Breaking Things: A Proposal of Resistance

He broke it! He did not wait for permission to change things. He simply bent and, in most cases, broke it. If the answer was going to be no, why wait for the no is his strategy. The strategy is to test the country’s basic mores. Don’t ask about tearing down the West Wing of the White House. He ordered the dismantling of DEI and government, and businesses fell into line. It resulted in one of the largest workforce reductions in government employment, leaving workers surprised and scrambling to find new job security. Vastly significant portions of Black women, estimated at 300,000, “lost their good government job.” He did not ask for permission to do that. He demanded that historical language be sanitized in museums and on official signage, erasing historical social and racial justice messaging. He just did it. As he bombed boats in the Caribbean Sea, killing a hundred people, he did not ask whether it was legal but simply let the incendiary devices fly. The justification offered was that they were bringing drugs to America, which was not feasible or truthful, given where the boats were. When he commandeered ships carrying oil from Venezuela, he did not ask. He hijacked the ships without seeking permission. He sent troops into American cities without respect for local governments, using the weight of the national government.

Trump’s right-wing agenda has inspired and unleashed a viciousness embodied in the actions of trained and hastily onboarded federal law enforcement officers who are acting more like storm troopers than anything else. Renee Good was shot three times as she served as a monitor observing these stormtroopers. She seemed to try to connect, appealing to the humanity of the federal agents, as observed on video, but was spurned, and in futility, she tried to drive away. As she turned the wheels on her vehicle to leave, the hatred and right-wing zeal of a federal agent stepped in front of her vehicle and discharged his weapon. He killed her for no apparent reason other than that she was watching and monitoring the actions of these federally protected agents.  She was not an immigrant, but she was a mother, wife, and American citizen. They shot her three times. Then, approximately two and a half weeks later, early on a Saturday morning, Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse at the VA, was shoved to the ground, brutally beaten by this death squad, and shot nine times in five seconds. He died on the spot. He was also an American citizen exercising his right to protest, trying to safeguard the community from this lawless occupation. The Trump administration quickly swung into action to discredit and devalue their lives by calling them “terrorists”. This is a word DHS and Christie Noem use to justify any and all ICE shootings and killings. ICE and immigration officials have discharged their weapons into the American public at least 16 times. The headlines, as the media try to collect information, expand not necessarily daily but certainly. In January 2026, The Wall Street Journal identified at least 13 instances of immigration officers “firing at or into civilian vehicles,” but by the end of the month, that figure was obsolete. There is a violent, murderous hatred embedded in the attitudes of these so-called officers of the law.

Local government has tried to resist. In Montgomery County, Maryland, there is currently a bill, The County Values Act, that would require a judicial warrant for ICE to access nonpublic areas in county facilities. It would also prohibit the use of county-owned parking lots, garages, and vacant lots for immigration enforcement. There is also the Unmask ICE Act, which would prohibit federal, state, and local law enforcement from wearing masks on the job. That seems only fair since, in many jurisdictions, it was already illegal for citizens to be masked! Currently, some 15 states have proposed bills to prohibit law enforcement officers from wearing masks. Federal law enforcement agencies claim that masks protect DHS officers and their families by shielding their identities. That is ironic, since ICE and other federal agencies use cameras to build a facial recognition database. There have been attempts to push back against federal masks and the conduct of federal agents. Bills have been proposed in Alaska, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee. Each of these legislative bodies is appalled by the dangers posed by troops in the streets and seeks to reestablish democratic norms. Twenty-one state attorneys general wrote and sent a letter to Members of Congress urging them to pass legislation prohibiting immigration agents from wearing masks. They warned that ICE agents wearing masks “have the effect of terrorizing communities rather than protecting them.” They further stated in the letter that “the commonplace use of masks and the failure of ICE to identify themselves as law enforcement makes everyone less safe and weakens the integrity of our justice systems.” The pushback is admirable and needed, but the issues are far more than masks; the overall viciousness and violent attacks being carried out with impunity on American streets against immigrants and citizens alike.

These bills and letters are local governments and political leaders operating within the culture and structure of American conformity, where decorum is presented, and the traditional rules of law apply. Civil protest and discourse are exercised, believing that the structures have power. They have been trained to abide by the rules of civility. Meanwhile, the federal behemoth is trampling standard political decorum by bending things until they break and using the weight of the federal government to crush any resistance. What is needed now, and before it is too late, is the deliberate creation of a constitutional crisis.

The 10th Amendment has swung in opposite streams through US history. Its purpose was to maintain boundaries between the federal government and the states. It was ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights. This is one reason why it took so long for slavery to be abolished in the United States. The federal government was restrained from ordering states what to do, and, nearing the Civil War, battles were fought within certain territories over whether they would become free states or slave-enslaved protectorates. It took the Civil War for slavery to be abolished. Then, with federal troops stationed in the former slave states, several years saw advances in enfranchisement and relative freedom. That period is called Reconstruction. The federal government used its powers to enforce political and social inclusion. However, the racists fought back through acts of terror and sabotage until Reconstruction ended with federal troops being withdrawn from the South. Once again, those former slave states were free to institute Black codes and legally enforced racial stratification and separation. The federal government did not intervene for another 100 years, until the civil rights movement challenged the legality of racial segregation by pushing for and passing laws using the weight of the federal government to restrain the racial excesses of local governments. We in the racial justice movement wanted the federal government to regulate state behavior. So, you can imagine the angst I feel in this historical moment about stronger state and local government.

The irony is that in this historical moment, I would like to see a strong local and state government that is able to muster its own law enforcement to confront, challenge, question, apprehend, and arrest masked federal armed marauders. This requires local governments to call on local law enforcement to be loyal to the local community and committed to protecting it from the violence perpetrated by federal authorities. The local authorities need to have future employment predicated on whether local law enforcement is committed to the safety of the local population or will continue to stand assisting federal agents as they assault the population. They need to be tested as to whether they are more loyal to local government or obedient to federal agents who are racially targeting, terrorizing, assaulting, shooting, and killing the local population. This is where the wheat is separated from the chaff. Local government must demand that members of local law enforcement go after masked agents, arrest them for every act that threatens, every person kidnapped without due process, each violation of property rights, and for acts of violence against the local population. In other words, local law enforcement should be pressured to do what they have always done in every social and racial justice uprising – demand order, protect property, people, and make arrests!

We are in a civil war, and the tables of history have turned because the federal government is trampling on all the rights at the local level. This historical moment demands that we find strategies to bend it back and maybe do our own breaking in this horrific moment of American history. When this federal behemoth monster is subdued, then we can restore normal order. However, as the behemoth tramples the landscape in America, bending things until he breaks them, something more graphic and demonstrative is needed than the bills proposed and passed that have little to no impact. Local governments and the states need to precipitate a national and constitutional crisis by challenging the national government’s legal authority beyond letters, bills, and grassroots petitions. Local governments need to demand that local law enforcement enforce local laws, and in most cases, those already on the books. This would be the wake-up call that is needed for the courts to pay closer attention, create a vigorous debate in Congress, and challenge the powers of these grotesque beings that are occupying our cities and towns and shooting and killing our neighbors and friends.

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