On Jan. 7, Renee Nicole Good was by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer in Minneapolis. What separated Good and the officer who killed her extended beyond bullets to two conflicting visions of the United States: one viewing protest as a democratic responsibility, and another treating dissent as a threat requiring neutralization.

Good drew her final breath less than a mile from where George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, spoke his last words——while Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck in 2020. For a brief period in the , the nation seemed poised on the brink of a reckoning that offered accountability, police restraint, and a broader conception of whom democracy should protect.

That vision triggered a powerful backlash. That hardened, organized, and now fully empowered backlash, I believe, characterizes President Donald Trump’s second term, progressing not via persuasion but through force against anything considered oppositional.

Good was a 37-year-old white mother of three, characterized by her loved ones as “,” and a “.” She represented one of many Americans compelled to demonstrate against the detention of neighbors and the their communities—regular citizens becoming aware of the subtle encroachment around them, unintentionally placing a target on themselves whenever they step outside.

It remains unknown whether Good made eye contact with , the who fired at her from close range. But had they exchanged glances, they would have beheld reflections of two vastly different Americas.

Trump has consistently labeled immigrants as “,” migrants as “,” Democrats as “,” and protesters as “.” Simultaneously, he has depicted dissenters as “,” asserting it is “” his officers—eliminating any space for discussion and suppressing what little remains of the nation’s democratic heartbeat.

Thus, it comes as no shock that ICE seemingly perceived Good as a “,” much as former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin . The distinction between then and now involves not merely the impunity that has , but also the brutality underlying the violence.

Following Good’s death, Vice President J.D. Vance publicly justified the ICE agent’s actions as . Good, who seemingly was never charged with anything beyond a , apparently left her home that afternoon intending to defend America , not to oppose it.

In many respects, the Minneapolis incident aligns perfectly with Trump’s playbook. From Los Angeles to Chicago to Portland, recent clashes have intensified into unrest, violence, and fatalities. According to The New York Times, Good’s death represents the . It also continues a lengthy history of Americans perishing at law enforcement’s hands.

After Floyd’s murder in 2020, an 15 to 26 million individuals demonstrated during Trump’s first term in what might have been the biggest protest movement in American history. Now, a more assertive administration seems to wager that fear combined with force displays will suffice to suppress a movement that has grown divided and disenchanted over time. Last summer, regarding ICE protests in Los Angeles, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced, “We are .”

The demonstrators who filled Minneapolis, Louisville, Memphis, Los Angeles, and other city streets in 2020 seeking social justice now face a contemporary, militarized police state that I believe is reverting to its imperialist origins and retreating from its democratic mission. In this country, as this week’s tragedy starkly showed, anyone—not solely Black and Brown individuals or other marginalized groups—can become a victim. This week it was Renee Nicole Good. The ominous implication for tomorrow appears to be: you could be next.

Yet even grasping this reality, merely hours after observing how effortlessly an ICE agent can pull a trigger, thousands of protesters still poured into public spaces nationwide, declining to vanish silently.

My concern centers on what follows. If the chokehold is strong enough, a nation suffers a loss of consciousness, then permanent harm, and ultimately, the demise of the country as we know it.

Yet if Minneapolis has revealed anything, it’s this: Some Americans will persist in fighting for each other until their dying breath.