Esoteric Meandering Shouting Into the Void

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

It’s truly inspiring to watch the Moral Right practice its favorite Olympic sport: pretending not to notice things. Specifically, pretending not to notice that ICE only seems to discover “invasions,” “crises,” and “lawlessness” in places that voted blue. What an astonishing coincidence. California! Minnesota! Illinois! Seattle (yes, the entire city apparently counts as a sovereign menace now). All crawling with “terrible illegals doing terrible things,” according to the breathless cable-news whisper-scream.

Meanwhile, Texas and Florida—those red, white, and righteous strongholds—remain curiously protest-free, outrage-free, and largely ICE-swarm-free, despite housing millions of undocumented immigrants themselves. Millions. As in: the same people, doing the same jobs, living the same lives, mowing the same lawns, rebuilding the same hurricane-destroyed neighborhoods. But don’t worry, they’re different immigrants. You know—invisible ones.

Because apparently undocumented people become exponentially more dangerous the moment they cross a city limit where the electorate prefers Democrats.

Isn’t it fascinating how the Moral Right never asks why there aren’t ICE theatrics outside Mar-a-Lago-adjacent construction sites, or why meatpacking plants in deep-red counties don’t get nightly live coverage of agents in tactical gear? Why there aren’t candlelight vigils for “law and order” in the Florida strawberry fields or Texas oil towns? Why the moral panic GPS always reroutes itself directly to liberal cities?

The answer, of course, is simple: this has never been about immigration.

It’s about permission. Permission to punish political enemies while calling it patriotism.

If this were truly about crime, the data would be inconvenient. So it must be ignored. Historically, immigrants—documented or not—commit less violent crime than native-born citizens. That’s not a liberal talking point; it’s an empirical nuisance. But facts are terribly rude when they interrupt a good scapegoating session.

If this were about “the rule of law,” then enforcement would be boring, evenly distributed, and tragically lacking in made-for-TV moments. Instead, we get performative crackdowns in cities that dared to vote the wrong way—complete with press releases, militarized optics, and a carefully curated villain of the week.

And if this were about morality—actual morality, not the cosplay version—there might be some self-reflection. Some recognition that exploiting undocumented labor for decades and then criminalizing its existence is not righteousness; it’s a racket. A racket that requires selective blindness and very loud shouting.

So when the Moral Right asks, “Why are there protests?” the better question is:

Why aren’t there protests in Texas or Florida?

Because the goal isn’t justice.

It’s obedience.

And the map gives it away.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Once upon a time—specifically April 1861—state troops fired on federal troops at Fort Sumter, and America discovered that the phrase “It can’t happen here” has always been more of a vibe than a plan. Cannons boomed, flags were lowered, and what followed was a civil war so catastrophic that we still can’t agree on how to teach it without starting arguments at Thanksgiving.

Fast-forward a century and a half, and we are told—again—to relax. This time, it’s not state troops firing on federal troops. No, no. That would be dramatic. Instead, it’s federal forces bearing down on civilians, wrapped in acronyms and tactical gear, assured by very serious men on cable news that this is all perfectly normal and definitely not something future textbooks will describe with phrases like “foreboding” or “grim turning point.”

After all, these aren’t soldiers, we’re told. They’re “enforcement.” They’re “homeland” something. And if the word homeland rings a bell, well, that’s probably just your imagination being historically literate again.

So what’s the endgame?

Because history teaches us that governments do not accidentally point guns inward. That is not a whoopsie. That is a choice. And when a government starts treating civilians like enemy combatants, the question is no longer if something breaks, but what breaks first: the law, the states, or the illusion that this is still a republic operating in good faith.

One can’t help but wonder—purely hypothetically, of course—whether the desired outcome is escalation. Wouldn’t it be convenient if state authorities finally snapped, if a governor said “enough,” if state forces confronted federal ones? Wouldn’t that create just the sort of “emergency” that ambitious men adore?

Enter the Insurrection Act, that dusty old lever in the glass case labeled Break Democracy In Case of Power Lust. Suspend elections. Declare order. Centralize authority. Explain, patiently and repeatedly, that freedom must be postponed for its own safety. Kings have always loved that line. It saves time.

And Donald—our would-be strongman with a persecution complex and a monarch’s appetite—surely knows his history well enough to recognize the pattern. Chaos justifies control. Conflict justifies crowns. And nothing says “temporary emergency powers” like powers that never quite go away.

The truly depressing part is that this isn’t even original. Every aspiring autocrat reaches for the same playbook, dog-eared and blood-stained, muttering that this time it’s different because this time they’re the hero.

But here’s the catch history keeps screaming at us from the margins: escalation only works if people take the bait.

The Civil War began when restraint failed—when rhetoric became cannon fire. Today, the danger is not just in the uniforms or the weapons, but in the invitation to overreact, to meet provocation with exactly the kind of chaos that authoritarians require to finish the job.

So no, we should not fall for it. We should recognize the pattern, name it, and refuse to audition for a tragedy we already know the ending to. America has already paid once to learn how this story goes.

It would be nice—just once—if we didn’t need a war to remember it.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Apparently, we are living through a thrilling new chapter of Christian theology—one not found in the Gospels, but apparently revealed via cable news chyrons, rally stages, and red baseball caps. In this revised edition, Donald Trump is not merely a deeply flawed man with a fondness for gold toilets and grievance-fueled monologues; he is The Chosen One. The anointed. The Messiah, but with worse hair and a much looser relationship with the Ten Commandments.

These self-styled “Christians” assure us that nothing about this is strange. It is perfectly normal, they insist, to worship a man who lies as easily as he breathes, who revels in cruelty, who boasts about wealth as virtue and vengeance as justice. After all, didn’t Jesus famously say, “Blessed are the ruthless, for they shall own the libs”?

And ICE—oh, ICE—is simply law and order doing its wholesome, God-fearing work. Families torn apart? Children caged? People disappeared into detention centers with no meaningful due process? Totally fine. Completely natural. Definitely not reminiscent of anything ugly from history. How dare anyone mention Germany in 1933, or Hitler’s brown shirts, or a state apparatus that used “security” and “homeland” rhetoric to justify terror against the “undesirable.” That’s different, they say. This is Homeland Security, which is obviously just about safety and apple pie, not nationalism wrapped in fear and uniforms.

The word homeland, we’re told, has no historical baggage whatsoever. Pure coincidence. No echoes. No warning signs. Just an innocent term used by a government increasingly obsessed with purity, loyalty, and enemies within. Anyone who hears alarm bells must hate America—or Jesus. Possibly both.

What makes this theological gymnastics routine truly Olympic-level, though, is how completely it ignores the actual story of Jesus Christ. You know, the undocumented Middle Eastern Jew. The one born into poverty. The one whose family fled state violence. The one arrested by an occupying empire, denied due process, publicly humiliated, and executed—with enthusiastic cooperation from his own people who preferred order and comfort over inconvenient compassion.

By modern standards, Jesus would be stopped at the border, detained, interrogated, and deported—assuming he wasn’t first labeled a threat to public order. He preached love for the stranger, mercy over law, and care for the least among us. Which, in today’s political theology, makes him dangerously woke.

The irony, of course, is so thick it could be spread on communion bread. The very people who claim to worship a crucified refugee see no resemblance between Rome’s treatment of Jesus and America’s treatment of undocumented immigrants. None at all. To suggest otherwise is “offensive.” History, after all, is only relevant when it flatters us.

So here we are: a movement that drapes itself in crosses while cheering policies that would have nailed their own Messiah to one. A faith that preaches love, wielded as a club. A Christianity so unrecognizable that if Jesus himself showed up, they’d call ICE—and congratulate themselves for defending the homeland.

Amen.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Here we are, folks, standing ankle-deep in the Upside Down, staring at the sky and wondering when gravity quietly filed for divorce.

Once upon a time—cue the grainy parchment and powdered wigs—George Washington did the unthinkable. He won a revolution, could have crowned himself King George the First (American Edition), and instead said, “Nah, two terms is plenty,” then went home. He didn’t tweet about it. He didn’t threaten Mount Vernon with martial law. He just… left. This single act of restraint set the tone for a republic built on the radical idea that leaders are temporary and the country is permanent.

Then came Abraham Lincoln, who quite literally held the nation together with words, grit, and an almost supernatural patience while half the country tried to tear itself apart. The Civil War ended, the Union survived, and for a brief, shining moment, the lesson seemed clear: division is expensive, stupid, and deadly.

Teddy Roosevelt barreled into the 20th century like a mustachioed force of nature, busting trusts, backing unions, and suggesting—wildly—that maybe the government should protect people from being ground into dust by monopolies. Woodrow Wilson stumbled us through World War I, imperfectly and often awkwardly, but still managed to get us out the other side intact. Then came FDR and Truman, guiding the country through World War II and its aftermath, leaving the United States with something resembling moral authority and global credibility. Eisenhower, the general who knew exactly what war costs, warned us about the military-industrial complex while keeping the Cold War from going thermonuclear. Kennedy, LBJ—flawed men, certainly—but still operating within the shared assumption that democracy was the point of the exercise.

Even Nixon, bless his deeply crooked heart, at least had the decency to resign when caught red-handed. The system worked, if only because shame was still a thing that existed.

Fast-forward to 2008. The United States elected its first Black president. History was made. Progress was visible. And for a certain segment of the population, this was apparently the final straw. Somewhere, the ghosts of Confederate generals perked up and said, “The Civil War isn’t over yet, boys.” From that moment on, reality began to bend.

Enter Donald Trump, a man who looked at democracy and said, “This seems inefficient. Have we tried me instead?” A man who treats the Constitution like a suggestion box and elections like a personal insult. A man who flirts openly with autocracy while insisting—hand on heart—that he alone represents “freedom.” In this Upside Down, the president doesn’t just challenge norms; he suplexes them through a table and calls it leadership.

And now we arrive at the truly surreal chapter, where the United States, once the awkward but dependable anchor of NATO, is apparently alarming its own allies to the point that Germany, Canada, and other NATO nations are sending troops and warships to protect Greenland—from us. Greenland. The giant icy place we once tried to buy like it was a slightly used hotel. Somewhere, Eisenhower is spinning so fast he could power the Eastern Seaboard.

We’ve gone from “peaceful transfer of power” to “is he the president of Venezuela now?” From alliances to threats, from norms to tantrums, from “government of the people” to “government of the ego.” Up is down. Truth is optional. Autocracy is marketed as patriotism. And democracy is treated like a nuisance that keeps getting in the way of greatness.

So yes, we are living in the Upside Down—a place where restraint is weakness, loyalty to one man is confused with love of country, and history is something to be rewritten with a Sharpie. The scariest part isn’t that the rules are broken. It’s that a large chunk of the country is cheering while they shatter, convinced that this time, somehow, gravity won’t matter.

But it always does. Eventually.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

The Incredible, Gravity-Defying Art of Cognitive Disconnect

There is a special kind of intellectual yoga happening in this country right now, the kind that should require a waiver and a spotter. It’s the sort of mental contortion that allows someone to say, without irony or shame, that Renee Good deserved to get shot, because reasons—while simultaneously clutching pearls about “law and order” and the sanctity of American justice.

Because obviously, in this version of reality, bullets are just consequences with better marketing.

Let’s admire the logic on display. Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, ends up dead after an encounter with federal agents, and the immediate reaction from a certain crowd is not “What went wrong?” or “Why did this escalate?” but instead:

“Well, she must have done something wrong.”

Of course she did. Someone always must have. Otherwise we’d have to admit that the system—our system—can be reckless, brutal, or wrong. And that would be uncomfortable.

Now, here’s where the cognitive disconnect really earns its merit badge.

We’re told, repeatedly and loudly, that all undocumented people are drug dealers, murderers, and existential threats to the republic. Not some. Not a statistically demonstrable portion. All. Every nanny, farmworker, dishwasher, and construction worker is apparently running a cartel in their spare time. And therefore, they should be “dragged out by their hair,” expelled, or worse—because cruelty, when branded as policy, suddenly becomes patriotism.

And if an American citizen gets “wrapped up in that”?

Well… that’s just the way it is.

Collateral damage, baby. Freedom isn’t free, but it is apparently very cheap when the wrong person is paying.

But now—now—enter the plot twist that short-circuits this entire moral universe:

The man sitting in the White House is a 34-count convicted felon, found guilty by a jury of his peers. You know—that jury system everyone claims to revere. The cornerstone of justice. The sacred process.

Funny how that works.

When a jury convicts someone you don’t like, it’s “proof the system works.”

When a jury convicts someone you worship, suddenly the courts are rigged, the jurors are corrupt, and reality itself is fake news.

It’s almost as if “law and order” was never about law or order at all.

And here’s the truly magical part:

If you’re a Democrat, or if you’re Brown, or—God forbid—both, you’re automatically a demon. No trial required. No nuance allowed. You’re a threat, a parasite, an invader. Deportable. Executable. Disposable.

But if you’re powerful, wealthy, loud, and politically useful?

Thirty-four felonies are just “technicalities.” Sexual assault verdicts are just “opinions.” Accountability is just “persecution.”

The same people who scream that undocumented immigrants don’t “respect the law” will bend themselves into philosophical pretzels to explain why their guy should be exempt from it. The same people who justify death over alleged wrongdoing will suddenly discover the concept of mercy when it benefits them personally.

This isn’t hypocrisy anymore. Hypocrisy implies shame.

This is moral bankruptcy with a flag sticker slapped on the bumper.

And so we arrive at the final conclusion of this twisted logic maze:

Some people deserve due process.

Some people deserve bullets.

And which category you fall into has less to do with what you’ve done and more to do with who you are, how you vote, and how much melanin you have.

If that makes you uncomfortable, good.

It should.

Because a society that can justify killing a citizen while excusing criminality at the top isn’t confused—it’s revealing itself. And what it’s revealing isn’t strength, patriotism, or justice.

It’s fear. Wrapped in slogans. Armed with excuses.

And desperately hoping no one notices the disconnect.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

At some point in every national meltdown, a person has to ask themselves a very simple, very American question: Is there at least one silver lining in this flaming dumpster being pushed downhill by clowns? Because if there isn’t, we’re all just doom-scrolling ourselves into an early grave.

Let’s recap the highlights of the current shit show. U.S. citizens getting murdered. Others being abducted like we’re auditioning for a low-budget geopolitical thriller. The Orange Menace in the White House casually announcing—between rage posts and capitalization errors—that he is now, apparently, the de facto president of Venezuela. Because sure, why not. That’s how sovereignty works now: you just call dibs. And if that weren’t enough, there’s the ongoing, obsessive, toddler-at-Target fixation on acquiring Greenland. Not for science. Not for diplomacy. Just vibes. Big “I saw it on a map and want it” energy.

It’s exhausting. It’s absurd. It’s dangerous. And it’s all happening at a volume so loud and constant that it’s become background noise—like a smoke alarm we’ve collectively decided to ignore because, technically, the house hasn’t fully collapsed yet.

But here’s where I cling—white-knuckled—to the idea that something good might come out of this mess.

Maybe, just maybe, people are finally waking up.

Because it turns out that “bad government” isn’t some abstract civics-class concept you can shrug off with “well, politics doesn’t affect me.” Bad government doesn’t stay politely contained in C-SPAN hearings and talking-head panels. It shows up in real bodies, real borders, real lives disrupted or ended. It shows up when chaos becomes policy and cruelty becomes branding.

And suddenly, that smug little comfort phrase—it doesn’t affect me—starts aging like milk.

Good government, on the other hand, is boring in the best possible way. It fixes roads. It prevents wars instead of inventing them. It treats human lives like something more than expendable props in a strongman fantasy. It doesn’t make the entire planet wake up every morning wondering what unhinged announcement is coming next.

Bad government makes everyone’s life miserable. Not just “those people.” Not just someone else’s kid. Everyone. Markets jitter. Allies recoil. Laws bend until they snap. And the rest of us are left standing there, staring at the wreckage, being told this is actually strength.

So yes—through the murders, the abductions, the delusions of imperial grandeur, and the international hostage-taking masquerading as leadership—I am choosing to hope. Not because things are fine (they very much are not), but because the mask is finally off.

This isn’t theoretical anymore. This isn’t partisan sport. This is the cost of incompetence, ego, and authoritarian cosplay playing out in real time.

If there is any good news at all, I hope it’s this: that enough people finally understand that government matters. That competence matters. That decency matters. And that shrugging while everything burns is not neutrality—it’s surrender.

Let this be a wake-up call. Because the snooze button has already cost us enough.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Here we go again. I hate that I even have to write this. I hate that it feels like I’m “harping,” as if repeatedly objecting to someone being shot to death is some tedious personality quirk, like always bringing up the check too early at dinner. But yes—let’s harp. Because Renée Nicole Good was shot in basically cold blood, and the reaction from the right has been a master class in moral gymnastics so advanced it deserves its own Olympic event.

Miss Good was a 37-year-old mother of three. Past tense. Three kids who will now grow up with an empty chair at birthdays, graduations, and holidays. That should be the beginning, middle, and end of the story. Full stop. Except somehow—somehow—it isn’t.

Because when the victim doesn’t fit the approved ideological mold, the script flips instantly.

When anyone so much as quoted Charlie Kirk’s own words back to him—Charlie Kirk, a noted professional agitator whose entire brand is poking bears with a microphone—people were immediately told to calm down. “Watch your tone.” “Don’t inflame tensions.” “Violence is never okay.” Suddenly everyone was a monk of nonviolence, clutching pearls so hard you’d think they were being paid by the rosary.

But now?

Now a woman is dead, and the same crowd has decided we’re no longer talking about a human being. We’re talking about a label. An “agitator.” A troublemaker. A person who, by some deeply warped logic, apparently opted into being shot the moment she failed the ideological purity test.

Funny how that works.

She is no longer Renée. No longer a mother. No longer a daughter, a friend, a coworker, a person who woke up that morning not planning to die. No, now she’s a convenient noun—agitator—which, in this moral universe, functions like a magic spell. Say it out loud and suddenly bullets become understandable. Regrettable, maybe, but understandable. Almost… inevitable. Tragic, sure—but in the same way a house fire is tragic when someone forgot to blow out a candle.

And let’s be very clear about what’s happening here:

This is retroactive justification of violence.

It’s the quiet, cowardly kind. The kind that doesn’t pull the trigger but shows up afterward with a thesaurus and a shrug. The kind that says, “Well, you know how things are these days,” as if “these days” naturally include people being executed for being on the wrong side of a political mood swing.

We are told, yet again, not to be emotional. Not to politicize it. Not to “rush to judgment.” But judgment seems to come awfully fast when the deceased isn’t useful as a martyr. Then suddenly everyone’s an armchair prosecutor, eager to explain why empathy should be withheld this one time.

And no—this is not about agreeing with everything Renée Nicole Good ever said, did, or believed. That’s the laziest dodge of all. Basic human worth is not a subscription service you cancel when someone annoys you.

A woman is dead.

Three children lost their mother.

And the response from a certain corner of the political universe is to argue—out loud—that she essentially earned a bullet.

If that doesn’t horrify you, then spare me the lectures about civility, law and order, or the sanctity of life. You don’t get to cosplay as defenders of morality while tripping over yourselves to explain why someone’s death is acceptable.

So yes, I’ll keep harping on it.

Because the moment we stop harping is the moment this kind of thinking becomes normal.

And once that happens, the question isn’t who deserved it.

It’s who’s next.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Once again, Grandpa Trump has wandered into the global affairs wing of the museum, tripped over a timeline, and declared himself the smartest man in the room. This time, the target is Denmark—specifically Greenland—and the justification is vintage Grandpa: Danish boats landed there 500 years ago, therefore Denmark doesn’t really get to keep it.

This is the geopolitical equivalent of yelling “finders keepers” while actively living inside a house founded on armed rebellion against that exact idea.

Let’s slow this down, because irony clearly does not register in Grandpa Trump’s adult, adult, irony-impaired brain.

Yes—the Danes landed on Greenland. That is correct. And here’s the part Grandpa seems to skip, possibly because it ruins the whole fantasy: Denmark is a Danish country. This wasn’t some unrelated Viking Uber drop-off. Greenland became part of the Danish realm and, inconveniently for cable-news imperialism, remains a territory of Denmark today, with broad self-governance and international recognition.

This is how modern sovereignty works. Not vibes. Not 15th-century parking receipts. Law.

Greenland’s relationship to Denmark is roughly equivalent to Puerto Rico’s relationship to the United States. And notice how no one—no matter how bored or belligerent—stands at a podium and says, “Well, Spain was there first, so Puerto Rico is up for grabs.” That would sound insane. Because it is insane.

But insanity, like irony, is apparently not a deal-breaker anymore.

Now comes the part where Grandpa’s argument detonates itself.

About 500 years ago, the British landed on the shores of North America. Later, British citizens living on that land took up arms against Britain, told the crown to pound sand, and founded what we now call the United States of America. This is not obscure history. This is the origin story. This is literally the brand.

By Grandpa Trump’s logic, Britain should be able to show up tomorrow, wave a musket, and say, “Sorry lads, we were here first.” Which means the American Revolution was just a paperwork error and the Fourth of July is basically a typo.

And that’s before we even acknowledge the massive, screaming historical reality that there were indigenous peoples here already—millions of them—long before any British boots, Danish sails, or European land grabs entered the chat.

So let’s summarize Grandpa Logic™:

When Europeans landed somewhere and we benefited → destiny When Europeans landed somewhere and others benefited → invalid When history contradicts this → fake When irony is pointed out → witch hunt

This isn’t foreign policy. This is a senile game of Risk played with selectively remembered flashcards and a permanent grievance hangover.

The real issue isn’t Greenland. It’s that Grandpa Trump treats history like a buffet where you pile your plate with whatever justifies power and shove everything else under the table. Sovereignty becomes optional. Law becomes negotiable. Reality becomes a hostile witness.

Greenland is Danish because Denmark exists, governs it, and is internationally recognized as doing so. The United States exists because people rejected colonial ownership at gunpoint. Both of these facts cannot coexist with Grandpa’s argument—and so, naturally, Grandpa pretends one of them never happened.

If irony were taxable, the national debt would be gone by breakfast. Instead, we’re left with a former president who believes that ancient landings invalidate modern nations—unless, of course, those nations are his.

Denmark remains Denmark. Greenland remains Greenland. The United States remains a contradiction wrapped in a revolution. And Grandpa Trump remains blissfully unaware that the argument he’s making doesn’t just fail.

It erases America itself.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Ah yes, welcome to the bold new era of governance where numbers are optional, science is more of a vibe than a discipline, and “lives saved” are apparently an accounting nuisance best left off the spreadsheet. This administration, in a stunning act of intellectual minimalism, has decided that when it comes to EPA standards on particulate matter, counting the people who don’t die is just… extra. And really, who has time for extras?

Because let’s be honest: particulate matter is tiny. Microscopic, even. And if something is too small to see, it’s practically imaginary, right? Sure, scientists have spent decades documenting how PM2.5 worms its way into lungs, bloodstreams, and hearts, shaving years off lives with the quiet efficiency of a corporate downsizing. But unless those particles show up wearing name tags and carrying protest signs, how can we be expected to take them seriously?

The administration’s logic is refreshingly simple: if you can’t count it easily, don’t count it at all. Cancer cases that don’t happen. Asthma attacks that never occur. Heart attacks politely canceled due to cleaner air. These are what economists might call “externalities,” and what this administration calls “inconvenient.” After all, you can’t hold a press conference for a funeral that never happened. No grieving families, no dramatic visuals, no ratings. What’s the political upside?

This is governance by toddler math. If a life is saved quietly, in the privacy of someone continuing to exist, does it really count? According to the latest reasoning, no. Only deaths that occur loudly, expensively, and preferably on a tight news cycle deserve recognition. Prevention is boring. Prevention doesn’t poll well. Prevention doesn’t make donors feel powerful.

The EPA, of course, has the audacity to rely on decades of peer-reviewed research, epidemiological models, and—how dare they—actual data. Their estimates that air quality standards save tens of thousands of lives annually are based on measurable reductions in mortality and morbidity. But models involve math, and math leads to numbers, and numbers can contradict narratives. And narratives, as we know, are far more important than reality.

So the administration has heroically stepped in to say, “Enough.” Enough of this elitist obsession with evidence. Enough of assuming that public policy should be evaluated based on outcomes instead of vibes. If people don’t drop dead immediately after deregulation, clearly nothing bad is happening. Long-term health impacts are just long-term theories. Correlation is fake news. Causation is woke.

And really, where does it end? If we count lives saved by cleaner air, next thing you know we’ll be counting lives saved by seatbelts, food safety regulations, clean water standards, and—God forbid—vaccines. Before you know it, the entire premise of government acting to protect public health starts to look reasonable, and that simply won’t do.

What’s especially impressive is the philosophical commitment here. This isn’t just policy; it’s epistemology. A bold declaration that reality only exists if it aligns with quarterly goals. If science produces results that suggest regulation is good, then clearly science has become political and must be ignored. The numbers didn’t disappear—we just stopped believing in them. Very postmodern. Very chic.

In the end, the message is clear: lives saved don’t count unless they’re profitable, visible, and politically convenient. Clean air is nice, but deregulation feels freer. And freedom, apparently, means the freedom to pretend that fewer funerals are meaningless.

So breathe deep while you can. Just don’t expect anyone in charge to notice—or care—that you’re still alive because of it.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Oh, absolutely — let’s just compare a woman who was fatally shot by a federal agent during an immigration operation in Minneapolis to Ashley Babbitt, the Capitol Police shooting on January 6. Because that’s how moral clarity works these days! 🙄

In case you missed it: Renée Nicole Good — a 37-year-old mother of three, a poet, a human being — was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026. Videos circulating show her in her SUV as federal agents approach; the Department of Homeland Security, in a highly contested claim, called it “self-defense.” Local leaders, loved ones, and neighbors strongly dispute that narrative. Many witnesses and footage raise alarms about how quickly lethal force was used and whether it was at all justified. Good was not known to be armed, was not the target of an arrest, and was reportedly returning home after dropping a child off at school when approached by agents. 

And Ashley Babbitt — a 35-year-old air force veteran — was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer during the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol. That day — yes, the day rioters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overturn a democratic election — saw Babbitt climb through a broken door toward a secured hallway when an officer fired. Multiple investigations concluded the shooting was lawful and within department policy, noting officers faced an immediate, violent breach and Babbitt was part of an unlawful mob. 

And now — cue the dramatic head-exploding emoji — some folks on the right want to spin these two incidents as if they’re morally equivalent. As if a federal agent shooting a woman during a controversial enforcement action in Minneapolis is the same as shooting someone in the chaos of a violent insurrection aimed at destroying our democratic institutions. Because clearly the very fabric of American moral reasoning depends on equating those two. 😒

So let’s get this straight:

Renée Good was a civilian whose death in broad daylight has sparked nationwide grief, protests, and scrutiny. Her neighbors, her partner, her mother, and city leaders have publicly questioned federal claims that she “weaponized” her car or posed a clear threat.  Ashley Babbitt was part of an attack attempting to breach secure chambers of Congress. She was participating in a mass effort to overturn a democratic election — an action most people on Earth would call extremist, violent, and unlawful. Her shooting came in the immediate context of an assault on a seat of government. 

But sure! Let’s all just chuck out nuance and context and claim they’re the same, because why not?! Isn’t it fun — truly so fun — to pretend this is just another day in a balanced moral landscape?

Meanwhile, the outrage machine cranks on:

Republicans insisting Good’s killing was “self-defense” while desperately trying to paint Babbitt as an innocent civilian who did nothing wrong. Conservatives bristling at any investigation into federal agents involved in Good’s death — as if scrutiny is inherently partisan. …and somehow, by some marvel of rhetorical gymnastics, both tragedies now fuel the exact same talking point? Which conveniently absolves one set of people of any responsibility and blames the other set for everything? Classic.

It’s almost admirable — in the way that watching a toddler learn physics by repeatedly slamming their head against a wall might be admirable.

But here’s the bottom line: treating these two deaths as if they occupy the same ethical terrain is not just intellectually bankrupt — it’s morally lazy and politically opportunistic. One was a woman caught in a controversial and contested use of force by a federal agency.  The other was a participant in an attack on the Capitol, indisputably part of a violent upheaval against the constitutional process. 

Comparing them to score political points is not just wrong — it’s shameless. And that, dear reader, is the part that’s truly outrageous.