For generations, American policing has operated according to a brutal but consistent equation: hate plus impunity produces violence. This formula has been most clearly applied to African Americans—from slave patrols, to Jim Crow enforcement, to the modern carceral state. Police violence was not incidental; it was systemic, enabled by legal and cultural immunity from consequences. The highly publicized killings of Black citizens, culminating in the murder of George Floyd, made this reality undeniable.
What is new in this moment is not the violence itself, but its expanded reach. Historically, white citizens were largely spared the consequences of this equation. Recent killings of white civilians by federal agents in Minneapolis suggest a turning point—as if a virus has changed its host. A system once normalized as racialized control now threatens a broader population, forcing a wider reckoning with unaccountable state power.
At the center of this shift is impunity. When law enforcement and federal agents are assured protection—legal, political, and rhetorical—violence becomes inevitable. Presidential use of pardon power and public defense of aggressive enforcement sends a clear message: those who act in service of political authority will be shielded. This message extends beyond police departments to agencies such as ICE, reinforcing the belief that force will not be punished.
Hate completes the equation. Political leaders have deliberately “othered” dissenters, immigrants, protesters, and critics of the state, framing opposition as threat. When dehumanization is paired with impunity, violence follows as predictably as night follows day. This is not speculation; it is historical pattern.
The consequences for democracy are severe and foreseeable. As enforcement agencies grow more emboldened, violence will increase—not only as punishment, but as intimidation. Civic participation erodes when citizens fear the state meant to protect them. Freedoms are curtailed not by law alone, but by fear.
The opposition from Democrats — and growing concern among some Republicans and independents — reflects a deeper moral imperative: a conviction that citizens and residents should not be subject to a security apparatus that operates without accountability. For right-thinking lawmakers, blocking or conditioning ICE funding is not just budget politics; it is a stand against expanding a force that has already demonstrated lethal outcomes and that, under the logic of impunity, could do so again.
History offers a stark warning. In Nazi Germany, the Gestapo and the SS were used not only to round up targeted groups, but to silence and terrorize ordinary citizens. History is prologue. What we are witnessing now should alarm anyone who values liberty, accountability, and democratic life.
The equation has not changed. Only the circle of those exposed to it has widened. If impunity is allowed to harden into policy, violence will continue to spread – and democracy itself will be the casualty.