The shooting of Alex Pretti, citizen, nurse, and caring man, a killing that was fundamentally unprovoked, fundamentally an execution, and apparently beyond all accountability or genuine investigation — this latest murder by ICE and Homeland Security thugs, goons, and stormtroopers must be a wakeup call for all Americans, all elected officials, and to the whole world to the reality we now face: a militarized, full-on assault on American cities by armed agencies of the United States government. This is an extra-constitutional governmental war waged against all of us, one city and workplace at a time. At the caprice of Donald Trump, Kristi Noem, designed and prodded by Stephen Miller, with the connivance and active partisan support of Pam Bondi, JD Vance, and Kash Patel, and with the silence of the Congress, our American cities and residents are subject to unconstrained violence and murder by agents of the United States.

This is not the beginnings of fascism and dictatorship in America; it is the middle act, and we haven’t reached the intermission yet. Now is the time to stand up, to protest and resist in the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the brave citizens of Poland, Hungary, and East Germany at the time of the collapse of Communism. We need a sustained mass campaign of non-violent resistance to the violent, dictatorial war being waged against all of us. We need mass demonstrations every week. We need to demand!, demand!, demand! the end of the mass deportation plan which underlies all of the violence we have seen, and the economic harm that has also resulted. We need an end to ICE as currently constituted and governed, and we need the removal or impeachment of Kristi Noem, whose contempt for our constitution is painfully obvious. We need a Lech Wałęsa and a determined Solidarity campaign to restore our democracy and the rule of law.

The rule of law has been set aside by the Trump administration, and the administration has shown that it will pursue its criminal and cruel goals using secrecy, the control of armed men, and intimidation of its political opponents.

We are indeed, in a bad way …