Protesters gather in front of the Minnesota State Capitol in response to the death of Renee Nicole Macklin Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer, Jan. 14.John Locher/The Associated Press
The police killing of Renee Nicole Macklin Good in Minneapolis is an emblematic event of the Trump era because it highlights the government’s rejection of the rules and norms that limit the exercise of state authority.
It is not only the shooting itself, a killing that looks to be without any justification. It is everything that has followed, the blaming of the victim at the highest levels of the U.S. government, and a federal investigation that no one of good faith can trust to be fair-minded and impartial.
The death of Ms. Macklin Good, 37, in all its slow-motion horror, is thus of a piece with other policies of the Trump era, including international ones which he says are constrained, as we noted in this space on Thursday, only by his own morality.
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If the U.S. government’s support for the rules-based liberal order in the world has ended, as illustrated by its threats against Greenland, a fellow NATO member, lost too is the commitment to the rule of law at home.
The rule of law has no meaning unless the powerful can be held to account in a predictable, transparent and accessible process. Unless protesters against government (even the lawful actions of government) have the protection of law.
But the U.S. Justice Department has suffered a staggering loss of independence. Under Mr. Trump’s authoritarian rule, it is but an arm of the presidency. Its criminal investigation of Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve Board, allegedly for misleading Congress about the cost of renovations to the Fed headquarters in Washington, establishes that beyond doubt. It is in Mr. Trump’s nature to reject existing limits, without spelling what rules replace them.
Open cruelty is another feature of the Trump administration – including the President’s mockery of the killing of Rob Reiner, the film director and liberal activist.
All this, the rejection of rules-based limits, the cruelty, the openness to a new order in which naked government power sets the terms of engagement, can be seen in the killing of Ms. Macklin Good and its aftermath.
Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the U.S. citizen Ms. Macklin Good committed illegal acts – that to partly block a road for the purpose of impeding Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, is a crime.
But the rules under which ICE operates say officers may shoot only to prevent severe or life-threatening bodily harm, and only when “no reasonably effective, safe, and feasible alternative appears to exist.” Further, they “may use only the level of force that a reasonable officer on the scene would use under the same or similar circumstances,” the justice department website says.
Canada has similar rules. But when a reporter asked Mr. Trump on camera whether the force used was reasonable, he replied that Ms. Macklin Good had been “very disrespectful of law enforcement.” In other words, Mr. Trump accepts that defiance carries potentially fatal consequences.
Rules are a sham without impartial enforcement. Six experienced federal prosecutors in Minnesota have now resigned, indicating that public impartial enforcement is now impossible.
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Kristi Noem, the Secretary of Homeland Security, has termed Ms. Macklin Good’s actions “domestic terrorism.” Meanwhile, the White House asserted in a website post: “Ashli Babbitt Murdered in Cold Blood.” Ms. Babbitt attempted to climb through a window toward the chamber of the House of Representatives as it was being evacuated during the mob violence of Jan. 6, 2021.
Ms. Macklin Good, by contrast, had her wheels turned away from the agent. Videos show the agent shot from beside the car; his life did not appear to be in danger when he fired his weapon. The obvious safe alternative for the agent was to take a couple steps to one side.
But truth has become inverted. Police use of force is justified if in pursuit of goals set by Mr. Trump. So are attacks on police, for that matter. That is where the morality of Donald Trump has led.
It is a characteristic of authoritarian governance that the powerful cannot be brought to justice. Iran will not be prosecuting cases of state violence against demonstrators. U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance says the ICE agent who shot Ms. Good has “absolute immunity.”
Mr. Vance’s statement could not more completely contradict the idea, and ideal, of the rule of law in America.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the date Ashley Babbit died, Jan. 6, 2021.