He’s taught in his school from the start by the rule That the laws are with him to protect his white skin To keep up his hate so he never thinks straight ‘Bout the shape that he’s in—but it ain’t him to blame He’s only a pawn in their game. —Bob Dylan

ICE agent Jonathan Ross is responsible for his actions. Millions of people believe he murdered Renee Good in Minneapolis on January 7. He is also a pawn in the Department of Homeland Security’s lawless campaign to transform a federal law enforcement agency into a state-sponsored apparatus with a chilling past.

A history refresher: a key to the Nazis iron grip on power was establishing the Gestapo, the German secret police, notorious for its brutal tactics, arbitrary arrests, suppression of dissent, and eliminating perceived non-Aryan enemies of the state. It’s eerie how that description fits ICE: masked agents wearing no visible identification, brutal tactics, minimal accountability, and terrorizing communities in service of a political objective: to make America white again.

Agent Ross shot Renee Good three times. She was a 37-year-old mother and a volunteer legal observer of immigration enforcement activity—an entirely lawful act. Most readers have seen the video and heard analyses that convincingly exposes the Trump administration’s bald-faced lies that Ms. Good tried to run over the agent.

Reaction to Renee Good’s killing has been swift, strong, and sustained. The grassroots campaign opposing ICE is bolstered by the stance public officials have taken, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Around the country, people responded with grief and fury. Vigils and demonstrations began immediately. A chant arose and quickly snowballed, heralding massive nationwide protests on January 10 -11 under the banner: “ICE Out for Good!”

Protesters are not imagining the danger. Human rights organizations and major news outlets have documented ICE’s violent tactics—practices that thrive in the shadows of impunity.

History teaches what happens when ordinary people look away. In Germany, there were no mass protests when Jews, Roma, and gay people were rounded up. The peoples’ silence did not immediately translate into extermination camps; it began with bureaucratic cruelty, normalized state violence, and the demonization of those who resisted. While no analogy is perfect, denial is deadly.

For decades, I’ve been part of a movement that exposed the links between men’s socialization, the misuse of power, and acts of violence and abuse. ICE personifies the most aberrant aspects of traditional male culture: an extreme presentation of a manhood defined by dominance, suppressing emotions, and state sanctioned brutality. It’s the antithesis of how we want to raise our sons and grandsons.

Wishful thinking yes, but until ICE is forced to disband, Congress should demand that before being accepted as agents:

* all candidates be evaluated to assess their emotional intelligence

* be required to attend regular counseling throughout their service, and

* take ongoing classes in both de-escalation tactics, and trauma-informed supervision

No surprise that the Trump administration would reject such measures, preferring a steady diet of callousness and cruelty. ICE’s recruitment campaign focuses on conservative talk radio and podcast listeners, gun rights advocates, and attendees at NASCAR races and UFC fight nights.

Renee Good’s murder came amid a broader assault on democratic norms—one that sparked the contemporary resistance movement, beginning nearly a decade ago: from the massive Women’s March of January 2017 to the even larger No Kings rallies of 2025. These mobilizations arose in response to the threat posed by a sustained campaign to undermine the Constitution, defy the rule of law, and normalize authoritarian power.

Nothing embodies that threat more starkly than the first act Trump took immediately after he took office: pardoning nearly 1,600 rioters arrested for the January 6, 2021 insurrection—a third of them convicted of violent crimes in an attempted coup carried out in his name.

The patriarchal arrogance of the Trump administration’s law enforcement policy must be confronted. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller’s fingerprints are all over an immigration regime designed to dehumanize rather than govern.

A challenge—and an opportunity—facing the resistance movement is to explicitly target patriarchy—not as a slogan, but as strategy. Feminist leadership—women’s leadership—has been indispensable to every major resistance campaign of the past decade—and long before. Integrating core principles of the profeminist men’s movement—accountability, emotional literacy, care-giving, nonviolence—would sharpen the resistance, not dilute it.

Movement leaders like Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg of Indivisible have repeatedly warned that authoritarianism advances when lies go unchallenged and fear replaces solidarity. This moment demands us to be fearless, summon heretofore unknown reservoirs of courage, and articulate an unwavering commitment to moral clarity.

Renee Good was never a threat. The threat is a system that criminalizes dissent, shields violence with propaganda, and treats accountability as optional. The line has been crossed. The only question left is whether we will cross another—together—refusing to stand by as democracy bleeds out.

May Renee Good’s death galvanize more people to act. Doing so will honor her memory. It is also what history demands of us now.

The post Renee Good and the Spirit of Resistance appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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