The killing of Alex Pretti was unjust and unjustified. While protesting — aka “observing” or “interfering with” — deportation operations, the VA hospital ICU nurse came to the aid of two protesters, one of whom had been slammed to the ground by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent. With a phone in one hand, Pretti used the other hand, in vain, to protect his eyes while being pepper sprayed. Knocked to the ground, Pretti was repeatedly smashed in the face with the spray can, pummeled by multiple agents, disarmed of his holstered legal firearm and then shot nine or 10 times.
Note the sequence. He was disarmed and then he was shot.
That’s why the killing is undeniably unjust and unjustified. Unjust because Pretti didn’t deserve to die, even if he’d been fully “obstructing” federal agents, death is not a just price for that. But he wasn’t obstructing an agent from deporting an immigrant. He was obstructing an agent from further assaulting a woman in the street.
The killing was unjustified because a gang of agents didn’t need to shoot Pretti after they disarmed him. If you want to argue that merely bringing a gun to any protest justifies being shot by law enforcement, even after being disarmed, you’re going to sound as politically dumb, hypocritical or authoritarian as a whole bunch of administration officials and GOP defenders undeniably did over the weekend.
I keep using that word — “undeniable.” Sadly, it really doesn’t mean what it used to mean. “Undeniable” describes something that is so obviously and clearly true that no one can refute or dispute it. With this administration, truth ain’t got nothing to do with anything.
In the immediate aftermath of Pretti’s killing, members of the Trump administration took to TV and social media to describe Pretti as a “domestic terrorist” and an “assassin.” The head of CBP, Gregory Bovino, said, “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem echoed the same talking points. Pretti’s motive, she claimed, was “to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement” because he was a “domestic terrorist.” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller asserted that Pretti was an “assassin” who tried to “murder federal agents.”
The administration is making all of this up. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they are lying. They just don’t care what the truth is.
In his seminal book “On Bulls—” (the actual title isn’t censored), philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt argues that lying implies a certain respect for, and knowledge of, the truth. “It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bulls— requires no such conviction.” What this administration does is worse than lying because they don’t care whether something is true or false, only whether it will be believed.
The Trump White House is a bulls— distribution hub, that connects via tubes, canals and sluices across the media landscape. Like some vast Rube Goldberg contraption, the guy on the giant hamster wheel powering the whole thing is a president who spent his life saying whatever he needed to say at any given moment to make a deal, get out of trouble, whatever.
Raised on “the power of positive thinking” and the prosperity gospel, Donald J. Trump has always believed he could conjure the reality he wants through sheer will and a relentless repetition of what he wants people to believe. He makes claims about what “they” are “saying” and recounts tales about what people have told him, some of which are surely made up while others are probably true but insincerely told, given that everyone knows the president believes all flattery he hears.
Trump sprayed bovine excrement throughout his first term, too. But he also had staff with hazmat suits, containment and cleanup gear at the ready.
Now, in his second term, everyone grabs a hose — but that’s not water in those tanks. Terminally online and obsessed with cable news narratives, this White House is full of people who have learned at the (kissed) feet of the master. The truth and lies are just different kinds of tools for the job that matters: constructing a narrative the president wants to hear, mostly about himself or for his benefit.
That’s why the administration’s Sunday show spinners are so bad at the job. The mission isn’t primarily to reassure, never mind to inform, the public, but to reassure the president that the public is being properly told how great the president is. Because they know he’s watching.
Trump is reportedly “reviewing” the policies that left Pretti dead in the street. That’s good. But Trump’s motive isn’t to prevent more needless deaths, just the needless deaths that don’t make him look good.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.
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