Reign of terror

The right is deliberately building a climate of terror to destroy the left.

I

On Monday, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Minneapolis resident and mother of three Renee Good. Republicans since that killing had settled on two narratives. Half are launching plainly flimsy factual and legal defenses, such as JD Vance’s cynical description of Good as a terrorist, Kristi Noem’s bizarre suggestion that the incident was “coordinated” by “trained” leftists, and Sohrab Ahmari’s ridiculous claim that a comically blurry, artifact-plagued phone clip somehow “settled” the question of whether the ICE agent was hit by Good’s car. The other narrative is adequately captured here:

One reinforces the other. Noem, for example, knows perfectly well that there is no significant national trend of vehicular attacks by the left — in fact, as I wrote six months ago, the well-documented trend is vehicular attacks by the right. She knows, moreover, that there is zero evidence that this incident was coordinated or that anyone was “trained” to attack ICE with their car. And more to the point: she knows that we know she is lying. Just as Vance knows that it is not actually reasonable to call Good a terrorist, and just as Ahmari knows that his clip doesn’t remotely prove anything.

The function of this rhetoric isn’t to make an honest case against Good. It’s to convey that no honest case will be made, or even needs to be made. The Patriots, as they say, are in control — and the storm is here.