A Brutal Regime

January 25, 2026

Do you remember how you felt on the morning of 9/11/2001, when an airplane crashed into the World Trade Center? There was profound shock at this surreal image of a normal passenger plane full of normal people blown to smithereens as it flew directly into a tower of capitalism.  

Then, do you recall the changed, sick feeling you experienced when the second plane crashed into the WTC? Then, we all understood unequivocally that the horrific events had been intentional; we couldn’t deny that the United States was under attack.   

Now in 2026, while some might rationalize the terrible killing of Renée Good as a response to a possible attempt to run over an ICE agent, just like the second airplane the murder of Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse wielding nothing but a phone, has left no doubt as to the brutality, the intentional sadism, of Trump’s fascist regime.

Robert Reich wrote this morning:   “The shots that killed Alex Pretti and Renée Good are the shots heard ‘round the world that will topple the Trump regime.     

From Minneapolis to Davos, people are joining together against Trump’s tyranny. In Minnesota, they are joining across ethnicity, race, and class against Trump’s Gestapo tactics, repression, and murders. Solidarity is spreading to other cities.    

Across America and across the world, people are realizing it’s not possible to appease America’s dictator. The only way to deal with him is to stand up to him—and the only way to stand up to him is by joining together against him.    

Of course, Trump is now hitting back. He’s openly contemplating using the Insurrection Act against Americans who oppose him. Europeans and much of the rest of the world have lived under dictatorships. Until now—until Trump—Americans had not. [Reich should say white Americans.] Yet the ‘greatest generation’ of Americans, including many of our parents and grandparents, risked their lives fighting dictators so that this country would remain free and democratic.    

So far, two Americans have given up their lives in Minneapolis in resisting the dictator in the Oval Office. [And we’ll add, Mr. Reich, that an undetermined number of others have died in detention, been beaten and starved in detention, lived in crowded filth in detention, and been deported by the hundreds of thousands].    We must now join together, all of us, to peacefully and decidedly end the dictatorship.    In memory of parents and grandparents who made the supreme sacrifice—and in memory of Renée Good and Alex Pretti—we must bring down this regime. The first step is a mass strike.   We say loudly and clearly: Enough!”

Be ready for the general strike.  We have the numbers!  Trump’s goons have the firepower and the temporary power of their sadism, but we have the numbers and we’re on the right side of history and the Constitution. When we’re ready to launch a well-organized general strike, the resistance will begin to cancel their tools of propaganda and brutal repression. We must be prepared, ready on the ground to support our neighbors. Meanwhile, we must show up in massive numbers to make it clear that we’re not submitting to the regime’s abuses.

Show us what democracy looks like!