth? I interpreted that as you referencing your earlier argument that the protestors are self-mythologizing (seeing themselves as having “plot armor”), and I think that’s a reasonable interpretation. I imagine you included that to remind the protestors that they’re not heroes—that they’re capable of being shot, (you will not survive, you will not be canonized). I think that reading of the protestors (or, in your framing, of the protestors’ relationship to contemporary media as it influences their perspective on the protests) is dismissive. I guess I find the suggestion that the protestors are showing up out of some failure of media literacy rather than moral outrage on behalf of their neighborsto be both ludicrous and insulting. Pretti was an ICU nurse—seems both pretty in-touch with the nitty-gritty of life and down to earth. Is your diagnosis really that he was spending too much time on Netflix?
3. You say that you’re not interested in assigning blame, but you don’t address here how your own argument implicitly assigns blame. We don’t need a story to understand the tragedy—as you said “the moral clarity loud and insistent as a ringing bell.”
The last I’ll say is that rather than engaging in a debate on the underlying assumptions in your argument, you’ve made a series of elisions. I’ve asked many specific questions, all of which you have declined to answer on their face. I find it hard to believe that a post about the shooting of Alex Pretti somehow isn’t actually “writing about ICE, or the protesters, or the clash between the two.” You say, rather, it’s about the stories we tell instead of the truth. Now I ask you to be specific about the details of the truth (which I imagine would benefit from a firm contrast from these misleading stories) and you say they’re beside your point. I think those details just are beyond what you’re prepared to debate.
My reading of the piece takes the assumptions you make about the facts of the killing as your belief. But when I ask you about your interpretation, suddenly they’re incidental to the argument.
I think I disagree with your first paragraph in section III. There are videos showing the moments before they dogpiled him, and the last thing he does before he gets blasted with pepper spray is put himself between the Border Patrol agent and a woman the agent had just violently shoved. I'm sure the instinct for self-preservation took over once he was on the ground, but that action does strike me as a willingness to put his life at risk for others.
I don’t think we disagree? This entire incident seems to have been the result of a series of impulsive decisions on several fronts, including Pretti’s interposing himself between ICE and the woman— unless your argument is that he went into that interaction strategically, expecting and intending to be killed?
It's a shame that someone had to needlessly die but it is impossible to deny that carrying a gun (whether w/wo a license ) to a volatile street confrontation was dumb.
This was beautifully written even if the assumption that the people preventing the police from enforcing immigration law are the good guys is a little overstated.
Is the Kent State person talking about blanks as in fake bullets? What is “blank”?
A blank round is one that produces a muzzle flash and a loud noise when fired, but which doesn't fire a projectile (the "bullet" in a normal round). I find it odd that the person in question thought the National Guard would be using blank rounds, as I'm not aware of any instance of their being used for crowd control. Perhaps they got confused between blanks and rubber bullets.
The primary danger is that if anything gets lodged in the barrel of the gun, it will be propelled out with the force of a bullet when the trigger is pressed (this is what killed Brandon Lee on the set of The Crow). Even a properly loaded blank can deafen you and make you blind if it goes off in close proximity to your head. And yes, there was an actor who fired a blank cartridge into his temple, killing him (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon-Erik_Hexum).
Thankyou for this, KR. Added to my learn on considerably. But wait a minute, dds they really say "like" ("It was like mass hysteria"l like we do today back in 1970?.That I never knew
I think you're right that Alex Pretti didn't need to be shot, but there's something rare going on in Minneapolis. The idea that a person can (or that it would be safe to) fight off four officers, or that they would have blank rounds in their weapons is just a bizarre mindset. I don't think that perspective is shared by most Americans.
I am afraid that both sides really are looking for martyrs. On one side are anti-ICE, Minnesota government, and progressives encouraging people not just to protest or record what's happening, but to get involved and pressure law enforcement over what they're doing. You can see it in the impunity these people have in putting their hands on DHS officers or entering their cordons.
On the other side is the federal government that has the Insurrection Act memo already printed that seems likely to be waiting for a federal officer to get shot.
It seems like the federal government could either stop picking up illegal aliens or literally disarm all their federal officers. The local government could get their police to coordinate with ICE/CBP to help de-escalate things.
I really think that there is something bad specifically in how the Minnesota and Minneapolis governments are handling things. The only places where we have seen violent incidents involving DHS is in cities where the police are not coordinating with ICE. These policies are costing people's lives.
Your essay is fatally flawed.
These two deaths were tragic but they were not the result of chaos or a series of random mishaps. They were the result of a policy that most Americans find profoundly offensive. So the deaths were the fruit of that poisonous tree. It really is that simple.
You write that the deaths will not alter the "discourse. That's obviously false. They have already altered the "discourse." Would you be writing about ICE absent these deaths? Probably not.
“It really is that simple” is pretty much the exact mindset I’m examining here, so thank you for showing up to demonstrate it.
You did not address the substance of my comments. That’s okay. I’ve made my points.
That's ok, we all saw your point and judged it not valid.
Speak for yourself- I didn't! The point is clearly valid, whether you agree with it or not.
In 1970 a large portion of Americans found the Vietnam War "profoundly offensive." The students at Kent State felt their righteousness protected them, they were proven wrong. After days of clashes between students and troops, and outright violence by activists, including the burning of the ROTC building, someone pulled a trigger followed by a volley of panic shooting by the troops. And Americans divided into two camps about the event. I think the parallels are very similar.
one side was objectively correct back then and now. Do not equivocate.
Not sure what your point is but that was not Kat’s or mine. We were not discussing morality to my knowledge only whether they were comparable events. In the wake of Kent state you had the Hard Hat Riots and the rise of Nixons silent majority. Not an uprising of Americans demanding an end of the war. Not so sure it will play out differently this time.
You, and Eli Lake are the main reasons I subscribe to the free press. So smart. So measured.
I would say that I did address this, so perhaps we simply disagree on what the substance of your comments is, or isn’t, as the case may be.
Two strikes. Let’s call it game over on account of the snow. iI’s just an essay.
>Two strikes.
Dude, this is just obnoxious. You're not ingratiating yourself with anyone by playing umpire.
Agreed. Beyond childish.
It's a really lame trick how you came here to argue and somehow appointed yourself the judge of the argument you started. I promise you do not look smart here.
I did not wish to ague but to comment on a flawed train of thought about something important. I am a close reader and when I see sloppy writing that might influence people who do not read closely or critically I have a responsibility to point it out.
Do you think the below statement is accurate?
“deaths that alters the trajectory of the discourse and the future not even the littlest bit.”
I think I might understand what you're asking but I'm not entirely sure. That's half the sentence and doesn't quite stand on its own.
If you're asking if I think it's accurate that being upset over how things ought to be instead of how they are [...] alters the discourse but not the future then yes, I think that's accurate. If that's not what you're asking then please clarify your question.
Have the deaths altered the discourse?
Kat asserts that it has not. I don’t know how else to read the sentence or the entire essay.
"They were the result of a policy that most Americans find profoundly offensive."
What I find profoundly offensive Is that the Left insists on categorizing this behavior of harassment, stalking, hindering and interfering as protesting.
What I find profoundly offensive is that the standards to which we expect to hold law enforcement have been completely abandoned. People get lawless when they see lawlessness, and illegal detentions, escalatory behavior , no accountability, and narratives like Rosenfield’s that declare something ‘as fact’ only to be forced to make a correction because they’re spouting lies by the mouths of federal officials anxious to bypass any investigation. Curious, that impulse.
https://substack.com/@thejefferymead/note/c-205102164?r=v5wvt&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
This has been the line since 2016. Democrats are to blame for x, y, z, and a NEW, great, amazing and frankly people have said unbelievable letter of the alphabet invented by Trump, the GREATEST alphabetter America has EVER seen. The BEST letter! Doing so much for our COUNTRY. It already has the HIGHEST ratings! EVERYBODY is talking about how it’s better than the other 26 combined … In 3 years you won’t even NEED the other letters!!!
Yes, Democrats are always responsible for Trump’s actions. I guess he’s as feeble as they say if the man, in a decade of public service, is too weak to ever take accountability for the consequences of his decisions, actions, and policies.
I cannot make sense of your response. Is it supposed to be mocking, teasing, upsetting? Do you assume that those who disagrees with you to be diehard MAGA people? There's still the common-sense, center of the political spectrum.
TDS is the Left's equivalent to MAGA.
It was supposed to be silly.
But no, democrats are not to blame for Trump. Trump is to blame for Trump. The whole “they’re asking for it” narrative was exhausting, now it’s stupid.
To be fair… Tim Walz is encouraging his constituents to attack law enforcement. He is getting people hurt and killed because he is a corrupt and selfish man.
Republicans shouldn’t have to bend over backwards to prevent progressive violence.
That’s not fair, Adele. You stoop to a personal attack on Tim Walz.
ICE’s actions are responsible and so are the people directing and encouraging and telling ICE they are immune from any act of violence.
I think you know the actions of ICE and of the Trump administration in this matter are wrong but you just can’t accept it.
You can rightfully criticize Biden for his lack of border control and I will join you in that criticism. I treasure my ability to assess reality. It makes me feel mentally powerful.
….Trump is doing the exact same thing as the Obama administration. ICE was never controversial until Democrats needed a cause to rally behind.
That’s the thing. I *do* support what ICE is doing. That’s what I voted for. The difference is that now we have this cohort of people in this country who fancy themselves as resisting a tyrannical government. Why? I think it has to do with privilege and boredom. It seems like a bunch of brainwashed, entitled weirdos pretending to be heroic because they’ve watched too many movies. It’s contemptible behavior. Also. Tim Walz is a complete dirtbag for what he is doing to federal law enforcement.
How do you describe “most” Americans? It seems like Trump won a democratic election on the immigration issue…
Just because people in your bubble agree with you doesn’t mean they represent America. I voted for safe borders and immigration enforcement. I don’t want to see my vote negated by radicals screaming in the street. If you support a more lax immigration policy, then vote. That’s how it should work in a democratic society.
Look at any recent poll on ICE.
Are you implying that law enforcement should login to Rasmussen before deciding how of the law they should enforce?
All this logic could add up if Trump hadn’t tanked the first bipartisan effort, ready for passage, to address immigration (in maybe decades?) before he was even elected.
That would make sense if there wasn’t already immigration law that Biden chose to ignore. What Trump is doing is enforcing the law which was passed by a democratically elected legislature. Again, if you want to change the law… make an argument. The performative virtue signaling cosplay of progressives has been truly sickening to behold.
Well as I said they tried to pass the first attempt at comprehensive law reform. Trump tanked it. Strange.
Biden didn’t ignore “law on the books,” (example?) he created his own priorities as a president is want to do. He focused on national security and violent crime — his prerogative. Trump, likewise, created a number of executive orders that opposed the previous administration’s policies. Neither is “breaking the law” until a court says so. Is it different when Biden writes EOs than when Trump does, and why?
None of that last paragraph is germane to my comment so we can both free ourselves from those sentiments (unless performative virtue signaling is illegal somehow?? If it’s performance, that’s freedom of expression, right? I’m sicked out by the right’s authoritarian cosplay as cover for wags they’re enriching themselves but that’s really neither here nor there in this conversation)
Who is cosplaying? ICE? They are doing their job. Biden opened the border without a single vote. Prior to Biden, this was a bipartisan issue. Obama still holds the record for most deportations. Your contention that more laws needed to be signed is… silly and misguided. The laws were already there. Biden decided to ignore them, which is why Trump was elected.
This makes zero sense. A bipartisan bill was introduced *during* Biden. He Opened the border without a single vote? How many EOs has Trump signed without a single ‘vote’? You need to recognize some equivalence here. They both worked within their presumed power to achieve their conference goals.
Who did Biden fire? Laws? That’s … not a thing. I think this discussion is pretty futile as nothing you’re saying is grounded in reality, or basic civics. Confused by your interpretation of my responses, since you have misinterpreted my contention.
But we do, in fact, need comprehensive immigration reform and that will only happen through the legislature. Anyway, Godspeed, may you be blessed with more knowledge about how government works, and quickly.
What policy do most Americans find offensive?
I don't know, Kat. I remarked on your Renee Good column in agreement. But I think a new reality settled in between Good and Pretti, and I think the protesters in Minneapolis feel that they are protecting their hometown from an ugly autocracy. They rationalize their likelihood of survival the way of any soldier at war, but they also are hyper aware of the risks. Very few soldiers choose to die, but all who lose their lives in the pursuit of justice and a future for their homes merit honor and remembrance, and not pitied as naive players in a video game gone wrong. What is happening is real, and it is bad, and right must win.
Well, this isn’t really about the protesters, but I also find your argument confusing. Your takeaway from the footage of Pretti’s final moments is that he considered himself to be at war with ICE and was willing to die for the cause?
Willing to die is a bit stronger than I intend, but knowingly accepting some risks to stand against an authoritarian force of thuggery that is threatening his home city? Yes, I think he was doing that. And I don’t understand how this can’t be about the protesters. Now you are confusing me. If you haven’t already, you might read the Homans article in today’s NYT. It really describes well what it is like to be living in that city.
It’s about how we (as a culture) talk about and conceive of the protesters.
I notice that there was a comment on your X feed that read your column exactly the way that I did. So that makes me feel better. Appreciate the dialogue. It’s as important as anything now days!
It's a challenging topic to write and talk about, lots of high-octane emotions on all sides. Thanks for chatting!
"Willing to die for a cause" is precisely what Pretti should've been willing to do in bringing a gun to that protest against poorly trained, often thuggish and panicky agents who already gunned down one of his fellow Minneapolis residents, but I'm guessing that wasn't the case, that showing up strapped was just a lot of LARPing - until it wasn't - and ultimately all he did was introduce another lethal element into an already volitile situation that contributed to him getting killed.
We'll never really know, of course. I wish I could ask him.
Yeah, and I don’t know what anyone is ever thinking when they carry a gun out in public, because I don’t own a gun. It seems ridiculous to me in any circumstances and I wish it weren’t legal, but alas it is.
I'm a 2A supporter and perfectly fine with people carrying in most contexts, including arming themselves against a tyrannical government, but hoo boy, you better be *really* prepared for what that means and everything it entails.
Why did Pretti bring a gun to that protest? Was he really willing to fire on federal agents? Really?
Because he'd almost certainly be killed immediately, and if by some miracle he wasn't, then what? It can be hard enough to defend yourself in a perfectly justified act of self-defense against a criminal, but against a federal agent, he'd most likely be looking at life in prison, maybe even the death penalty.
We probably will never know whether he specifically and intentionally brought it to the protest. Maybe he carries it wherever he goes. Mayne he carries it whenever he goes to the grocery store and that’s where he planned to go after he was killed.
But here’s an idea. The supreme court allows prohibitions at public gatherings including protests. What a great time would it be for a bipartisan effort at a federal law to make this sort of carry illegal!
This. This isn't about immigration now. This is about an occupying army.
The federal government is not an occupying army. The federal government is the supreme law of the land. Immigration law applies everywhere regardless of local feeling. Organized opposition to federal authority is known as insurrection.
I thought the Constitution was the supreme law of the land.
Under the constitution, federal law is supreme. I.E. if there’s a federal law that says certain people are to be deported, and a state or local government disagrees, doesn’t matter. The federal law is supreme.
Seems kind of off to say that the federal government can boss states around, and there's nothing they can do about it.
And one thing the feds definitely can't do is violate the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 8th Amendments, which they have done. They also violated the DHS's rule for lethal force, when they opened fire after he was disarmed. If they can't follow the Constitution, and they can't follow their own rules, what legitimacy do they even have?
There are whole bodies of law on separation of powers and such. You’re reinventing the wheel here. Regardless, there is simply no question that federal officers can go into any state or city to enforce federal law. (The feds cannot, however, co-opt or order state authorities to enforce federal law, so in a sense the feds cannot “boss states around.” Again this has all been worked out and you are adding nothing.)
As for the Pretti shooting specifically, it appears to me that the officer who disarmed Pretti had a negligent or accidental discharge of Pretti’s pistol—which is a design known to have issues with accidental firing. The other officers, having just heard someone say “he’s got a gun,” heard the shot, thought Pretti had fired, and killed him. Tragic and perhaps there should be consequences for the officers, but far from the execution people think they witnessed.
This got settled in 1862.
They are acting as an occupying army. They are masked, heavily armed and aggressive. They escalate from 0 to 110 at a hair trigger. They wear paramilitary style uniforms out of step with the "police" they are supposed to be. They're mostly not from here. They do not treat the people as fellow citizens, only as obstacles to be pushed down, beaten, pepper sprayed, and shot.
Their mission is to occupy and terrorize our community and make an example of us because Trump hates our leaders and our particular immigrant community (with one of the lowest illegal populations, by the way.) And to stoke confrontation and create viral videos of LE EPIC ICE OWNING THE LIBS AND IMMIGRANTS!!!1 Well, they got their viral videos, didn't they?
They are masked because Antifa types dox, harass, and threaten them if they are identified. And they are on a bit of a hair trigger because of all the irresponsible rhetoric about them being Nazis and so forth. When people are talking and acting crazy about the police, it tends to put the police on edge. Have you noticed that these kinds of incidents are not happening in Texas, Florida, etc.? That’s because those jurisdictions are cooperating and people aren’t acting crazy.
You're disingenuous. Those are red states, the President is punishing blue states- he's not even trying to hide this. TX or FL don't have 3,000 agents running amok in a city where they outnumber the police force by 5x.
You're seriously defending masks- that's unAmerican. Police were not wearing masks even in the comparatively more violent and radical 60s and 70s. Only in very narrow circumstances like when raiding the Mafia or terrorists has this been normal. So the public is now being treated as (and called) terrorists by the administration.
It's the police's responsibility to be the well trained party, the de-escalators no matter what names they're called or if their feelings are hurt. To only use force, let alone deadly force as a last resort. These guys come on the scene and escalate peaceful interactions into violence in seconds. People who are just standing there watching or recording are viciously attacked.
It's deliberately done to provoke confrontation.
Fair minded observers can see this in almost every video that comes out. If you can't, you're not an honest broker.
More agents are necessary in cities where local authorities don’t cooperate and where the agents are confronted by mobs. Talk about disingenuous, the mask complaint is totally disingenuous. Police wore masks during Covid and no one cared. And neither Pretti nor Good were just bystanders or observers— both were actively obstructing federal law enforcement and subject to arrest.
If they don’t want to be called nazis maybe asks the Department of Homeland Security to stop recruiting them using white nationalist propaganda.
If protesters don’t want to be treated as potentially violent lunatics, then they shouldn’t openly talk about how ICE isn’t legitimate law enforcement, but an occupying army that should be resisted with violence.
Trying to overthrow the government through violence is insurrection.
Yes, that too.
Peaceful protest and passive resistance is not insurrection.
Disgusting as usual, Kat!
Cloaked in the language of empathy, perhaps, but really just a longer-winded version of the same thing as all the crowing MAGAs in the comment sections of the internet; that it’s his fault for engaging in risky behaviour (that’s only risky because ICE is needlessly and unjustifiably killing people).
Many can’t even really pretend to think the shooting was actually justified this time, so instead they ruminate wistfully on how sad it is that silly protestors thought they could protest when ICE were around- don’t they know ICE shoot people? Oh, if only we knew whom to unequivocally blame!
Any focus at all on how much the guy who was executed for civil disobedience was asking for it by engaging in the risky behaviour of bringing a legal weapon to a legal protest where murderous trigger-happy goons were around is fundamentally nearly identical to focus on how the woman with the short skirt was asking for it walking down that dark alley. If behaviour is risky because of bad people who are liable to do bad things to you, then focus on the risky behaviour rather than the deliberate wrongs being committed is wrongheaded, repulsive and juvenile.
In your reflexive need for the appearance of ”moderation” conferred by a crude splitting of the difference between two positions, you’re openly equivocating about the summary execution of American protestors because they should have known better than to be out in public protesting and engaging in civil disobedience.
Sometimes, events are just clear moral wrongs, with one party to blame, making attempts at “nuance” no more than water-muddying contrarianism.
I wish you had enough clarity of moral thought (or enough willingness to prioritise moral truth over social and economic factors) to recognise this as one of them. I wish you would reflect on how you’ve been audience captured to the extent that you’re taking the same position as the most zealous of blind Trump worshippers (at least the ones too sophisticated to just say yay dead commies), and actively trying to redirect some portion of the blame to the victim for the crime of engaging in non-violent civil disobedience. But I’ve read and interacted with you enough times by now to know that you don’t, and you won’t.
Thanks for a bit of sanity in this tub of pseudo-intellectual morally bankrupt hogwash. This article is a good reminder that people can be both smart enough to trick themselves and dumb enough to fall for it.
A shame that so many people clearly reach for this pseudo-intellectual garbage when confronted with something that might jolt them out of their ideological fug, but an outrage to watch well-funded centrists dutifully shuffle to the new middle as the Overton window is wrenched ever rightward. After some point, it’s hard not to think they’re patiently waiting for it to reach the position they’ve quietly held the whole time.
Doesn't it seem like this sort of loss-of-touch-with-reality is more common on the political left?
I wonder if it is because the Left's narrative has been largely supported by big institutions: public school, elite universities, NPR, legacy media and even Tech. Add to that the self-reinforcing echo-chamber of the internet algorithm, it wouldn't be hard to never hear anything that deviated from the standard leftist Correct Way to Think.
It can be hard to imagine that reality could be any other way. Everyone and everything supports the progressive view--especially in the Twin Cities Minnesota (where I lived for 10 years).
I suspect that conservatives typically face more open opposition and argument, as a consequence of progressive institutional capture.
Hard to say! I think the other side is engaged to a certain extent in their own reality-free LARP— they genuinely do not seem to know or care how much the average person finds ICE’s tactics to be horrifying— but the purity-testing aspect of it is, I agree, more prevalent among progressives who (generalizing) have had less practice in getting along with people outside their tribe for the reasons you mention.
Yes, I definitely didn't mean to say that MAGA is entirely in touch with the real world. There is certainly more than one echo chamber.
Most intellectualized "everyone is a sheeple, the world has gone crazy except me and my conservative friends"-ass masturbatory take I've ever read. Congratulations. You did something.
"The left" is constantly fighting - not only among themselves, but among the current dominant media: Fox, CBS et al. What are you smoking? What the hell? Have you ever met a "leftist"?
Good luck in the overall Oppression Olympics, I'll be rooting for you.
“The thing that distinguishes a martyr from a casualty of war is desire: the martyr wishes for death, while the casualty is killed while trying to escape it”
Have you never heard of Emmett Till? He didn’t desire to become a martyr, and yet he did. His death galvanized the nation. Pretti and Good do not need to have wanted to become martyrs for their deaths to take on historic significance and meaning.
Of course I've heard of Emmett Till, but I would argue he's a different type of martyr from the martyr-for-a-cause I'm talking about here, and I suspect the circumstances of the protester deaths in Minneapolis will make it hard to put them in that latter category. I'd love to be wrong!
Thanks for the reply. There are differences to Till to be sure, although I would still argue that most martyrs are made after the fact and not through intention. And I do think you are underestimating the bravery of the protestors, especially after Good’s death, when the stakes could not be more clear.
This I find perplexing; I haven’t said anything about the protesters’ bravery or lack thereof at all, but you might infer from my description of Pretti as a casualty of war that I think they’re more brave than not.
I could be misinterpreting your piece, but my overall impression is that you’re saying protestors are engaging in protests as if they were immune to the reality of bullets - as though they had plot armor. If that’s the case, if they’re blundering into this unaware, then I think that would diminish their bravery. Knowing the threat full well, and facing it regardless- that is enormously brave, and I do think protestors are fully aware at this point that there are no restraints on ICE, and they could die.
You are misinterpreting, yes. This piece is not about the protesters.
Your entire essay is about the protestors believing they have plot shields on account of being the protagonists in their stories, that they are, by that implication, foolish rather than brave.
This Nathan Thurm “I never said that” schtick is pretty obscene in this context. I can’t seem to go full Cathy Young on you, but I’m getting sorely tempted.
I’m sorry, but no, it’s not about the protesters. It is about how we as a culture view everything —including the protests—as content, and reach for satisfying narratives to explain what we’re seeing instead of telling the truth about it. You can tell that this is what the essay is about because I *never* talk about what the protesters thought, except to say that Alex Pretti clearly didn’t desire or anticipate what happened to him. Instead, I talk about how we, the audience, think about various events in narrative terms— including but not limited to the protests, because the impulse to tell tidy stories about real people goes much deeper than that. That’s why the essay includes one section about screenwriting craft and another about Alex Honnold that don’t relate to the protesters at all, but do relate to this central thesis.
I will readily concede that this is a complex idea, one that requires a deeper kind of reading and thought than many people seem inclined to engage in right now. But it *is* the idea. I simply didn’t write what you claim I did. If you want to rage out at me about this à la Cathy Young, I obviously can’t stop you, but it seems like an awful waste of everyone’s time.
I’ve only recently discovered your writing, and I’m here to appreciate your viewpoint. I’ve been thinking about your FP piece about Good since I read it, and I lean toward agreeing. This piece continues that line of thinking. I do think you’ve arrived at somewhere important linking what people watch on their phones to the “unreality” of their actions during protest/resistance/observation/direct action. I don’t think, for the most part, anyone wants to hear this nuance or accept it as a way they have been manipulated, but that’s on them. Keep writing about it.
This bad essay is summarized well by this comment:
"Too many intellectuals kneel at the false idol of moderation in all things, which just leaves you standing for truly nothing. Sometimes life throws extremes at you that require extreme stances, having the courage to say with your chest "There is no middle ground here" is a courage many struggle to have."
Which was posted under this good essay: https://benthams.substack.com/p/i-dont-think-the-administrations
You claim to agree that Pretti’s killing was wrong, but lament the “fast and furious” social media posts… why shouldn’t people be outraged he was killed? Is expecting federal officers not to kill with impunity a wish for an alternate reality, a “quantum universe”? Isn’t that the expectation that every member of a liberal democratic society should have?
You seem to wish to sidestep these violations by ICE as just “how things are,” instead of “how they ought to be”—so that you don’t have to defend the indefensible. You agree Pretti’s killing is wrong, but you’d rather everyone didn’t talk at all about how wrong it is. Why? Is that because it’s more difficult to spin up some kind of obfuscation about?
Your argument boils down to “fuck around and find out,” while wheedling that you wish it was otherwise. Not only this logically incoherent, it’s cowardly: why not come out and say the protestors don’t have the rights they so arrogantly assumed they had, instead of running interference?
Why don't I come out and say this bizarre and offensive thing, even though it's not even close to what I believe to be true and bears no resemblance to anything I've ever written or said? Truly, Greta, this is a mystery.
I quoted your piece a few times in my comment. You write that ICE’s actions are wrong, that people should not be killed with impunity—but you don’t blame ICE for the violence.
You call Pretti’s killing the result of “avoidable errors on the part of all involved, any of whom could have made different choices resulting in different outcomes.” Yet you conclude with a reminder to the protestors that if they keep this up they’re going to get shot. Seems like you’re really only interested in reforming the choices made by the protestors, not ICE. Why pretend to equivocate?
As your response suggests, you know your position can’t be defended, so you’re muddying the waters instead. Most people can plainly see it’s just not that complicated.
I cannot agree that plucking two or three words out of context and saying they "seem" to argue some point -- one that is either not in the piece or even explicitly contradicted by it -- counts as "quoting." In truth, you seem belligerently opposed to understanding my actual arguments: even when I'm right here, explaining them to you, your response is to accuse me of lying. It's truly bizarre.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to engage with your criticism of the actual substance of my actual written words if you have one. But at the moment, I'm just kind of confused about what you're doing here or what you want to accomplish.
Well, you haven’t addressed any of my claims, but I’m happy to do you the decency of addressing yours. On top of quoting you clearly (and in good faith) in my previous comments, here’s my outlined points—would be happy to see you rebut them, instead of complaining I misunderstand you. Let me know what I misconstrued:
1. You lament that the social media posts about Pretti’s death came “fast and furious,” and say that we need to “reckon with how things are” rather than “weep over how things ought to be .” This language implies the grief and anger over his killing is overblown. I asked you, why shouldn’t they be outraged, if (as you acknowledge) ICE killed him with impunity?
2. While you say that ICE shouldn’t be menacing protestors (“You should be able to heckle and antagonize ICE without risking your life in the bargain”), you ultimately locate the blame not with ICE but with protestors like Pretti, reprimanding them as children having a tantrum and warning: “You will not survive to see how the story ends; you will not be canonized in death.” But you only suggest reforming the choices made by the protestors, not ICE. Before you reach that conclusion, you acknowledge that “any of [the officers or Pretti] could have made different choices resulting in different outcomes”—why do you only warn off the protesters, if the blame is (at least) shared equally? I suggested your initial equivocation was false and gave you pretense to get to your real verdict, which is a reprimand and a dismissal.
3. You lament equally that the agent “pulled the trigger,” that ICE “charged across the street to confront Pretti,” and that Pretti was “there at all.” Was Pretti equally responsible for his death just by being present (with a permitted gun)?
I think my second point is why you say I’m misconstruing you; but I’m simply pointing out the contrast between what you concede and what you’re ultimately arguing—that because the protestors can be shot, they shouldn’t be there at all, and that their presence gives them equal responsibility for their own killing.
Okay, let's take this one at a time.
>>You lament that the social media posts about Pretti’s death came “fast and furious,” and say that we need to “reckon with how things are” rather than “weep over how things ought to be .” This language implies the grief and anger over his killing is overblown. I asked you, why shouldn’t they be outraged, if (as you acknowledge) ICE killed him with impunity?
I don't "lament" these things. I describe them, and also say in the piece that I share in the outrage. Surely you understand why it's hard for me to answer this question given that I think the premise is completely backwards and explicitly contradicted by the text.
>>While you say that ICE shouldn’t be menacing protestors (“You should be able to heckle and antagonize ICE without risking your life in the bargain”), you ultimately locate the blame not with ICE but with protestors like Pretti, reprimanding them as children having a tantrum and warning: “You will not survive to see how the story ends; you will not be canonized in death.” But you only suggest reforming the choices made by the protestors, not ICE. Before you reach that conclusion, you acknowledge that “any of [the officers or Pretti] could have made different choices resulting in different outcomes”—why do you only warn off the protesters, if the blame is (at least) shared equally? I suggested your initial equivocation was false and gave you pretense to get to your real verdict, which is a reprimand and a dismissal.
Here, too, you're mistaking a descriptive statement for a normative one. "You will not survive to see how the story ends" is a horrible truth stated plainly; nobody is being reprimanded or blamed, nor is ascribing blame the point of the post. I'm not writing about ICE, or the protesters, or the clash between the two. I'm writing about how the contemporary media landscape makes it dangerously easy for the rest of us to tell stories about these things instead of telling the truth.
>>You lament equally that the agent “pulled the trigger,” that ICE “charged across the street to confront Pretti,” and that Pretti was “there at all.” Was Pretti equally responsible for his death just by being present (with a permitted gun)?
Again, "lament" is a loaded word. I'm describing what happened, and how it wouldn't have happened if literally anyone involved had made different choices; more importantly, I'm doing this within a specific framework. The thesis of this piece is not "who is to blame for this horrific tragedy?" It's "what is the story we tell about this tragedy in order to understand it"? That's why the through line in each section, including the one about Alex Honnold summiting Taipei 101, is not the behavior of the players in any given event, but how the rest of us respond to it. Does this make sense?
I suspect that these answers will be unsatisfying to you because they don't comport with your reading of the piece, but if you can't bring yourself to believe I'm telling the truth, we really are at an impasse.
1. You say it’s hard to answer that because you clearly disagree in the text, but I honestly read you as being derisive of the outcry in both of the quotes I used. Are you saying you do think the outrage is justified?
2. You left out the more slanted part of your own quote—I’m trying to quote you fully in-context! “You will not survive to see how the story ends, you will not be canonized in death.” Is that also simply a horrible truth? I interpreted that as you referencing your earlier argument that the protestors are self-mythologizing (seeing themselves as having “plot armor”), and I think that’s a reasonable interpretation. I imagine you included that to remind the protestors that they’re not heroes—that they’re capable of being shot, (you will not survive, you will not be canonized). I think that reading of the protestors (or, in your framing, of the protestors’ relationship to contemporary media as it influences their perspective on the protests) is dismissive. I guess I find the suggestion that the protestors are showing up out of some failure of media literacy rather than moral outrage on behalf of their neighborsto be both ludicrous and insulting. Pretti was an ICU nurse—seems both pretty in-touch with the nitty-gritty of life and down to earth. Is your diagnosis really that he was spending too much time on Netflix?
3. You say that you’re not interested in assigning blame, but you don’t address here how your own argument implicitly assigns blame. We don’t need a story to understand the tragedy—as you said “the moral clarity loud and insistent as a ringing bell.”
The last I’ll say is that rather than engaging in a debate on the underlying assumptions in your argument, you’ve made a series of elisions. I’ve asked many specific questions, all of which you have declined to answer on their face. I find it hard to believe that a post about the shooting of Alex Pretti somehow isn’t actually “writing about ICE, or the protesters, or the clash between the two.” You say, rather, it’s about the stories we tell instead of the truth. Now I ask you to be specific about the details of the truth (which I imagine would benefit from a firm contrast from these misleading stories) and you say they’re beside your point. I think those details just are beyond what you’re prepared to debate.
My reading of the piece takes the assumptions you make about the facts of the killing as your belief. But when I ask you about your interpretation, suddenly they’re incidental to the argument.
I think I disagree with your first paragraph in section III. There are videos showing the moments before they dogpiled him, and the last thing he does before he gets blasted with pepper spray is put himself between the Border Patrol agent and a woman the agent had just violently shoved. I'm sure the instinct for self-preservation took over once he was on the ground, but that action does strike me as a willingness to put his life at risk for others.
I don’t think we disagree? This entire incident seems to have been the result of a series of impulsive decisions on several fronts, including Pretti’s interposing himself between ICE and the woman— unless your argument is that he went into that interaction strategically, expecting and intending to be killed?
No, the first one. Then I guess we don't disagree.
My God. Delete this victim blaming, trite, nonsense. SMDH.
You defame a man who was murdered by the state for exercising his First and Second Amendment rights.
It's a shame that someone had to needlessly die but it is impossible to deny that carrying a gun (whether w/wo a license ) to a volatile street confrontation was dumb.
This was beautifully written even if the assumption that the people preventing the police from enforcing immigration law are the good guys is a little overstated.
Is the Kent State person talking about blanks as in fake bullets? What is “blank”?
A blank round is one that produces a muzzle flash and a loud noise when fired, but which doesn't fire a projectile (the "bullet" in a normal round). I find it odd that the person in question thought the National Guard would be using blank rounds, as I'm not aware of any instance of their being used for crowd control. Perhaps they got confused between blanks and rubber bullets.
Yes I know but the syntax doesn’t make sense so I didn’t know if there was something else.
I think being hit by a blank can still hurt you badly. Want there an actor in the seventies who died from a shot blank to the head.
The primary danger is that if anything gets lodged in the barrel of the gun, it will be propelled out with the force of a bullet when the trigger is pressed (this is what killed Brandon Lee on the set of The Crow). Even a properly loaded blank can deafen you and make you blind if it goes off in close proximity to your head. And yes, there was an actor who fired a blank cartridge into his temple, killing him (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon-Erik_Hexum).
Thankyou for this, KR. Added to my learn on considerably. But wait a minute, dds they really say "like" ("It was like mass hysteria"l like we do today back in 1970?.That I never knew
Yes! As a Boomer, I can confirm this. It goes back to the Beatniks.
So realistic, sadly. Making myth does not make people safe, nor does it change hideous policies. Can we please figure out how to do this?
I think you're right that Alex Pretti didn't need to be shot, but there's something rare going on in Minneapolis. The idea that a person can (or that it would be safe to) fight off four officers, or that they would have blank rounds in their weapons is just a bizarre mindset. I don't think that perspective is shared by most Americans.
I am afraid that both sides really are looking for martyrs. On one side are anti-ICE, Minnesota government, and progressives encouraging people not just to protest or record what's happening, but to get involved and pressure law enforcement over what they're doing. You can see it in the impunity these people have in putting their hands on DHS officers or entering their cordons.
On the other side is the federal government that has the Insurrection Act memo already printed that seems likely to be waiting for a federal officer to get shot.
It seems like the federal government could either stop picking up illegal aliens or literally disarm all their federal officers. The local government could get their police to coordinate with ICE/CBP to help de-escalate things.
I really think that there is something bad specifically in how the Minnesota and Minneapolis governments are handling things. The only places where we have seen violent incidents involving DHS is in cities where the police are not coordinating with ICE. These policies are costing people's lives.