Episode 276
It’s critical that the protests that have erupted in response to an ICE agent’s cold blooded murder of Renee Nicole Good continue to grow in size and determination. This whole fascist regime must be driven from power.
Renee was the fifth person killed by ICE since the Trump regime’s escalated ethnic cleansing campaign, a 37 yr old mother of three who stopped her car to bear witness and blow the whistle against ICE’s terrorizing presence in her neighborhood in Minneapolis, which has been priority #1 for DHS.
Join protests near you and bring the message that Trump Must Go into these demonstrations. ICE is this fascist regime’s gestapo and this terror will only get worse as long as this regime remains in power. Find resources to print and distribute at refusefascism.org.
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Music for this episode: Penny the Snitch by Ikebe Shakedown
Episode 276 Emergency! Trump’s Gestapo Commits Cold Blooded Murder
Sun, Jan 11, 2026 4:38PM • 13:22
Sam Goldman 00:23
Welcome to episode 276 of the Refuse Fascism podcast, a podcast brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers and host of the show. Refuse Fascism works to unite all who can be united in mass, relentless, nonviolent resistance to drive the Trump fascist regime from power. This isn’t a full episode. It’s an emergency intervention. This is a brief message to cut through the confusion, call people into action and point the way forward. Get in the streets. Get involved. Volunteer with Refuse Fascism. See the show notes for the link, and stay tuned to our website, RefuseFascism.org, our social media at Refuse Fascism, or text “refuse” to 855-755-1314. We’ll be back next week with a regular episode.
On January 7 in Minneapolis, Trump’s ICE Gestapo killed Renee Nicole Good, an unarmed legal observer, by shooting her in the head multiple times. Renee was a prize winning poet, a hobby guitarist. She was a 37 year old mother of three who had recently moved to the city. After murdering her, ICE and DHS claimed, “self defense,” with their lies, that her vehicle ran over ICE agents. Footage from multiple angles at the scene clearly show the vehicle going around agents and trying to drive away. The ICE agent who shot Renee Good point blank through her front windshield, hopped out of the path of the car and walked away. [Clip from agent’s cell phone video with (presumably the agent’s) voice saying: F*ing bitch.]
This murder followed weeks of racist vitriol and demagoguery from Trump, Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem and others in this regime, deliberately targeting Somali immigrants in Minneapolis, laying the ideological groundwork for violence. It coincided with the deployment of what amounts to an occupying force; roughly 2,000 ICE agents sent in to terrorize a community. This is the fascist pattern: demonize, flood with force, kill, then lie to justify it. Almost immediately after the shooting, Kristi Noem and DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, claimed that the ICE officer acted in self defense against a domestic terrorist. This set the tone for the regime’s stance throughout the week.
Donald Trump 02:06
The woman in the car before she got shot, I heard was unbelievably bad.
Kristi Noem 02:53
If you look at what the definition of domestic terrorism is, it completely fits the situation on the ground. This individual, as you saw in the video that we released just 48 hours after this incident, showed that this officer was hit by her vehicle. She weaponized it, and he defended his life and those colleagues around him.
J.D. Vance 03:11
… because this was an attack on federal law enforcement. This was an attack on law and order. This was an attack on the American people. That woman has as part of a broader left wing network to attack, to dox, to assault and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job.
Sam Goldman 03:27
Meanwhile, on the ground in Minneapolis, another batch of ICE agents swarmed a high school just hours after the shooting, assaulting students and detaining teachers. Not only has the ICE force already in Minnesota continued terrorizing the city, but they’ve now called in hundreds more agents, redirecting them from their assault on the people of New Orleans. From Venezuela to the streets of Minneapolis, the Trump regime is carrying out wanton murder and demonizing whole peoples and countries without any pretense of the rule of law. This is open brutal terrorism to enforce the fascist regime of white supremacy, xenophobia and patriarchy.
Fascism is not a looming threat. It is upon us now. Fascism is not a curse word. Fully imposed, it is a radically oppressive and repressive form of rule over the people of this country with devastating impact on the people of the world. The last week, which has seen the Trump regime illegally bomb Venezuela, kidnap its president, threaten the sovereignty of more countries, celebrate the January 6th insurrection, and now, murder a civilian in the streets, have brought this home in blood, and should dispel any complacency. They are on a collision course with the world. They’ve seized Venezuelan oil tankers, claimed control, and are threatening more sovereign nations — escalating against Greenland, Colombia and Mexico.
Trump has said it outright, in regards to Mexico: “We are going to start hitting land with regard to the cartels.” U.S. bombs are already falling on Syria and in Venezuela, the message is unmistakable. The U.S. is asserting domination by force. Trump even bragged to the New York Times that his power has no limits: “The only limit is my mind.” Every one of these moves heightens the danger of a World War III. The regime’s actions in Venezuela and the western hemisphere are in pursuit of a 21st Century nuclear armed fascist America First, agenda, demanding a $1.5 trillion war budget, a two thirds increase on an already grotesque level of military spending, in the service of unchecked power and global terror.
Shredding any rule of U.S. or international law and getting away with it over and over is paving the way for horrors that surpass those of the Nazi regime. This is the fascist logic of this regime laid bare: rule by decree, contempt for law and the open assertion that brute force maximum lethality over tepid legality, in Pete Hegseth’s words, is all that matters. This regime will not be bound by any laws or measures of decency that stop them from carrying out their aims — the genocidal ethnic cleansing of non white immigrants rounded up and sent to concentration camps by lawless masked men, unleashing war and terror abroad, while moving aggressively to crush dissent at home, branding anti-fascist protesters and political opponents as “domestic terrorists,” laying the groundwork for mass repression, and when ICE unleashes their murderous violence, blaming the protesters who are righteously standing up for their immigrant neighbors.
We need to understand what they mean when they claim self defense, because it is not only willful delusion. It is even more dangerous than that. How is it that Noem and Trump and Vance and all of them can proclaim that ICE agent Jonathan Ross murdered Renee Nicole good in self defense? Part of it is that they simply don’t care about the truth. They use whatever “facts” serve their purpose. Transporting their supporters into their alternate reality actually helps solidify their support. But there is another element, possibly even more insidious. Fascists believe they must be untouchable. They believe in a moral and even legal paradigm where the protections of the law apply to them, but the consequences of the law only apply to their enemies.
To their logic, the penalty for being any kind of obstacle to their agenda should be death. They can run over protesters with their cars. They can kidnap people from churches, schools and hospitals. They can overrun the Capitol building. They can even kill police, if it serves them. Four days ago, Trump’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stood in Mar-a-Lago, speaking to the world, and claimed, with a straight face twice, that the U.S. military fired, “in self defense” against Venezuelan forces as the U.S. military invaded their sovereign territory, abducting their sovereign leader.
These people believe that anyone preventing them from doing exactly what they want to do is an attack, and that any response on their part is justified. There is no containing fascism. Either we decisively defeat them with millions and millions nonviolently taking to the streets, becoming ungovernable, or we succumb to their cruel fascist future. If what has happened over the past week has not stirred you to action, then you’re probably not listening to this podcast. But if what has happened over the past week has not stirred you to action, then seriously, what the fuck will? That which you do not resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn or be forced to accept, with all that means for your morality and humanity and our collective future.
This week, we have seen thousands take to the streets nationwide, especially in powerful vigils and protests in Minneapolis. Nationwide, people have been in the streets this weekend to say: ICE Out for Good — to join in national mobilization this weekend. But the protests we are seeing right now, while very powerful, are not yet at the scale of what it will take to fundamentally weaken this regime’s grip and shift the political terrain. If we really want ICE out for good, to get rid of Trump’s Gestapo, we need to drive this American “shitler” from power, and we need to do it fast, right now.
When this regime is caught red-handed, when the truth about who Renee Good was, what ICE really is, and how the official lies are unraveling becomes undeniable. There’s a real opening to weaken this regime’s grip. What is absolutely decisive right now isn’t just protest. It’s a mass, nonviolent, uprising, coming back again and again and again, demanding the removal of the whole Trump fascist regime, spreading throughout all of society, growing rapidly enough in size and strength to shift the political terrain itself.
That’s why this weekend’s protests are tremendously important and must be built. Here’s something we need to recognize and use: Local and state leaders, including Minneapolis’ mayor and Minnesota officials have openly pushed back against ICE and rejected the federal version of what happened to Renee Nicole Good. Some electeds are even calling for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to be removed. But make no mistake, we can’t rely on them, and we certainly can’t rely on the Democratic Party to stop Trump. Still, that clash creates a space, a crack, where the People’s Power can break through.
If we take the lead, if we argue for a model building mass, nonviolent protests from the ground up, together, we can force a political crisis that compels and enables those in power to act to block this regime’s fascist program and to legitimately remove Trump from power. This outrage has to be met by uniting as many people as possible against this fascist enemy, without pretending differences don’t exist, and keeping our eyes on the main objective: driving the Trump fascist regime from power.
What’s needed now isn’t resignation, but resistance. What’s needed now isn’t adapting to atrocity, trying to keep some people safe for some time. What’s needed now: active mass refusal and mass non violent defiance and non compliance — because this is fascism. It can’t be lived with. It must be stopped now. Nothing but massive nonviolent struggle by you and millions of others like you can do that. So take to the streets everywhere. ICE Must Go! The Whole Trump Fascist Regime Must Go Now! In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America!
Sam Goldman 12:05
Thanks for listening to Refuse Fascism. Support this show by becoming a patron. Join today at Patreon.com/RefuseFascism, or by subscribing to our Substack — see the link in the show notes. For $0 you can help build our audience by sharing the show, rating and reviewing on Apple Podcasts or your listening platform of choice, or by recommending our Substack. Be sure to stay connected for developments and actions. See RefuseFascism.org and on social media @RefuseFascism, you can also text “refuse” to 855-755-1314, see, so you always are in the loop. We’ll be back next Sunday, and until then, In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America!