They're going to start killing ICE agents

What the killing of Alex Pretti reveals about the risks of unaccountable federal policing

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The escalation is the point

There is no ambiguity worth entertaining anymore. What the Trump administration is doing with federal immigration enforcement is creating conditions that lead toward violence, instability, and authoritarian consolidation. That outcome is not accidental. Instead, it follows a familiar and dangerous pattern.

Let’s start with something that needs to be stated clearly, because bad-faith actors will attempt to twist it: All violence is wrong. Violence against civilians is wrong. Violence against federal agents is wrong. A functioning democracy depends on rejecting political violence outright.

That rejection does not require ignoring reality.

Another American killed by ICE

Over the weekend in Minneapolis, 37-year-old Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse and American citizen with no criminal record, was shot and killed by federal agents. A video shows him filming an encounter, attempting to help a woman who had just been shoved to the ground, then it shows him being pepper sprayed, tackled by multiple agents, and pinned to the sidewalk. Another agent draws a gun. Seconds later, shots ring out, and Alex Pretti is dead.

Federal officials immediately described him as a violent threat. They floated language about domestic terrorism. But the available video does not support that claim. Witnesses do not support that claim. State officials report being blocked from the crime scene by federal authorities.

Federal law enforcement is not operating under meaningful accountability; they’re acting with near-total impunity.

History is very clear about what happens next

When the state uses lethal force in public without consequences, societies destabilize. That does not occur because violence becomes justified, but instead because human behavior is predictable. People absorb the rules they are taught. When power demonstrates that violence carries no cost, some individuals will eventually respond in kind.

That reality is uncomfortable to say out loud because it can sound like endorsement when it is actually warning. The warning matters.

If this approach continues, retaliation against federal agents becomes more likely. Someone will decide that the system has failed completely. Someone will decide that violence is the only remaining language available. When that happens, one or more ICE agents will be killed.

That outcome would be a tragedy. It would also be politically useful to authoritarians.

Escalation serves those who seek expanded power. Chaos creates justification. Disorder becomes the rationale for emergency authority. Calls for restraint get reframed as weakness. Demands for accountability get labeled threats to public safety.

This is the cycle authoritarian movements rely on.

Enter: Authoritarianism

Widespread unrest allows leaders to argue for troop deployments. It allows them to normalize suspension of civil liberties, to portray elections as dangerous or irresponsible. It ultimately allows them to claim that repression is protection.

That is why chaos keeps getting provoked.

To be clear, presidents do not run elections in the United States. States do. Local officials do. A president cannot cancel the 2026 elections with an executive order. Even during war, even during a pandemic, the constitutional clock keeps moving. The presidential term ends on January 20, 2029.

But elections do not need to be formally canceled to be undermined.

A country that feels ungovernable becomes easier to manipulate. A population kept in constant fear becomes more willing to accept extraordinary measures. When violence spreads, calls for order grow louder, even when that order erodes democratic norms.

If federal agents begin dying, the response will not be de-escalation. It will be more force, broader crackdowns, heavier military presence, and further normalization of emergency powers. Protest will be treated as insurgency. Civil society will be framed as a security threat.

That repression will generate more unrest. The unrest will justify more repression.

This feedback loop is well documented. Scholars like Anne Applebaum and Ruth Ben-Ghiat have spent years warning about it. Democracies do not collapse all at once. They erode one emergency at a time.

The international reaction already reflects this shift. Messages from abroad describe disbelief and alarm. People see armed federal forces killing civilians in the streets, then leaving without investigation. They recognize the pattern because they have seen it before.

What’s next?

Ordinary people get crushed in the middle of these dynamics. That outcome does not require explicit intent. It only requires indifference to consequences.

There is no need to assume that Donald Trump wants ICE agents harmed. What matters is that he benefits politically from the chaos such violence would unleash. Nothing strengthens an authoritarian narrative faster than bloodshed paired with fear.

This path leads somewhere very dark. The longer it continues, the harder it becomes to reverse.

Stopping escalation is not about optics. It is about preserving the basic conditions required for democratic accountability. Once those conditions are gone, restoring them becomes far more difficult.

And history offers no comfort about how these stories end.

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