By Ian Buruma
When a white police officer in Minneapolis killed George Floyd, a Black man he was putting under arrest, by kneeling on his neck nearly six years ago, the political repercussions were serious, immediate, and felt nationwide. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, which emerged in response to police brutality against Black people, gathered steam. Huge protests – mostly peaceful, but not always – took place across America, as well as in many other countries. “Defund the police” became a popular slogan.
It looked like a high point for liberal politics. But in fact, BLM probably ended up hurting the Democrats, as many voters came to regard the party, fairly or not, as elitists who coddled minorities and treated white working-class Americans with contempt.
But the recent killings by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents of people observing their raids in that same city could be more consequential. On 7 January, Renée Good, a mother of three, was shot dead through her car window while moving away from federal officers. On 24 January, intensive-care nurse Alex Pretti, with only a phone in hand, was shot ten times in the back after being wrestled to the ground.
Without any evidence, US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem smeared Good as a “domestic terrorist.” Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff and a key adviser on immigration and homeland security, described Pretti in a social-media post as a “would-be assassin.”
The shootings in Minneapolis were predictable. Sending poorly trained, heavily armed masked men into Democratic cities to kick down doors, shove people into cars, detain children, and arrest people without a warrant or probable cause is a performative kind of brutal violence. ICE agents do not try to hide their aggression; they want people to see their abusive behaviour.
More migrants were deported under Presidents Barack Obama (more than 3.1 million) and Joe Biden (roughly four million) than under Trump (1.9 million in his first term, and 540,000 so far in his second term). But these Democratic presidents were more discriminating in their methods, and mostly targeted convicted criminals. There were no stories of children being used as bait, of half-dressed old men being dragged from their homes in freezing conditions, of people being shipped off to countries whose languages they don’t even speak, let alone of US citizens being gunned down in the street.
This orgy of violence is deliberate. It is meant to show that the Trump administration is serious about ridding the United States of “drug dealers, criminals, and rapists.” Following the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush’s administration instructed officers to “take the gloves off,” resulting in the torture and murder of suspected terrorists. This, too, was intended to demonstrate that the US government would do everything in its power to keep Americans safe.
Autocratic governments – and some revolutionary movements – tend to use performative brutality to intimidate people who could conceivably stand in their way. The Nazis consolidated their power with the help of the Sturmabteilung, brown-shirted thugs who were licensed to beat up Jews, Communists, and other “undesirables.”
Many people who might not approve of such tactics prefer to look away not only because they are intimidated, but also because violent regimes are selective in their targets. So long as one wasn’t a Jew or a leftist in the early years of Hitler’s Germany, one was unlikely to get into serious trouble.
Joseph Stalin was not like that. He was deliberately indiscriminate. Anyone, even loyal party members, could end up in torture prisons or slave labour camps. People in the Soviet Union lived in a permanent state of fear, which was of course Stalin’s intention. But this is relatively rare. Most dictators, or aspiring dictators, select specific groups to isolate and persecute.
When ICE agents, in their zeal to fulfil deportation quotas, targeted Hispanics or people of colour, most white Americans did not fear for their safety, even if they deplored such tactics. The murders of Good and Pretti changed that. Not only were they US citizens, but they were about as mainstream as a white American from the Midwest can be. Neither had a criminal record. Pretti was even a gun owner. ICE agents removed his holstered firearm before he was shot, a fact that the administration has used to justify his killing, angering gun-rights activists who support Trump.
But the killings upset many other people, too, across the political spectrum. If Pretti and Good could be executed in broad daylight, anyone could. The Trump administration realised fairly quickly that this could harm their chances in November’s midterm elections. Allegations of “domestic terrorism” were dialled back. Miller acknowledged a possible breach of ICE “protocol.” Trump even called Good’s killing a “tragedy.” The man overseeing the raids in Minneapolis, Gregory Bovino, a diminutive bruiser who swaggered before the cameras in a long greatcoat reminiscent of those worn by Nazi SS officers, was demoted and transferred out of Minnesota.
This may come as a relief to some. Public opinion still counts in America, even if it can be fickle. While memories are often short, the footage of two peaceful US citizens killed at close range by trigger-happy government goons won’t fade fast. Anger at the government will linger. But we will have to wait and see if it drives Americans, especially those who might be having second thoughts about voting for Trump, to the polls in November.
The writer is the author of numerous books, including Year Zero: A History of 1945 and, most recently, Spinoza: Freedom’s Messiah
