"One of the few advantages of being as conspicuous as I am is that many people come up to me whom I don't know, to talk about what's happening in America. It's like a free-floating focus group. On Monday morning, I was at a restaurant counter finishing my breakfast when a middle-aged man sat down next to me and said he didn't want to intrude."
"He wanted me to know that although he'd been a life-long Republican, the events of the past weeks had caused him to leave the Republican party. I'm happy to hear that, I said with a smile, and turned to finish my breakfast. I'm from New Hampshire and many of my Republican friends are leaving the party, too, he said. Minneapolis was the last straw. I put down my fork and turned toward him again."
"I assume you're talking about the behavior of ICE and border patrol agents there, and the killings? All terrible, of course, he said, shaking his head. But what really finished me were the lies — Noem. Miller, Bovino, Vance, Trump. He frowned. They lied through their teeth. I saw the videos! Can't trust them ever again. None of them. Pack of liars."
A conspicuous narrator attracts strangers who speak about national events. A middle-aged lifelong Republican announced he left the Republican Party after recent weeks. He cited Minneapolis as the last straw and complained about ICE and border patrol killings and pervasive lies by Noem, Miller, Bovino, Vance and Trump. The man insisted he had seen videos and could not trust them again. The narrator identifies two perspectives on Minneapolis: a deeper slide into a fascist police state, with ICE and border patrol acting as vehicles of state terror and committing extrajudicial killings with apparent impunity.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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