First, they must be dehumanized
Trump and his minions cast enemies and opponents as subhuman
Six years ago, Renee Nicole Macklin Good won an Academy of American Poets Prize for a piece trying to reconcile the wonders of science and faith.
Her work, “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs,” includes the verses: “… can i let them both be? this fickle faith and this college science that heckles from the back of the classroom/now i can’t believe—/that the bible and qur’an and bhagavad gita are sliding long hairs behind my ear like mom used to & exhaling from their mouths “make room for wonder”—/all my understanding dribbles down the chin onto the chest & is summarized as:/life is merely/to ovum and sperm/and where those two meet/and how often and how well/and what dies there.”
After being shot by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis this week, Good left behind three children, and her wife, Rebecca, who told Minnesota Public Radio that she was, “made of sunshine.” Her award-winning poem was read on NPR by Scott Simon.
Good was also the widow of an Afghanistan war veteran and a mother of three children. Rebecca called her deceased wife “a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole.”
In Minneapolis, Rebecca said, the couple found “a vibrant and welcoming community” where they “made friends and spread joy.” “And while any place we were together was home, there was a strong shared sense here in Minneapolis that we were looking out for each other,” she wrote. “Here, I had finally found peace and safe harbor.
But this is not the Good that Donald J. Trump and his minions would have us remember. To Trump, she was part of a shadowy “leftwing network” trying “to incite violence” against federal agents and she “violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer.” To Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, Good was “a deranged leftist.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused Good of committing “domestic terrorism.”
Not much sympathy for Good’s family. Not much compassion. Not much concern about a woman shot dead while trying to move her car away from ICE agents, as she was directed to do.
Ever the politician, Vance claimed that part of him felt “very, very sad” for Good, but he added she was “brainwashed” and “a victim of left-wing ideology.”
If anyone doubts his crocodile tears, the vice president said: “I can believe that her death is a tragedy, while also recognizing that it’s a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left who has marshaled an entire movement -- a lunatic fringe -- against our law enforcement officers.”
The reaction of the Trumpists is reminiscent of how soldiers are taught to regard their enemies. In the Middle East, Americans fought “towel-heads.” In Vietnam, the Vietcong were “slants” and “gooks.” In the two world wars, Germans were “Krauts,” “Huns” or “Heinies.”
Dehumanizing enemies makes it easy to mistreat or even kill them. And Trump and his aides do this to a fare-thee-well. The undocumented migrants they are crusading against are “illegals” or “illegal aliens” who are “poisoning the blood of country.” They are “illegal monsters,” “gang members,” “rapists” and worse.
For their purposes, such migrants cannot be mothers, fathers, children, would-be Americans who hope for nothing more than decent lives and citizenship. No, they must be objectified. There can be no compassion, no sympathy.
And the same goes for Good. To them, she can’t be a poet, amateur guitarist or simply a human being who cares for others.
Moments before agent Jonathan D. Ross shot her, Good said to one of the immigration officers: “That’s fine, I’m not mad at you,” as the officer passed by her car door. She had one hand on the steering wheel and the other outside the open driver side window.
Is this the phrase of a “brainwashed” and “deranged” person?
But, that comment notwithstanding, in Good’s case there can also not be a fair and full investigation by this administration in collaboration with Minnesota authorities. Already, the administration has judged her and the death sentence one of its operatives gave her was wholly just in its view.
To allow that maybe this was a rash act by a PTSD-addled agent would be unacceptable. No, this was self-defense against a militant leftist who clearly deserved to die. Good and her ilk, to them, are “lunatics” and little more than enemies who must be vanquished by any means necessary.
This is a war, Trump has said. The “radical left lunatics” are the “enemy within.” And people like Good – really anyone who shows compassion for migrants being targeted by ICE agents – are nothing more than acceptable casualties, it would seem.
The big question of our day is whether most Americans share the callousness of Trump and his minions.
Narcissists are notorious for their lack of empathy and Trump surrounds himself with others who seem to share that shortcoming. Former Trump colleague Elon Musk called empathy the fundamental weakness of the West. Trump, a New Yorker piece contended, “is Teaching Christians to Abandon Empathy.”
But not all are buying it. John Grosso, a writer at the National Catholic Reporter, took Vance particularly to task as someone who claims to have embraced Roman Catholicism.
“In times past, a politician might offer thoughts and prayers, encourage those reacting to wait for the full results of the investigation and generally try to lower the temperature,” Grosso wrote. “A leader might take the opportunity provided by a fresh day to soothe the broken heart of a nation and appeal to the better angels among us.”
Grosso didn’t hold back.
“As a Catholic, Vance knows better than to peddle this brand of gaslighting and agitation. Vance knows that, by virtue of her humanity, Good was endowed with inherent dignity, made in the image and likeness of God. Vance knows that only God can take life. Vance knows that protesting, fleeing or even interfering in an ICE investigation (which there is no evidence that Good did) does not carry a death sentence. Vance knows that lying and killing are sins.
“Vance knows. He doesn’t care. Vance’s twisted and wrongheaded view of Christianity has been repudiated by two popes. His Catholicism seems to be little more than a political prop, a tool only for his career ambitions and desire for power.
“The vice president’s comments justifying the death of Renee Good are a moral stain on the collective witness of our Catholic faith. His repeated attempts to blame Good for her own death are fundamentally incompatible with the Gospel.”
Amen.
But Grosso mistakenly adds that “Our only recourse is to pray for his conversion of heart.” Actually, it’s to turn out by thousands at any opportunity to protest against this administration and then to oust it and all its supporters at the ballot box.
That would be a real act of compassion. That would justly memorialize Good and all the Trumpists’s many other victims.
Thanks for this column, Joe. The incident plunged me and my women friends into a clinical depression. Thinking about the six-year-old whose mommy will never come home brings me to tears several times a day.
And then there's the feminist rage. "Don't believe what you saw with your own eyes," the administration tells us. "Believe us instead." Of course, Trump doesn't gaslight only women — as with Jan. 6, he peddles his self-serving version of reality to the whole nation. But I think women take it particularly hard, because this is how we live our whole lives: being told that what we know to be true isn't true, that we're crazy, that up is down and red is yellow and the sun is actually the moon. The murder was, forgive me, triggering.
I have every expectation that the masked goon who shot Good in the face will get a medal.
From Richard Hayes, former dean of Duke Divinity School, "Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels," page 121:
"... Jesus summons his disciples to renounce not only murder but also anger, not only adultery but also lust (Matthew 5:21-30)."