False accusations and state terrorism
The murder a few days ago in Minneapolis of poet and activist Renee Nicole Macklin Good at the hands of ICE agents (the US law enforcement agency supposedly in charge of controlling illegal immigration; in practice, nothing more than death squads) is a blatant case of terrorism. A voice that legitimately and democratically disagreed with the government, and that exercised its right to publicly express this disagreement, was silenced forever by force of arms. To justify the crime, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, accused Macklin Good of being, precisely, a "terrorist." Trump claimed that the agents had acted in self-defense, since she "had attacked them." The repulsive writer and Vice President JD Vance insisted on the same idea, suggesting that the victim accelerated her car because she "was not innocent." The video of Macklin Good's execution clearly shows the opposite: she starts the car, intending to leave, and one of the officers shoots her three times in the head at point-blank range. The Trumpian media has dedicated itself to trying to defame Renee Nicole Macklin Good with lies and by bringing up issues related to her private life. For the most fanatical sector of today's society (in the United States they're called MAGA; here they don't have a specific name, but they're the same), a woman being a lesbian, or being said to be one, makes it more acceptable for a police officer to shoot her.
What happens in the Americas directly affects us because, sooner rather than later, our right-wing and far-right movements copy the methods and actions of their counterparts there. Justifying crimes and abuses of power by the state by appealing to the need to respond to an alleged terrorist attack is a classic tactic of authoritarian, totalitarian, or fascist regimes. It's also common among some democratic governments when they feel threatened, especially those belonging to less consolidated democracies. All the police and judicial repression against Catalan separatism was carried out by Spain based on an alleged "coup" and a "terrorist" threat that never existed. This repression consisted—and still consists—of imprisonments, exiles, and disqualifications from holding public office. But we already know that there is a sector of Spanish nationalism that believes these were overly lenient punishments: after all, it was a matter of "coup" and "terrorism," and this deserves exemplary punishments.
Those who think this way are the ones preparing to seize power through two parties, the PP and Vox. The fact that Spain is part of the European Union, despite its many shortcomings and shortcomings, has prevented even more serious attacks against democracy (and against its citizens) on several occasions. The fact that the EU is now so weakened and disoriented is not good news for the minorities who are subjects of the Kingdom of Spain. Shooting first and defaming later is an age-old tactic of state terrorism. And a state's right to "defend itself" is never questioned.
