The government is gaslighting us.
Not metaphorically. Not rhetorically. Literally. We are being told not to believe what we saw, not to trust witnesses, not to trust video, not to trust journalists who were assaulted for doing their jobs. We are told the problem is our perception, our tone, our lack of patience.
Fine.
If they are going to flood the room with gas, then the correct response is not to breathe deeper. It is to strike a match.
Federal agents killed a man, and the Trump administration lied about it immediately and aggressively. The lies did not emerge from confusion. They emerged from readiness. From rehearsal. From a system that already knew what it would say before the blood cooled.
This is not a tragic mistake.
This is not a failure of training.
This is not policy gone awry.
This is intent.
What followed the killing of Alex Jeffrey Pretti should have ended any remaining good-faith debate. Every defense offered by the state and its supporters relied on fiction. Not evidence. Fiction. Endless speculation about what Pretti “must have been thinking,” what he “might have intended,” what was “probably going through his head.” Entire narratives were built around imagined motives while the actual, observable facts were treated as inconvenient.
This is how authoritarian violence is laundered.
A government that lies instantly is not confused. It is practiced.
They factionalize a man’s thoughts while ignoring his body on the ground. They invent fear inside his mind to justify bullets in his flesh. They speak confidently about what he “should have known” while refusing to answer for what they actually did.
That is not analysis. That is propaganda.
And when facts threaten to escape, they shut them down by force.
A journalist, clearly marked press, standing behind police lines, following instructions, was shoved and pepper-sprayed while documenting the aftermath. That was not crowd control. That was not confusion. That was a message. When the state attacks the press at the scene of its own violence, it is not enforcing order. It is destroying evidence.
This is the structure now. Kill. Lie. Suppress. Repeat.
And over it all hangs the new national mantra: comply or die.
Move the right way. Say the right thing. Ask permission. Trust authority. Stay home. Stay quiet. Stay safe. We are told this is maturity. Responsibility. Patriotism.
It is none of those things.
It is submission.
Covering for brutality does not make you reasonable. It makes you useful.
Anyone who thinks being a sheep while the world burns is the correct moral response is not choosing peace. They are choosing comfort over conscience. They are betting that obedience will protect them. History is unkind to that bet.
Let’s be honest about what is happening. This is not about restoring order. It is about teaching the public a lesson: visibility is dangerous, dissent is risky, and watching silently is rewarded.
That is why this is war.
Not a war of rifles and barricades. A war of power versus memory. Of authority versus witness. Of obedience versus refusal.
And I am not calling for violence. I am opposed to it. But refusing violence does not mean refusing resistance.
Here is what this war looks like without guns:
It looks like being in the streets when they tell you staying home is safer.
It looks like recording everything, always, especially when they tell you not to.
It looks like standing with your neighbors so no one is isolated into silence.
It looks like refusing to let lies settle into accepted history.
It looks like protecting journalists, amplifying their work, and naming attacks on them as what they are.
It looks like defying unlawful orders, challenging intimidation, and refusing to comply with erasure.
It looks like choosing presence over comfort.
coriolanus Act III, scene iii
I’ll kneel and ask forgiveness? No.
This is not about heroics. It is about refusal. Refusal to let the state decide what is real. Refusal to accept “just comply” as a moral philosophy. Refusal to pretend this will stop on its own.
If you support ICE and this administration after citizens have been killed and the truth beaten back with batons and chemical spray, fuck off. This is no longer a policy disagreement. This is allegiance to state violence.
If you excuse it, soften it, contextualize it, or hide behind civility, fuck off as well. You are not moderating the moment. You are enabling it.
The gaslighting will continue as long as it works. The killings will continue as long as they are defended. The tyranny will deepen as long as it is normalized.
So stop asking how bad it has to get before something changes.
This is the change.
This is war.