Heavy, Heartbreaking Days (1/18/26)
These are heavy, heartbreaking days. Last week, Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, a wife, a poet, a neighbor, and a deeply compassionate human being, was fatally shot by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. She was not a violent person; she was living her life caring for her family and her neighbors when lethal force was used against her. The loss of her life so close to home, and so senselessly, has left an entire community reeling.
The pain of her loss is real and deeply felt across the country. There have been vigils and protests in her name, and what began as mourning has ignited a powerful outpouring of public outrage. Renee’s death is not an isolated tragedy. More than 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025, and already at least four migrants have died in ICE custody in 2026, lives lost without accountability, answers, or justice.
Nationwide, people are confronting the terrifying reality that government power should not look like terrorizing regular folks in their own communities. What has followed, marches in cities large and small, statements from families outraged by the lack of accountability, resignations by federal prosecutors over the refusal to investigate the shooting, feels like a turning point.
And public opinion is shifting too. Recent polls show growing majorities saying ICE’s actions in this case were unjustified and that the agency itself is viewed far less favorably than before, with significant numbers of people now saying they would support major changes or even abolition of ICE.
This isn’t just about anger. It’s about a collective reckoning. It’s about people of all walks of life saying enough. It’s about not allowing terror to be normalized. But it’s also about something deeper: grief and exhaustion, fear and anxiety, and the very real toll these times take on us all.
There are two simultaneous tracks forward:
• Peaceful resistance and protest: standing up, speaking out, and building power with our neighbors.
• Electoral action: doing everything we can to elect Democrats up and down the ballot so there is some accountability in Washington and across statehouses.
We must take back at least one, and preferably both, houses of Congress next year. That’s how we begin to rein in the unchecked powers that have brought us to this moment.
We know it’s difficult. It’s heavy. It’s exhausting. And some days it feels like the world is asking too much of us. Self-preservation looks different for all of us, some of us need rest, some of us need ritual, some of us need joy, and all of us need community.
So let us lean into what sustains us, what sharpens our clarity, and what prevents us from burning out. Here at Markers For Democracy, we do this work together, holding one another in community, caring for each other, and staying engaged in the long, necessary work of democracy. We owe that to ourselves, to each other, and to the memory of Renee, and to all those whose lives have been upended or cut short without answers or justice.