Who Gets Canonized — And Who Gets Condemned?

On Jan. 6, 2021, a Capitol Police officer named Michael Byrd fatally shot Ashli Babbitt — an unarmed, married, 36-year-old U.S. Air Force veteran — as she attempted to climb through a broken window inside the U.S. Capitol.

Democrats and the media hailed Byrd as a hero. He was later promoted. They offered no sympathy for Babbitt. She was not treated as a victim of a tragic or excessive use of force, but as a villain whose death was justified by her politics. Her military service, her lack of a weapon, and the circumstances of her death were dismissed. She was MAGA, and therefore disposable.

Six years later, in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, 2026, an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old woman who repeatedly refused to comply with federal agents’ lawful commands. Good was using her SUV to block an ICE vehicle. The agent had his weapon drawn throughout the encounter. The fatal shooting occurred after Good hit the gas and accelerated toward the agent standing in her path. (RELATED: Was the Minnesota ICE Shooting Justified?)

This time, Democrats and the media immediately declared the federal agent a criminal and Good an innocent victim.

Both incidents were tragedies. A woman died in each.

So why was a Capitol Police officer celebrated, and Ashli Babbitt demonized, while an ICE agent was vilified and Renee Nicole Good sanctified?

The answer is moral relativism.

The Left’s judgments are not based on facts, law, or consistent standards. They are based on political allegiance and the lies they tell themselves — and each other — about who deserves humanity and who does not. (RELATED: The Price of Democrats’ Extremism)

Democrats have fully dehumanized anyone they disagree with.

That reality became impossible to deny nearly four months ago, when Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Across the country, from elected officials to professors to college students, Democrats openly justified his murder. Some contextualized it. Others excused it. Many celebrated it outright. (RELATED: Charlie Kirk and the Shame of the ‘However’ Progressives)

The response from the left hinged on one question: Was the victim one of us?

The reaction was shocking — yet eerily familiar. It echoed scenes from the Middle East after September 11, when jihadists danced in the streets as Americans mourned thousands murdered on American soil.

Like the jihadists who declared war on America and the West, the radical Left — now fully synonymous with the Democratic Party — has declared war on the Trump administration, MAGA, law enforcement, and anyone who refuses to join their crusade against the Constitution and the rule of law.

ICE agents, like MAGA supporters, Charlie Kirk, and President Trump before them, have been categorized as enemies — Nazis to be targeted, dehumanized, and destroyed. Once someone is placed in the Left’s basket of deplorables, their life no longer has value.

That is why Michael Byrd was declared a hero and Ashli Babbitt a criminal whose death was deserved. She was viewed as the enemy.

That is why the ICE agent is branded a villain and Renee Nicole Good a martyr. She was viewed as one of their own.

The facts of the encounters are irrelevant to this worldview. Context does not matter. Law does not matter. Humanity does not matter.

Only politics.

I explore this pattern in depth in my book, For Christ and Country: The Martyrdom of Charlie Kirk — not as a biography, but as an examination of how dehumanization, moral relativism, and political hatred culminate in real-world violence. Charlie’s assassination was not an aberration. It was the inevitable result of a culture that has decided some lives are expendable if they stand in the way of the Left’s ideological goals.

This is not justice. It is tribalism.

The Left applies no consistent moral standard to violence. Violence committed against their enemies is excusable — even righteous. Violence committed by their enemies is unforgivable, regardless of circumstance.

That is how Ashli Babbitt’s death is mocked.

That is how Charlie Kirk’s murder is rationalized and celebrated.

That is how law enforcement officers enforcing federal law are treated as legitimate targets.

Dehumanization always comes first. Political violence always follows.

America cannot survive this moral sickness.

The issue is not whether every use of force is morally or legally identical. It is that the Left decides in advance whose life has value and whose does not. Once that determination is made, facts no longer matter. Law no longer matters. Context no longer matters.

If the person killed is politically useful, they are canonized as a victim regardless of their actions. If the person killed is politically inconvenient, their death is justified, mocked, or ignored — no matter the circumstances. That is not a commitment to justice. It is a commitment to power.

A society that assigns human worth based on ideology does not prevent violence. It incentivizes it. And history shows exactly where that road leads.

The Left’s refusal to apply one moral standard to all is not just hypocrisy.

It is dangerous.

And it is getting people killed, including their own indoctrinated activists.