The Tipping Point

The accumulation of horrors finally breaks through

[Photo credit: Star Tribune via Getty Images]

We seem to have reached a tipping point and I’m trying to figure out why. The murder on Saturday of Alex Pretti by an ICE agent seems to have ushered in a sea change. An increasing number of Republicans in the Senate are calling for an investigation. Democrats are standing their ground and pledging they will refuse to pass a budget that includes funding the DHS and ICE even if it means the government will shut down, again. Even Sen. John Fetterman has roused himself out of his anti-Democratic stupor to call for the firing of Department of Homeland Security Secretary and puppy murderer Kristi Noem.

In the wake of Mr. Pretti’s murder, protestors have refused to back down, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has deployed the state’s National Guard to protect peaceful protestors against a violent, out of control federal agency. People are openly discussing the horrors of having masked, heavily armed agents of the federal government terrorizing their cities. Even some Republicans are saying, “Enough is enough.”

In a stark juxtaposition to the lawless violence being perpetrated by ICE, National Guardsmen showed up in reflective vests to do what should have been done all along—protecting protestors from Federal law enforcement.

Why, though, does the murder of Mr. Pretti appear to have been the last straw? Is it because he was an American citizen (although so, too, was Renee Good)? Is it because he was a white man killed while trying to protect a woman? Is it because he was carrying a gun he had a legal right to possess? Is it because he was shot in the back?

Likely, it’s an accumulation of horrors—the terrorizing of children; the chilling images of ICE agents shoving people to the ground, pinning them and spraying them in the face with bear spray; throwing canisters of tear gas at them; and stalking the streets of Minneapolis, wearing garb reminiscent of the SS.

I was beginning to worry that such a moment would never come. For decades, we have witnessed Donald Trump, as an individual, as a private citizen, get away with every horrid transgression, every act of cruelty, every crime he’s ever committed.

When called to serve in Vietnam, he deferred five times. He and his father engaged in racist rental practices so egregious that they were sued by Richard Nixon’s DOJ in 1973. His businesses declared bankruptcy six times between 1991 and 2009. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he disparaged military officers who died while serving their country; mocked a disabled reporter; and insinuated that Sen. John McCain, a legitimate war hero, was a coward. In the Hollywood Access tape, he admitted to sexually harassing women. In 2023, a jury of his peers found him liable for defaming and sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll. A year later, another jury found that he had “acted in malice when he denied Carroll’s allegations” and awarded her $83.3 million. That same year, he was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records (also by a jury of his peers) and his company was ordered to pay $450 million in damages.

For reasons that are hard to comprehend, Donald still has never been held accountable for anything. E. Jean Carroll has not yet received a dime. A NY appeals court voided the monetary penalty against the Trump Organization and, even though the convictions stand, the judge in the case, Juan Merchan, “sentenced” Donald to an unconditional discharge—no penalties, no probation, no prison – because Donald got back into the White House.

What remains unfathomable is that, over the course of his lifetime, none of this has been cumulative. The next horrible thing replaced, and seemingly erased, the horrible thing that had preceded it. Nothing was ever additive. How was that possible? But that’s what happened time and time again. And none of it ever seemed to matter, as if he were constantly being granted a clean slate.

This trend continued during his first term. Despite his awful policies—the Muslim ban; kicking transgender soldiers out of the military; the child separation policy—Republicans fell in line. Despite his malicious mishandling of COVID that resulted in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans; his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election which undermined the American people’s faith in free and fair elections; and, the biggest blow to democracy in modern American history, his incitement of an insurrection against his own government, almost 78 million voters chose to put him back in the Oval Office.

The first full year of his second term was one of the worst years we’ve ever lived through as a country, at least in my lifetime. Once again, every awful thing Donald did disappeared in the wake of the next awful thing. This was partially the result of the intentional chaos he created, his tendency to flood the zone and make it difficult for people to stay engaged. But the immunity granted to him by the corrupt, illegitimate, supermajority of the Supreme Court; the cravenness of the Republican Party; and the capitulations of media corporations, white-shoe law firms, and institutions of higher learning all played a bigger role.

In the last few weeks—between the media’s continuing to ignore Donald’s cognitive and psychological decline, the continuing erosion of our institutions, and his attempts to dismantle the post-World War II order—it’s begun to feel like there would be no point at which any of the crimes he or his regime continue to commit against the American people amount to anything.

Donald and the thugs at ICE were never going after “the worst of the worst.” They wanted to make a point by going after innocent people exercising their constitutional rights to object to this violent and corrupt regime.

And yet in Minneapolis, Minnesota it feels like the tide just might be turning. While Mr. Pretti’s murder was an inflection point, the images of protestors being brutalized have shaken us to our core. One of our cities has been turned into a battlefield by the federal government and its citizens treated like the enemy.

It is almost entirely certain that Donald will never be held accountable in a way that will feel just or satisfying. There is no prison or poverty in his future. He is a lame duck and a shockingly weak man. At the very least, though, let’s make sure that he and his party are neutered and let’s make sure he knows we know it.