One day – probably very soon – college psychology and political science lectures will be based on what happened Wednesday in Minneapolis.
Videos emerged almost instantly of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shooting and killing a motorist. But politicians and many Americans – those on social media, at least – quickly came to starkly different conclusions about what had happened and who was at fault.
It’s still very early. But generally, people who tended to support President Donald Trump and his deportation policies quickly sympathized with the still-unnamed ICE agent, arguing he feared being run over by the 37-over-old driver, Renee Nicole Good. Trump critics tended to quickly label it murder, arguing the fleeing woman was turning her car away from the officers. (CNN has a good video breakdown that shows how the incident unfolded from multiple angles.)
Virtually everything in our polarized society is a Rorschach test these days, but this might be Example A1 in the Trump era. And it will take some time to see which view Americans side with more.
But one thing is clear at this early juncture: The scene Wednesday in Minneapolis has injected urgency into a debate over ICE and its controversial tactics.
Americans have been quite skeptical of ICE for much of the past year. Now we have a flashpoint that could move or harden views about one of the most significant ways in which Trump has recast American society.
To the extent Americans sympathize more with the agent, it could marshal support for the administration’s claims that such agents need to engage the way they did on Wednesday.
To the extent Americans believe this was murder, it could epitomize a perceived overzealous heavy-handedness and contribute to the political unraveling of Trump’s often-militarized mass-deportation project, has been so central to the president’s second term.
Virtually every sign before Tuesday was that Americans were inclined toward the latter view – that ICE is too heavy-handed:
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Majorities have said ICE’s operations are “too tough” (53% in an October CBS News-YouGov poll) and that it has “gone too far” in enforcing immigration laws (54% in a June Marist College poll).
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Voters disapproved 57%-39% of how ICE was enforcing immigration laws in a July Quinnipiac University poll.
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In each case, about 6 in 10 independents sided against ICE.
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An August Pew Research Center poll showed ICE was the second-least-popular federal agency among 16 tested – edging out only the much-maligned Internal Revenue Service.
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Indeed, ICE actually appears to be more unpopular today than it was back in the late 2010s, when some liberals pushed to “abolish ICE.”
One of the more striking polls this summer came from CNN. As Trump and congressional Republicans were greatly expanding ICE funding in Trump’s big agenda bill – by billions of dollars – the survey showed Americans overwhelmingly opposed this additional funding 53%-31%.
That’s very unusual. Americans generally like the idea of expanding law enforcement funding, but not here – and decidedly so.
And finally, when you ask Americans about specific ICE tactics, they often balk.
Americans haven’t liked ICE’s raids on workplaces (54%-45% opposed in the Pew poll) and its agents wearing masks (58% opposed in both the CBS and a University of Massachusetts Amherst poll). The same UMass poll also showed they opposed ICE using military-grade weapons 55%-30% and using physical force with protesters 54%-31%.
The picture is similar to many other issues involving Trump – things like his broader deportations programs, his tariffs, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), his mobilizations of the National Guard in cities, etc. Americans generally dislike what’s happening – and by pretty significant margins – but amid so many controversial actions and power grabs, this discontent hasn’t really forced a true reckoning.
It’s possible that some Americans don’t feel that strongly, and they might even like the ultimate results of these efforts – large numbers of deportations – without worrying too much about the tactics used.
But sometimes an event, particularly one we can see with our own eyes, over and over again on video, can crystallize an issue and add immediacy.
Trump’s critics might wonder why videos of masked agents arresting people on the streets haven’t already sparked some kind of reckoning. But in this case, it’s a US citizen, and one who was killed.
Ratcheting up the significance here is how quickly the two sides have juxtaposed their versions of reality.
Trump accused the woman of trying to run over the officer, while Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem referred to an “act of domestic terrorism” ahead of the killing, despite very little public evidence, including about any possible motivations for her actions. Democrats like Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, meanwhile, quickly called for the federal government to pull ICE from the state, and plenty have called for criminal accountability for the agent.
It seems very unlikely we’ll ever arrive in a place like we did after the death of George Floyd where large majorities at the time agreed that law enforcement was in the wrong and supported the ensuing Black Lives Matter protests. We’re just too polarized of a society now – and there is an increasing political premium on jumping to conclusions, especially within the Trump administration.
Depending on how the public comes to view this incident, Trump and his allies could alienate some Americans with their version of reality.
But there is also some potential danger for Democrats in looking too sympathetic toward the woman, if Americans don’t come to echo that sympathy.
Either way, a centerpiece of Trump’s second-term agenda now hangs in the balance in a way it simply hasn’t before.
