Editor,
Vigilante murderers are in control in Minneapolis. That’s who those “law enforcement officers” are who shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti: vigilante mercenaries hired by a criminal government.
Our government is headed by a sexual predator and insurrectionist wannabe dictator who’s crazier than a loon, listens to right-wing nutcases like Stephen Miller, the administration’s Hater-in-Chief, and gets his intel from Fox News personalities.
The killing of Alex Pretti was outright murder. Watch the video. He was already pepper sprayed and subdued on the ground, defenseless, when he was shot by a strong-arm enforcer bent on intimidating any opposition to Trump’s governance. We taxpayers pay for these enforcers.
These men from ICE and Border Patrol are behaving exactly as the Brown Shirts did in Nazi Germany at the beginning of Hitler’s rise. The Brown Shirts and masked ICE men are one and the same, shooting unarmed citizens, breaking into homes without warrants, using illegal force. If you don’t believe me, catch up on your history and read “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany” by William L. Shirer.
It can’t happen here? It is happening here. This administration is following the Nazi playbook. That ought to scare everyone to death.
Bottom line, anyone who votes to keep Republicans in power, in any way supports those who keep Trump in power, is an accessory to murder and is actively complicit in the dismantling of our democracy. Republicans are the ones allowing Trump and his henchmen, and equally unqualified henchwomen, to abuse their power and imperil average Americans who patriotically protest injustices and outrages committed in the name of the United States of America.
This has to stop, but it won’t as long as Republicans keep their cult-like leader in power, as long as they ignore their moral compass, keep their blinders on, repress compassion and common sense, allow self-interest to override their consciences.
I’d temper my language and reach out for mutual understanding, but this latest murder is just a bridge too far for me to believe that people who support Trump and keep him in power are capable of reasonable thought and discussion.
Republicans, it is up to you to stop the killing of American citizens exercising their democratic rights to disagree with the current lawless and criminal administration. It is not the democratic government of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, both of whom would be appalled by what Trump’s election has wrought in their beloved country. The United States has lost its way.
Republicans, it is on you to get Trump and his enablers out of power and our country back on track. Republicans came through when it was time for Richard Nixon to succumb. We Democrats and Independents are right by your side to help. Make your voices heard, especially at the ballot box. Together, We the People can take our country back to the republic we love for its justice, freedom, and equality.
Betty Azar
Freeland
