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Two days after an ICE agent shot and killed Renée Good in Minneapolis, Rep. Roger Williams issued an ultimatum to the Trump administration’s critics in Minnesota and beyond.

“People need to quit demonstrating, quit yelling at law enforcement, challenging law enforcement, and begin to get civil,” the Texas Republican told NewsNation. “And until we do that, I guess we’re going to have it this way. And the people that are staying in their homes or doing the right thing need to be protected.”

That’s a pretty clear encapsulation of MAGA-world’s views on dissent these days. You aren’t supposed to protest. You aren’t supposed to “yell at” or “challenge” the militarized federal agents occupying your city. And anyone who wants to be “protected” should probably just stay “in their homes.” Williams isn’t some fringe backbencher; he’s a seven-term congressman who chairs the House Small Business Committee. He is announcing de facto government policy.

For nearly a year, President Donald Trump and his allies have been engaged in an escalating assault on the First Amendment. The administration has systematically targeted or threatened many of Trump’s most prominent critics: massive law firms, Jimmy Kimmel, even, at one point, Elon Musk. But it’s worth keeping in mind that some of the earliest victims of the president’s second-term war on speech were far less powerful.

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[-] ameancow@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

We haven't yet seen the beginning of how bad this is going to get. The administration knows they're going to get smashed in midterms to such a degree that they won't have any mandate left to trample the constitution. So they're likely to just go full rogue-nation while they can, and there's a good chance they will subvert further elections entirely.

It's not like the fucking Democrats are capable of doing anything but frowning sternly. We are living in the end-times for our nation people, I don't think we can undo this in any reasonable timeframe.

From the department of health and human services abolishing vaccines and vaccine research, to releasing a food pyramid that says eating red meat is as important as vegetables, to the blanket deregulation of dangerous AI development, to the elevation of massive surveillance programs on US soil, to the deregulation of corporate agendas, to the complete dismantling of all social protections for anyone who isn't a white male christian, to the expansionist, imperial takeover of neighboring nations, to the complete withdrawal from all alliances and international organizations, to all of our science and social services getting defunded or repealed, to squads of gestapo agents going to door-to-door asking for people's "papers please" to our media's inability to cover anything in good faith, to our lack of independent judicial oversight, to now our federal reserve being shaken down to wreck our entire economy until we live in a dark-ages hellhole, to protestors being executed without prosecution, and probably several dozen other massive destructive measures that have already happened, I think it's over guys.

We might be able to push this back a few steps if we all turn out and do our marches and our voting, but it's going to take a concerted effort by every American on both sides of the political spectrum to work together and restore normalcy to our country, and I don't see that happening as long as the left stays sheltered and unarmed and anti-social, and the right continues to live in their own atomized world where they are only fed news that appeals to their feelings.

But hey, at least 30% of the country is finally going to get their... their uh.... I mean, other than being able to be nazis in public safely, they're really going to suffer the worst living in red states. Nobody is winning here, none of the money being gutted from our government is going back to anyone. That needs to be your story you tell people. We're not getting anything back. Double meaning included.

this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
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