Alex Pretti, who was killed by ICE at an anti-ICE protest in Minneapolis, probably followed the normie life script of getting good grades, going to University, and getting a good job in hope that it would land him a wife, family, and social status. Certainly, Pretti had success in his career as a VA ICU nurse, so by most metrics he was an upstanding member of society. However, he was odd looking, and very well could have been an incel, approaching middle age without a wife and kids, though he was divorced. So basically he was a failed normie.
The media even had to use AI to manipulate his image to make him appear better looking, thus more sympathetic to liberal women, which is kind of sad. However, he likely wasn’t a misogynist, like the incels or red pillers, thus was desperate for female moral approval. Perhaps being woke was an attempt to be relevant to the zoomettes at the anti-ICE rallies. I am not at all implying that he wanted to assassinate anyone like Luigi Mangione did, but perhaps he envied the female attention that Mangione garnered as a Chad. Regardless, this is all speculation, as I don’t know what was going on in his mind or his entire personal life story.
The Psychosocial undertones of the ICE protest tragedies
There is this moment in your life when you realize that your chance at achieving your dream of what the good life is has past by and you snap, as it becomes harder to cope. To be brutally honest, I am dealing with this crisis myself, as I recently turned 40. Renee Good, who was also killed by ICE at the protest, was a similar age. However, it is harder to say if she was reacting to these psychosocial issues, as she had kids from a divorce and was in a lesbian relationship. I am going to take the high road which is not to virtue signal to appear moderate and non hateful, considering that I dislike Pretti and Good’s political views on immigration. Rather, I have some degree of empathy for them because I feel their pain as a fellow anguished elder millennial. Not to mention that Good’s children are orphans which is tragic. Millennials are the first generation to be devastated by the total breakdown in social cohesion, and zoomers will probably end up worse off. However, zoomers have a slight advantage of knowing that society is rigged against them early on. What will happen to all these millennials, as they grow old alone, with no social support network and have nothing to lose?
There is a psychological profile of a person who feels a need to be a hero, which is also uniquely engrained in American culture, in which life must be a movie script. People having unfulfilled psychosocial issues, failing to achieve certain life milestones, and a sense of emptiness, further pushes people in this direction. While the incel school shooter is far more nihilistic, in contrast with these people who desire moral capital and heroism, there are some parallels in how they react to existential despair and vulnerable narcissism, which I also relate to.
Politics fills that void of existential despair and creates a hero arch for oneself when one’s life is meaningless and one’s future trajectory looks hopeless. Politics has taken the place of religion and so many people want to be martyrs for their political cause. People tell themselves that their motives are purely moral and righteous, but these subconscious psychosocial undertones always come into play. This also applied to failed middle aged MAGA men with little left to lose who stormed the Capitol on January 6th, as well as Aaron Bushnell, who set himself on fire for Gaza.
The Trump admin’s official stance is that the deaths were purely accident and then you have some conservatives outright celebrating Pretti and Good’s deaths, which says a lot about where we are as a society. There is a lack of empathy to the other side which is both a sign of radical polarization and a total breakdown in social capital, and hyperreality where we live online and are disconnected from one another. I am not even trying to moralize but rather am just stating our reality.
Risking sounding like an annoying enlightened centrist type, both the Left and Right oversimplify the incidents to fit their particular narratives. The Left views ICE agents as mercilessly executing heroic protestors while the MAGA right views the ICE agents as all heroes and leftist protestors as domestic terrorists. Conservatives are right that leftist agitators are baiting ICE and trying to cause disorientation and chaos but ICE are falling for it and not handling the situation well. Either the ICE agents are not adequately trained or they are just used to dealing with border issues and not used to civilian law enforcement duties.
Alex Pretti encountered ICE before the day of his death in which he was belligerent and broke a rib in the altercation. Also, he had a concealed gun, which he had a legal permit for, thus there was some degree of ambiguity over culpability for his death. In contrast with Renee Good, it appeared that while she was driving away, the agents just shot her, even if she may have previously rammed her car into them. The agents who killed Pretti being Latino adds another angle of irony. Despite Trump being accused of being anti-Latino, ICE agents wearing face coverings like Latin American secret police and using excessive force against White American civilians is a signal of America’s Latinization. Another irony is you have leftwing protestors calling a Black ICE agent a house n-word, which epitomizes the dark woke meme. Basically, both sides are throwing out any niceties, which entails the Left giving up political correctness when dealing with their adversaries.
There is a psychological profile of a person who feels a need to be a hero, which is also uniquely engrained in American culture, in which life must be a movie script. People having unfulfilled psychosocial issues, failing to achieve certain life milestones, and a sense of emptiness, further pushes people in this direction. While the incel school shooter is far more nihilistic, in contrast with these people who desire moral capital and heroism, there are some parallels in how they react to existential despair and vulnerable narcissism, which I also relate to.
Politics fills that void of existential despair and creates a hero arch for oneself when one’s life is meaningless and one’s future trajectory looks hopeless. Politics has taken the place of religion and so many people want to be martyrs for their political cause. People tell themselves that their motives are purely moral and righteous, but these subconscious psychosocial undertones always come into play. This also applied to failed middle aged MAGA men with little left to lose who stormed the Capitol on January 6th, as well as Aaron Bushnell, who set himself on fire for Gaza.
The Trump admin’s official stance is that the deaths were purely accident and then you have some conservatives outright celebrating Pretti and Good’s deaths, which says a lot about where we are as a society. There is a lack of empathy to the other side which is both a sign of radical polarization and a total breakdown in social capital, and hyperreality where we live online and are disconnected from one another. I am not even trying to moralize but rather am just stating our reality.
Risking sounding like an annoying enlightened centrist type, both the Left and Right oversimplify the incidents to fit their particular narratives. The Left views ICE agents as mercilessly executing heroic protestors while the MAGA right views the ICE agents as all heroes and leftist protestors as domestic terrorists. Conservatives are right that leftist agitators are baiting ICE and trying to cause disorientation and chaos but ICE are falling for it and not handling the situation well. Either the ICE agents are not adequately trained or they are just used to dealing with border issues and not used to civilian law enforcement duties.
Alex Pretti encountered ICE before the day of his death in which he was belligerent and broke a rib in the altercation. Also, he had a concealed gun, which he had a legal permit for, thus there was some degree of ambiguity over culpability for his death. In contrast with Renee Good, it appeared that while she was driving away, the agents just shot her, even if she may have previously rammed her car into them. The agents who killed Pretti being Latino adds another angle of irony. Despite Trump being accused of being anti-Latino, ICE agents wearing face coverings like Latin American secret police and using excessive force against White American civilians is a signal of America’s Latinization. Another irony is you have leftwing protestors calling a Black ICE agent a house n-word, which epitomizes the dark woke meme. Basically, both sides are throwing out any niceties, which entails the Left giving up political correctness when dealing with their adversaries.
Trump says he isn’t focused on deporting “everybody”, only criminals.
While I am broadly sympathetic to nationalism and immigration restriction, Trump is fucking things up for that cause and MAGA cultists go along with it. The damage caused by the optics of the performative ICE raids has been done, even if Trump backs down on deportations, which looks likely as Trump is talking about only deporting criminals, as well as increasing H-2B visas for ag workers. Thus, carrying out mass deportations is the only path that Trump has left to maintain any legitimacy, especially considering that Democrats will win the midterms and obstruct him. It also seems like Trump is targeting Minneapolis for being a hub of leftwing activism while it actually has far fewer illegal immigrants per capita than cities like LA and Houston. ICE should minimize engaging with protesters and knock off the performative cruelty, and be doing more workforce raids. However, enforcing E-verify and sanctioning employers of illegal immigrants is the most effective way and a lot less messy.
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