At 9:05 a.m. on January 24, 2026, Alex Pretti, a VA ICU nurse and U.S. citizen, was killed in the streets of Minneapolis during a federal immigration enforcement operation. Reporting and video evidence indicate that he did not fire his weapon or commit violence against the agents involved. He was forced to the ground, disarmed, and shot. Whatever legal language is eventually used, the reality is simple: a civilian was killed by federal agents during a domestic law enforcement action, in broad daylight, on a public street. This is not abstract, not theoretical, and not hyperbolic. It is lethal state power used against the public in full view of a city.

This did not happen in isolation. Just weeks earlier, Renée Good was also killed during a federal enforcement action in Minneapolis. Two civilians killed by federal agents in the same city, within a short span of time, cannot be treated as unrelated incidents. At that point, the question stops being whether each case can be justified after the fact and becomes whether something systemic is producing predictable harm. Democracies are not judged by how well they excuse violence after it happens, but by how effectively they prevent it in the first place.

In The Anatomy of Fascism, historian Robert O. Paxton argues that fascism is not an ideology imposed all at once, but a process that unfolds through stages. One of the earliest stages is the cultivation of fear and the identification of internal enemies as threats to order or national survival. In the present moment, immigrants and those associated with them are repeatedly framed as sources of danger and disorder by the Trump administration. That framing is not incidental. It creates an environment where extraordinary enforcement feels necessary and dissent feels suspect.

Paxton also describes the normalization of violence as a political tool. Fascism advances when violence is no longer treated as a failure of governance, but as an acceptable response to perceived chaos. The repeated deployment of armed federal agents in civilian spaces, the willingness to use force during routine enforcement, and the rapid institutional defense of lethal outcomes all reflect this shift. When civilians are killed during domestic operations and the response centers on justification rather than restraint, violence stops being exceptional.

Another stage Paxton identifies is the expansion of discretionary power for security forces alongside the erosion of legal restraint. Law becomes something to be bent rather than a boundary to be respected. This is where the Department of Homeland Security memo instructing agents to disregard Fourth Amendment protections becomes critical. The Fourth Amendment exists to prevent agents of the state from acting first and justifying later. When warrants and probable cause are treated as optional, the law ceases to function as a safeguard and becomes a formality applied after harm has already occurred.

Paxton further warns that authoritarian movements often hollow out democratic institutions while leaving them formally intact. Oversight still exists on paper, but it is delayed, obstructed, or ignored in practice. Accountability is promised but rarely delivered in ways that constrain future action. We see this now in resistance to state and local scrutiny, delayed investigations, and a political culture that prioritizes institutional defense over public trust. The machinery of democracy remains, but its ability to protect people is steadily weakened.

Calling this a slippery road to fascism is not a claim that the United States has already crossed some final line. It is a warning grounded in historical patterns. Fascism does not begin with open dictatorship. It begins when fear becomes a governing tool, when violence is normalized, and when legal limits are treated as inconveniences. I live in a community that would be targeted by these kinds of operations, and I am a law-abiding resident and a U.S. citizen who should not have to fear a raid or a moment of escalation. This should not happen to law-abiding non-citizens either, because when abuse is tolerated against some people, it becomes acceptable against anyone.

First they targeted people I was told were dangerous, and I said nothing because I was not one of them. Then they expanded their power, and I stayed quiet because I thought it would stop there. Then the violence became normal, and the rules stopped applying evenly. By the time I realized what was happening, there was no clear line left to draw. And there was no one left who could pretend it was not happening.