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History Has Its Eyes on You

•14 min read
accountabilitygovernmentjusticeauthorityiceprotest
The world is watching what's happening in America. They're seeing the same patterns I am. The question is whether enough Americans are looking.

Driving into work earlier this week, I couldn't stop thinking about Minneapolis.

As I did, a Hamilton lyric ran through my head and gave me chills: "History has its eyes on you."

I used to think that line was presumptuous when applied to myself. I'm just one person with a relatively small realm of influence. What does history care about what I do?

But then I realized: history doesn't have its eyes on me. History has its eyes on us. The world is watching what's happening in the United States right now, and they're seeing the same troubling things I am.

The World Is Watching

When I wrote about Alex Pretti on Saturday, I asked what crime justified the bullets.

It turns out the world is asking the same question.

From the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva to newsrooms in London and Paris, the international consensus is shifting. They aren't seeing a "law enforcement operation." They're seeing democratic backsliding. They see the same pattern I do: masked operatives, pepper spray, approximately ten shots fired into a motionless man, and the immediate, evidence-free label of "terrorist."

The UN has formally begun monitoring the United States for extrajudicial killings. Let that sink in. The body created to hold authoritarian regimes accountable is now watching us.

History isn't just watching us. It's currently writing the chapter where the "shining city on a hill" begins to look like the very authoritarian regimes it once warned the world about.

An Undertrained Force

As I've been researching what's happening in Minneapolis, something troubling has emerged.

ICE agent training was reportedly reduced from 22 weeks to approximately 47 days—roughly six weeks. Fitness standards have been lowered. Constitutional law and de-escalation tactics are being given less emphasis in favor of getting agents onto the streets faster.

I don't know whether the agents involved in killing Alex Pretti fall into this category of newly trained agents. But I do know this: either this shooting represents a failure of training, or it's a preview of what becomes much more likely as undertrained agents flood onto the streets making real-time decisions that affect human lives in the most extreme way possible.

When you compress 22 weeks of training into 6 weeks, something has to give. And what typically gives are the skills that prevent unnecessary deaths: constitutional literacy, de-escalation, judgment under pressure.

"Goon Squad"

I've resisted using inflammatory language about law enforcement. I understand that most officers believe they're doing necessary work. I understand that immigration enforcement is, in some form, a legitimate government function.

But I'm watching ICE in 2026, and I struggle to see it as anything other than a goon squad.

This is an agency that is now taking people from their homes, their places of employment, their schools, and their churches under the auspices of enforcing immigration—while killing US citizens in the process.

3,000 agents descended on Minneapolis. Masked. In tactical gear. Operating under information conditions that are, by all accounts, limited and curated. We're getting carefully controlled narratives, not the full picture of what's happening.

When federal agents operate in masks, shoot protesters, and immediately label victims as terrorists without evidence—that's not law enforcement. That's something else.

The Church's Silence

I grew up in a system that told me not to question authority.

The Mormon church taught me that obedience was the first law of heaven. That leaders speak for God. That prophets guide the nation. That the church would someday be a champion of liberty when the Constitution "hung by a thread."

I left that system because I realized that men are fallible. There are no prophets. There are no gods. There are only men who commit or are complicit to atrocities in the name of a god that has no reasonable demonstration of existing.

Now I'm watching the same demand for obedience being enforced by masked agents on the streets of Minneapolis. They tell us to look away, to trust the state, to comply, to accept the label of "terrorist" without evidence.

And the church that promised to champion liberty? As of this writing, the LDS church has made no public statement about these events. No defense of free speech. No concerns about the right to self-defense. No comment on the killing of protesters or the deployment of federal forces against American citizens.

Mysteriously quiet.

Or maybe not so mysterious. The 12th Article of Faith states: "We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law."

As long as what is happening appears lawful—as long as agents wear badges and invoke federal authority—the church can claim neutrality. It can point to its own scripture and say, "We honor and sustain the law."

But what happens when the laws themselves become reprehensible? What happens when "sustaining the law" means sustaining the execution of protesters? What happens when "being subject to rulers" means looking away while masked agents shoot nurses?

The 12th Article of Faith is a convenient escape hatch. It allows the church to remain silent in the face of state-sanctioned violence as long as that violence wears a uniform and carries a badge. It's complicity as neutrality.

The Comparison I Didn't Want to Make

In previous posts, I've done everything I could to avoid the Nazi comparison. I know how quickly it turns people off. I know that it's been overused. I know how it can shut down conversation rather than open it.

But this week, the international community is making that comparison for me.

They see the "Nuremberg" language emerging from the white house. They see officials like Gregory Bovino in his tactical greatcoat and recognize an aesthetic echo of the past. They see the UN formally monitoring us for extrajudicial killings.

It seems that there was enough pressure on the Trump administration to push Bovino from his position and send him back to Texas.

When I wrote in January about Renée Good, I invoked the Nuremberg principle: "I was just following orders" is not a legitimate defense for killing someone. I didn't expect that two weeks later, the international community would be applying that framework to us as a nation.

The comparison isn't mine. It's theirs. And they're not making it to be inflammatory. They're making it because they recognize patterns they've seen before.

What Would You Have Done?

I've heard this question before and thought it was hyperbolic:

"If you've ever wondered what you would have done during the Nazi rise to power in 1930s Germany, you're doing it now."

I'm no longer sure it's hyperbolic.

In October, I wrote about watching the No Kings Protests and sitting with the discomfort of seeing our system drift from its constitutional moorings. I wrote then that authoritarianism is a gradual erosion. I wondered if we were just "noticing patterns that had been there all along."

This year, the erosion has become a collapse.

The "masked operatives" I feared in the fall are now standing over the bodies of US citizens in the winter. The "imaginary problem" of federal overreach has become the very real execution of an ICU nurse. We are no longer talking about "trajectories"—we are talking about a destination.

When I look at the 3,000 agents in Minneapolis, I don't see the "shining city on a hill." I see the "competitive authoritarianism" of Orbán's Hungary that I warned about months ago. The system didn't just break. It revealed that it was always designed to protect itself, not us.

What Becomes Personal

I have made the choice to engage in these protests.

I am standing with those who speak out against the overreach of this administration. I am showing up. I am being counted.

And that raises a question I can't shake:

If I were shot and killed at a protest, would my friends, family, and neighbors believe it when those in power labeled me a terrorist?

Would they accept the evidence-free accusation the way so many accepted it for Renee Good and Alex Pretti? Would they say I "shouldn't have been there"? Would they rationalize it as necessary force against a dangerous radical?

I have no criminal record. I'm lucky enough not to even have a speeding ticket. I've had my run-ins with law enforcement, but I can't say I've ever had a bad experience with them. I grew up believing in the legitimacy of their role in our society.

I still think police are a good thing to have on the whole, though I recognize there's rot in the system.

I believe immigration enforcement is necessary, but I wonder if it isn't unnecessarily difficult to enter the United States under a myriad of statuses.

I have no desire for bloodshed. I am trying to embody the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr.'s peaceful civil rights protests. I believe a war would be catastrophic—it's the last thing I want.

But I also believe that showing up is how democracy is supposed to work. Alex Pretti believed that too.

And they killed him for it.

What This Might Really Be About

I want to be careful here. I don't know this is true. But it's a thought worth entertaining.

What if the unrest in Minneapolis isn't primarily about immigration enforcement at all?

Trump's approval numbers have been falling. The mandate he claimed after the election has slipped. He promised to restore the economy, and that hasn't materialized. The purchasing power of ordinary Americans continues to erode while billionaires—including those who served in his own administration through DOGE—continue to accumulate wealth and protections.

Business as usual in Washington, dressed up in populist rhetoric.

And then there's this: Trump recently said he doesn't think we need midterm elections. When called out on it, he claimed it was a joke. But jokes often carry kernels of truth, and this one makes it easy to wonder whether he genuinely doesn't want midterms to happen.

Why wouldn't he? He knows the numbers. He knows the mandate has slipped. He knows that a midterm election held today would likely be a referendum on his administration's failures to deliver for working Americans.

So what happens if Minneapolis burns? What happens if "domestic terrorism" becomes the justification for expanded federal authority? What happens if the chaos spreads and provides a pretext for... what, exactly?

I have one thought as to what it might be about. I hate thinking it. It's not a situation I'd ever want for my country.

Trump doesn't need to cancel elections outright. He only needs to create enough instability in battleground states—like Minnesota—that people don't feel safe going to the polls. Add restrictions that make it difficult to get there. Deploy federal forces that make venturing outside feel dangerous. Suppress turnout not through law, but through fear.

You don't have to stop an election to win it. You just have to make sure the people who would vote against you stay home.

I don't know. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. Maybe this is just incompetence and cruelty, not strategy.

But I've learned to ask who benefits. And right now, the people benefiting from chaos are not the middle and lower classes watching their purchasing power continue to evaporate. They're the ones who would prefer that those classes not have a voice in November.

It's a thought worth sitting with.

A Return to Principles

I am not calling for revolution. I am calling for a return to foundational principles:

Power never has absolute or federal immunity. The moment we accept that some officials are above accountability, we've abandoned the principles that make democracy possible.

We need a functioning system of checks and balances. Between branches of government. Between government and the press. Between federal power and individual rights. These systems have eroded, and they must be restored.

Exercising your rights—especially in opposition to those currently in power—does not merit death. The First Amendment explicitly protects the right to petition government for redress of grievances. If that right carries a death sentence, it's not a right at all.

ICE must operate under the same rules as law enforcement. That means warrants signed by judges—not internally signed administrative documents that represent a massive conflict of interest. That means constitutional limits. That means accountability.

The Knee-Jerk "Terrorist" Label

When an administration calls someone a terrorist as a knee-jerk reaction—within hours of their death, before any investigation—there is much to suspect about their motives and their culpability in human rights violations.

Stephen Miller labeled Alex Pretti a "domestic terrorist" who "tried to assassinate federal law enforcement" before the body was cold. No evidence. No investigation. Just the label.

And here's what makes it worse:

Alex Pretti's family and Renée Good's family are currently being denied access to the federal files that would prove or disprove those labels.

If the government is confident these people were terrorists, why hide the evidence? If the shootings were justified, why not allow the families to see the documentation that would vindicate the agents?

The answer is obvious: because the labels came first, and the evidence—if it exists at all—might not support them.

This is not how justice works. This is not how accountability works. This is how cover-ups work.

On ICE Reform

I am not personally calling for the abolishment of ICE.

But I am calling for its standards to be restored:

Restore the training time. 22 weeks was the standard for a reason. Six weeks is not enough time to prepare someone to make life-and-death decisions while understanding constitutional limits.

Teach them the boundaries of their constitutional authority. ICE agents need to understand where their power ends. They need to understand that US citizens have rights. They need to understand that immigration authority does not grant them carte blanche to operate as an occupying force or even a general law enforcement force.

Teach them de-escalation procedures. So that more seemingly-innocent people don't get shot. So that pepper-spraying a protester doesn't escalate to ten bullets in a restrained body. So that conflicting orders and panic don't result in a woman being shot in the face.

An agency that kills two US citizens with no criminal records in the same month is an agency that has lost its way. Whether through training failures, leadership failures, or systemic rot, something is deeply wrong.

Defending our borders does not require executing nurses. Enforcing immigration law does not require denying families access to the truth about how their loved ones died.

Who Spoke Up

History is recording this moment.

It's recording who spoke up and who looked away. Who demanded accountability and who made excuses. Who saw the pattern and who denied it. Who stood in the streets and who stayed home.

I grew up in a system that demanded silence and obedience. I know what it looks like when institutions protect themselves rather than the people they claim to serve. I recognize the pattern.

I will not be silent this time.

The international community is watching us. Our neighbors are watching us. History is watching us.

The question is whether enough Americans are watching too—or whether too many have closed their eyes.

How sad is it that the same country once looked to as a bastion of liberty and freedom is now being watched as a country in regress? The world sees it. The UN sees it. The question is whether we do.

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