Trump regime will kill you and then smear you as a terrorist—just like other fascist regimes

We are at war.

Alex Jeffrey Pretti was a 37-year-old registered nurse who worked in the ICU at the VA caring for our nation’s veterans. A next-door neighbor, Jeanne Wiener, said she saw Pretti walk his dog frequently--speaking with him several times a week. “He’s the sweetest, kindest, most unoffensive, most nonviolent person you’d ever want to meet,” she told the NY Times about Pretti.

And colleagues at the VA universally praised him. Dr. Dimitri Drekonja said Pretti was “a really great colleague and a really great friend,” adding, “The default look on his face was a smile.” Ruth Anway, a fellow nurse described Pretti as “the sweetest, kindest, most unoffensive, most nonviolent person you’d ever want to meet.” She added, Pretti “wanted to be helpful, to help humanity and have a career that was a force of good in the world.”

In fact, if you watch the video before Pretti was murdered by the Trump regime, you will see he had come to the aid of a female protester that ICE agents were assaulting. You can literally see below the ICE agents pushing a woman onto the street—which prompted Pretti to stand up for her. (In the video below—which stops before the actual shooting—you can see Alex in the baseball hat.)

But the Trump regime is peddling another story. They are saying Alex was a “domestic terrorist” who “tried to assassinate federal law enforcement” per Stephen Miller’s post.

Trump’s Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino told the media just hours after the shooting that, “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” These exact words were later used by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem who told the media, “It looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and kill law enforcement.”

And Donald Trump added to the lies and misinfo by writing online, “This is the gunman’s gun, loaded (with two additional full magazines!), and ready to go.” Of course, Alex had a permit to carry the weapon and there is not even one image showing him brandishing the weapon.

It’s all lies. But this is the Trump playbook: Kill you and then smear you as a terrorist. I’ve said this before, but I feel compelled to repeat it: The Trump regime could literally kill your family for no reason, and his supporters would defend it. I say that not because the Trump regime is uniquely evil, but because they are simply following the same playbook of other fascist and autocratic leaders.

We are literally seeing the same words used now by the right wing Iranian government which has declared protesters to be “terrorists” to justify the mass slaughter of them. Vladimir Putin labeled the late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny and his top allies as “terrorists.” Navalny died in a Russian prison in 2024—reportedly on the orders of Putin.

Before Putin, Joseph Stalin also labeled those who engaged in dissent as “enemies of the people” before having his secret police execute them. In both cases, the only crime of those killed was opposing the regime.

That is where we are with Trump. Obviously, the facts surrounding the murder of Pretti don’t support the regime’s claim he was a terrorist--just as neither Renee Good nor Alexei Navalny were terrorists.

Prior to the shooting, you can see Pretti using his camera to film and helping direct cars to pass the protesters. There were numerous officers around him. If he truly was a terrorist focused inflicting “maximum damage” by killing law enforcement, why didn’t he shoot even one? Where is the other proof that this was planned terrorist attack--like a manifesto or even one comment that support that assertion?

The answer is none exists. In fact, from what we’ve seen form the video, there is no justification for the shooting. Alex had no criminal record and had a license to carry the weapon. At no time do we see Alex holding a weapon or threatening the agents.

The Trump regime is simply following the same playbook as they did when an ICE officer recently executed Renee Good. We all remember how they despicably smeared her as a “domestic terrorist.” Those lies didn’t work, with polls finding only 26% of Americans believed the shoot was “appropriate” use of force. And while only 24% agree Good was a “domestic terrorist,’ alarmingly a majority of Republicans agreed.

That is why the Trump regime is repeating those lies now. Their base will support anything Trump does—including executing Americans for protesting the abuses of this regime. Trump not only just cares about them—he hates us. This is man who in the past few months said about Democrats, “I really do hate them. I can’t stand them because I really believe they hate our country!” And in October, Trump shared online a meme labeling Democrats the Party of “Hate, Evil and Satan.”

We are all angry. And we are all disgusted. I’ve never before viewed the President of the United States as our enemy—but I do with Trump. He is a force of evil just like Miller, Noem and his ICE minions.

At this point, we must not just work to “Abolish ICE.” We need to work to “Abolish MAGA.” It’s a cancer to our Republic—and like with all cancers, we either need to remove it--or it will kill us. Those are the stakes.

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