New Republic • Jan 26, 2026
Can anyone doubt now that Donald Trump and Stephen Miller want chaos in American streets? I submit to you that at this point, there is no other conclusion that may reasonably be drawn. Consider: It was less than three weeks ago that their thuggish agents executed a woman, a U.S. citizen, in cold blood. If for no other reason than the fact that it sparked international controversy, a normal democratically elected government that felt the normal degree of humility toward public and world opinion would have sent out a memo telling their armed agents to go easy for a little while until things cool down. The elected leader would issue the usual calls for calm.Yet 17 days after the execution of Renee Nicole Good at the hands of an ICE agent, border patrol officers carried out another execution of an American citizen a mere two miles away. Trumpers can carry on all they want about Alex Pretti’s gun—which he was allowed to carry legally because the state’s Republicans decided back in 2003 that passing such a law was a grand idea—but the different videos make it obvious that at the time of his death, Pretti was on the ground, had been disarmed, and posed no mortal threat to anyone. That’s when they put 10 holes in him. With Good, I noted at the time, we could, maybe, bend over backward and grant a smidgen of ambiguity around the first bullet. But there was nothing ambiguous about the second and third ones, fired from point-blank range through an open car window. Likewise, about 10 shots, there is nothing ambiguous. This too was an execution.These people are very clearly under orders, of at least the nudge and wink variety, to shoot first and ask questions later. Besides, when they watch their leaders smear the people they just executed with their itchy fingers, what lesson do we suppose they take away? Good, said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, before her body was cold, committed an act of “domestic terrorism.” Pretti, Noem announced on Saturday, literally within minutes of his execution, “attacked” agents. If you’re wearing a badge and a mask and carrying a gun, you hear that clearly as a green light to do it again. And just in case you didn’t, Noem added: “We will continue to let this process go forward and not allow people like Governor Walz and Mayor Frey … to lie about what actually unfolded on that street.”There will be more executions, of citizens and noncitizens alike. Every victim will be smeared by the state. Protests will mount. Rage on the left will grow. Eventually, at some point, someone on the anti-MAGA side of this argument will cross a line. An ICE officer will be shot. Then what? Well, first of all, they’ll make a martyr of this modern-day Horst Wessel. Maybe Kid Rock will write a song about him, as the Nazis did about old Horst. And then will come the real business, the day Miller probably anticipates with an almost sexual excitement: Martial law will be declared. I’m not sure it will even require the shooting of an ICE agent—just more ICE shootings leading to a degree of unrest that reaches critical mass. For these people, that would be excuse enough.What would martial law mean exactly? It’s hard to say, but the other-than-reassuring basic answer is: whatever Donald Trump wants it to mean. Suspension of certain rights—like, say, the right of an arrestee to know the charges on which he was being detained. That’s protected by the Sixth Amendment. If I’d written a column during the campaign calling Trump a threat to the Sixth Amendment, polite, mainstream, non-MAGA opinion would have said: Oh, there goes Tomasky. I ask you how far-fetched it seems today.Curfews, checkpoints, restricted travel? Not for the good people of Red America, of course. They voted the right way. But in blue states? What law or convention will exist to hold Trump and Miller back?The military, interestingly, might be a problem, from Trump’s point of view. When JD Vance said last week that the Insurrection Act was not needed at this point, it struck me: Of course! The military has rules of engagement—and unlike ICE, a culture of professionalism. Its soldiers wouldn’t execute Renee Good and Alex Pretti. And even if they did, it would be in direct contravention of orders, and they’d face consequences. So, no—Trump doesn’t want the military involved. They’re a bunch of woke creampuffs!So let’s start to sum up. Over the summer, ICE will grow and grow. Remember—the budget was tripled last year. They can’t spend the money as fast as Congress is sending it to them. They doubled the size of their force in the second half of 2025, and in the next few months, they’re going to double it again. ICE will be wherever Trump and Miller want it to be.That mostly means places where ICE isn’t wanted. That means protests and confrontations. That means shootings and executions. That means an excuse for martial law. And that, finally, brings us to the matter of November’s elections. Don’t worry—presidents can’t unilaterally stop elections from happening. Under the Constitution, elections are run by the states. So blue states, at least, will have them. But red states? It will depend on what Dear Leader commands at the moment. And even in blue states, there are red regions, and Republicans who represent them. And there are Republicans sitting on elections commissions. There’s no question that schemes are being cooked up in those boiler rooms that you and I couldn’t even imagine.And finally, the Democrats? I hope now that every one of them, up to and including the most trusting liberal and the most timid centrist, sees what is happening in this country. For starters, I’d like to see all 260 elected Democrats in Congress, along with governors and other statewide officials, descend on Minneapolis this week. They could march from the spot of Renee Good’s execution to the spot where Alex Pretti was executed. They should keep the speeches to a minimum. Just be there. Light candles. Sing Prince and Bob Dylan songs. Grant moral witness to this historic tragedy, this shameful besmirching of our history and our aspirations to be a better people.Let the American people see this bearing of witness. Let them know that on Saturday night, after Pretti was murdered, there was a party in the Trump White House celebrating the upcoming release of the Amazon-financed Melania biopic, where a full military band played “Melania’s Waltz.” Let them know that two million Epstein files have not been released, in contravention of the law. Let them know that Renee Good and Alex Pretti should be alive today. And let them know that millions of Americans are mad, yes; but more than that, they are in pain: They are, as an old high school friend put it on Facebook over the weekend, sick to their souls over what these people are doing to our country. This is no longer about politics. It’s about who we are as a nation.UPDATE: And after I wrote this Sunday, I saw that Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote to Tim Walz outlining steps Walz could take to “bring back law and order to Minnesota,” one of which was turning over the state’s voter database to her department to “confirm” that the state’s voter registration practices “comply with federal law.” Hmmm ...