This victim demonization shows there's no depth to which Trumpism will not sink

It’s still early, as facts are coming in about the brutal killing on Wednesday of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, who was shot in the head by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, through the windshield of her car.

What we do know, as we all can see with our own eyes on the viral videos of the killing, is that Renee was shot in cold blood, unprovoked, not having put the ICE agent in any danger. This video analysis by the New York Times makes it clear.

We also know from reports that Renee, an American citizen originally from Colorado, was in a relationship with a woman who, in a gut-wrenching video, identified herself as her wife. In a video obtained by The Advocate:

“They killed my wife. I don’t know what to do,” the woman says through sobs in the footage, with a damaged SUV visible in the distance behind her. “We stopped to videotape, and they shot her in the head,” the woman cries.
“We have a 6-year-old at school,” she says, almost unable to breathe, as a chaotic scene in which federal officers prevented at least one doctor who was on the scene from assisting the shot victim unfolds. “We’re new here,” the distraught woman says in despair.

On Renee’s social media accounts, which included Pride emojis, she described herself as a “wife and mom,” according to the Associated Press, which noted that her six-year-old child is from a previous marriage to a man who died in 2023 — a second marriage — and that she had two teenage children with a first husband, from whom she was divorced.

Renee’s mother, Donna Ganger, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune Renee “was extremely compassionate. She’s taken care of people all her life. She was loving, forgiving, and affectionate.”

Ganger said Renee lived with her “partner” a few blocks away from where she was killed. Some media aren’t reporting anything about Renee’s wife (or partner) and are even saying her six-year-old child is “orphaned.”

But Fox News is certainly on top of it, all to demonize her — dehumanize her — as a queer woman.

The demonization began, however, with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who falsely claimed ice agents were under attack by protestors — “domestic terrorists” — while their cars were stuck in snow.

There was no snow event — hadn’t been a snowfall for days — in Minneapolis and the streets were clear, as we could see from the video, in which the ICE vehicle drove up to Renee’s car, at which points agents got out as she attempted to drive away while one tried to open her door and another shot her in the head through the windshield from just to the side of the front of the car. Again, the New York Times analysis of the video shows this, as do analyses of other news organizations.

Noem falsely claimed Renee tried to “ram” the agent, and that Renee was a “domestic terrorist” who caused the agent to have to go to the hospital — even though we can see in the video he was unharmed and walked away, then got in his car and drove off.

This vile dog-killing cretin of a Homeland Security Secretary is the epitome of all that is ugly and fraudulent in the Trump administration. The demonization of a mother, a wife, a daughter, an innocent woman, as a domestic terrorist is truly repugnant.

It only got worse as the hordes on social began defaming Renee. Then it hit Fox News. Jesse Watters, an odious presence who makes jokes out of brutality, made comments meant to dehumanize Renee.

Describing her as a “self-proclaimed poet,” he’s telegraphing to the MAGA masses, who have been nurtured by anti-intellectualism, that she’s one of those dangerous “elites” and thus must be guilty of something. And if that won’t convince them, well, she has the dreaded, “pronouns in her bio,” so she must be dangerous.

And she has a “lesbian partner,” so she’s not a real person, not like the rest of us, but one of them. (It takes me back to the Trump super PAC ad during the 2024 campaign showing Kamala Harris supporting trans rights and proclaiming, “Kamala is for they/them. Trump is for you.”).

This is how a fascist regime works. They kill people and then push propaganda, claiming the person deserved it. And on top of that, they demonize the victim as one of those “undesirable” people who deserved it anyway, someone less than human.

There were huge protests in Minneapolis last night and across the country, as there should be. This ICE thug must be prosecuted, though the Trump regime will do everything they can to protect him — and Trump will pardon him, as he’ll have to be convicted under federal charges.

But no matter, we must make the GOP pay for it, bringing the message to the American people, and organizing for the mid-terms to take our government back from the authoritarian regime. And we’ll do it in the name of all the thousands who’ve brutalized — many of them far out of sight — like Renee.

• Michelangelo Signorile writes The Signorile Report, a free and reader-supported Substack. If you’ve valued reading The Signorile Report, consider becoming a paid subscriber and supporting independent, ad-free opinion journalism.