2020 called. They want their liberal playbook back.
If you feel as though you’re experiencing déjà vu, that’s because you are. The Democrats and their media allies are again attempting to weaponize a law enforcement encounter in Minneapolis against President Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Their goal is to shift attention away from the massive fraud they have enabled, stoke the fires of their own base, seize the moral high ground, and win some elections in the fall.
It will not work this time.
Last week, 37-year-old activist Renee Nicole Good was using a Honda Pilot SUV to block Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Minneapolis. Good was trained by people affiliated with “MN ICE Watch,” an activist group that instructs people to use cars, crowds, and force to stop ICE operations and even “de-arrest” those who have been arrested. Attorney Laura Powell shared some of the group’s resources on X/Twitter, including pages from their “De-Arrest Primer.”
Good had been following, harassing, and impeding ICE officers’ actions that morning. Parked perpendicularly on the street for over three minutes and dancing to the sound of her own vehicle’s horn before her final encounter, her “wife” was filming the scene and taunting officers from outside the vehicle. Good was confronted by ICE agents who told her to get out of the car. As agent Jonathan Ross was walking around the front of her vehicle filming the confrontation, Good decided, instead of obeying the command, to back up, straighten her wheels, and smash the accelerator.
Video released from the officer’s phone shows that Good made eye contact with Ross before accelerating, and Good’s wife yelled, “Drive, baby, drive!” Having drawn his firearm when Good’s SUV was aimed at him, Ross was hit but fired three shots, killing Good.
Minneapolis activists have been packing the streets each night and even during the day since then. They have been pounding on the windows of hotels where they think ICE agents might be staying; taking over roads and vandalizing businesses and homes (“F— ICE” being the most common tag); distributing kits to deflate the tires of ICE vehicles; and even setting up another “autonomous zone” where police are denied entry.
What will happen to Minneapolis? It’s not likely that things will get better soon. Minnesota journalist Dustin Grage obtained a screenshot of Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) orders to stand down and let crowds do what they wanted on Friday night. Readers will know by the time this column appears whether Saturday night was another night of “fiery but peaceful” protest, as CNN bizarrely tried to claim in 2020, or just another cold night of adult tantrums. The decline will continue in the Twin Cities, however, whether quickly or at its current rate.
Are we to see a national “Winter of Love” to match the 2020 “Summer of Love” that resulted in around two dozen people killed, many more injured, many buildings burned to the ground, and around $2 billion paid out in insurance claims nationwide?
Unlikely. This time, with Elon Musk owning X/Twitter, people can see all the evidence showing that, if Renee Nicole Good’s end was a tragedy, it was a tragedy for which she bears responsibility. The abbreviated footage of George Floyd’s treatment by MPD officer Derek Chauvin was used by Democrats, media, and activists to craft a narrative that even many conservatives initially thought was accurate—and muted their reactions to the chaos.
This time it’s different, but that hasn’t stopped the Democrats and company from trying. While there were multiple video recordings of the event from a variety of angles, the Democrats and media leapt into action with a whole host of claims that ended up being disproven. Here are just a few:
- Good, a mother of three, wasn’t an activist—merely a mom who was just pulling out after dropping off her son at school.
- Good was seized by panic because of the frightening masked officers.
- Good didn’t see the officer in front of her when she pulled forward.
- Good didn’t put her foot on the gas.
- The ICE officer wasn’t even hit.
All of these points have been completely debunked by widely available video, but the Democrat-media machine has kept going with ever more bizarre attempts at framing a narrative whereby Good can be an innocent martyr who did not drive her car recklessly in the direction of the agent.
Some have bizarrely suggested that a 4,000-pound vehicle moving slowly won’t hurt. The shameful Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said at a press conference that the ICE agent “walked away with a hip injury that he might as well have gotten from closing a refrigerator door with his hips.” His implication is that because the officer wasn’t badly injured by being struck, there was no danger.
Others have fixated on Good’s words to the officer as he circled her car filming: “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.” The implication is that because of these “friendly” words, she couldn’t have done anything dangerous or aggressive immediately afterward. But we don’t know what she meant by those words. They could have been darkly ironic. Indeed, some heard in them the aggression and hatred with which some people intone, “Bless your heart.”
Still others have attempted to use the officer’s off-color exclamation at the woman after she hit him as reason to conclude he fired his weapon because he hated women.
Yet others on the left have tried to turn their attention to investigating Alpha News, the outlet to which the officer’s camera footage was released.
Frankly, we don’t know what Good’s intention was when gunning her car. Was she trying to run him over? Scare him by getting close? It doesn’t really matter. Good hit the officer, demonstrating that his perception of danger was accurate.
Democrats and media figures are still attempting to seal an “evil ICE agent kills innocent woman” narrative, but it’s just not working this time except for partisans of the left who have sealed themselves in legacy media bubbles. X under Elon Musk allows users to show the evidence debunking all the lies about Good and her actions. It also enables lawyers with vast experience, such as former DOJ prosecutor and January 6 defense attorney Bill Shipley, to explain the legal standards at play, showing that Good’s intention doesn’t matter, among other realities.
The Trump administration has gone on the offensive to defend the officer before the narrative is sealed by Democrats. While some would prefer that the government be quiet until the legal matters are settled, this is yet another case of Trump understanding the world better than others. Democrats and media have long been involved in asymmetric information warfare in these cases. They don’t hesitate to make any case they want, while Republicans and conservatives stand by. Trump knows this is the way to lose every time, even if, as we see, the evidence for their side of the case is already out there.
Even if the insanity of 2020 is repeated in Minnesota, the country will not follow the left into the valley of the shadow of death in 2026. Nor will the Trump administration allow it to happen.
David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. A past Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, he is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. Follow him on X (Twitter) @davidpdeavel.
