Let’s begin with the bad news: The probability of further violence is still sky-high, and more people will almost certainly die. Protesters are radicalizing by the minute.
But the good news is, this is a winnable PR war for the GOP.
We’ll delve into our PR tactics in just a sec. But before we do, here are a pair of “thought experiments” that explain why they’ll work.
First, imagine there are two groups of Americans. The first group watches the video of the ICE shooting in super slow-mo (which is how most of the mainstream media has been airing the footage: Networks are treating it like the Zapruder sequel, with each frame individually analyzed).
The second group watches the video in real time — with nothing slowed down.
I’ll betcha a Diet Coke that FAR more people in the first group would view the ICE shooting as unjustified. (Probably by a two-to-one differential, maybe more.)
Why?
It’s kind of like instant replay in the NFL: When you review a play from half a dozen camera angles in super slow-mo, it’s easy to spot officiating mistakes.
You almost wonder how the refs missed such an obvious call!
That’s because super slow-mo distorts the audience’s perspective. It makes it look like the refs had more time to think, react, and decide what to do.
The same applies to the ICE shooting: The more we watch the super slow-mo replay — the frame-by-frame footage of the late Renee Nicole Good turning her steering wheel, the ICE officer drawing his weapon, and then the fateful shot — the more it seems that lethal force wasn’t necessary.
It looks like the ICE officers had all the time in the world to move out of the way.
But when you watch it again in real-time, you realize that the ICE officer had to make a life-or-death decision in the blink of an eye. A 4,000-pound Honda Pilot in the hands of a criminal, with its wheels spinning on icy roads, posed a clear and present danger to the officers.
The second “thought experiment” involves Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. He’s gained a ton of media attention — and glowing praise from the left — after telling ICE to “get the f*** out of Minneapolis.”
Ask yourself: If Mayor Frey had gone in the other direction, pulled a Rodney King, and instead of dropping F-bombs, pled for calmness to prevail (“Can’t we all just g-g-g-get along?”), would his national profile be higher or lower?
I’ll betcha another Diet Coke that it’d be WAY lower.
That’s because the liberal base isn’t calling for calmness and civility. The opposite is true: They’re outraged — and whoever they anoint as the avatar of their anger will reap the political dividends.
The first “thought experiment” matters because it illustrates how Americans process information — and the media’s role in manipulating it. The second one matters because it shows us what the Dems will do next.
Trust me: Mayor Frey won’t be the only Democrat waving the bloody shirt. It’ll be a crowded, nationwide, hysterical movement because politicians are ambitious, and this is what their base wants.
So we already know the Democratic playbook for the ICE shooting:
- Ratchet up the rhetoric.
- Demonize and Nazify the ICE agents.
- Use the mainstream media and/or social media to publicize the super slow-mo footage.
- Encourage bigger, louder, and more aggressive demonstrations.
- Create so much public chaos that ICE can no longer function.
(It’s largely the BLM movement redux, but replace cops with ICE: From the rhetoric to the demonstrations to the use of slow-mo footage, some of the parallels are uncanny.)
The GOP must respond strategically and passionately — but before we lay our cards on the table, we should take advantage of our two (ahem) “trump cards,” the first of which is this: The Somali fraud scandal and the Minneapolis ICE shooting will blend together in the public’s mind.
Nowadays, following the news is like drinking from a firehose. There’s more info than anyone could possibly absorb. So to make sense of things, we tend to categorize news stories via commonalities: similar people, similar locations, and similar events are all placed in the same box.
Which means the Somali fraud scandal will become a key part of the ICE shooting narrative, because there’s so much overlap.
The second trump card is X: Unlike COVID-19 and the BLM protests, conservatives will have a free hand to disseminate a counternarrative because the left doesn’t have a Big Tech monopoly anymore.
Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter/X on Oct. 27, 2022, broke the left’s monopoly. Gone are the days of Twitter/X, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook banning opinions and deplatforming conservatives. That strategy is no longer tenable.
X’s pro-free speech policies pressured the rest of the social media giants to follow suit.
And that’s huge. This — plus the power of the president’s bully pulpit — gives conservatives all the PR ammo necessary to win. (Say whatever you want about Elon Musk, but if you value free speech, you owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude.)
The GOP PR playbook should go as follows:
- Keep talking about the Somali fraud scandal! We want it to be part and parcel of the ICE narrative — and when liberals scream about getting ICE “the f*** out” of their cities, we want the public to wonder why they’re so hellbent on defending immigrant crime, fraud, and theft.
- Stop promoting the slow-mo footage! Do the opposite: Accentuate the split-second decision-making of the ICE officers. Show how little time they actually had to make a life-or-death decision — and condemn the politicians and protesters who’re inciting violence and making EVERYONE’s lives more dangerous.
- Publicize other examples of violence against ICE agents and law enforcement. If we’re going to argue that ICE agents were legitimately fearful for their lives, we need to show examples. (Sadly, there’s no shortage of anti-ICE footage. It’s become dangerous work.)
- Celebrate ICE’s bravery. It’s time to have an awards ceremony for the top ICE agents, where the nobility of their mission — and concrete examples of how they’ve made our cities safer — are highlighted. (If we don’t proactively defend ICE from vilification and Nazification, the liberals will succeed in rebranding ICE as a modern-day Gestapo. We want to turn ‘em into heroes.)
- Don’t cede even an inch. Even if you have doubts whether or not lethal force was absolutely necessary, the first side to admit ANY culpability will lose. There’s no off-ramp — no “middle ground” where we can land the plane. It’s an all-or-nothing situation.
Honestly? We have the stronger hand.
And if the Dems are stupid enough to go all in, we might even be able to bust ‘em before the midterms.
One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First: It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battlelines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.
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