It's Not Business as Usual: Fact, Power, and the Cost of Silence

This past week has been charged—not just for me, but for the country. I wake up each morning astonished by where we are and how quickly what once felt unthinkable now feels normalized. As someone who considers herself an empath, this isn’t simply about disagreeing with an administration or its policies. It’s about choosing not to believe what our eyes are clearly showing us. It’s about fact versus fiction. And it’s about the dangerous ease with which we are being conditioned to accept cruelty as governance.

Is this Normal?

I enjoy spirited debate. I seek out perspectives that challenge my own because I know no single worldview holds all the answers. When I’m wrong, I want to know it. But there comes a point when “political theater” becomes something darker—when the cost of silence feels heavier than the discomfort of speaking out. I reached that point this week.

Like many, I turned to social media and quickly learned how efficiently outrage is amplified, distorted, and monetized. One post spiraled into arguments, assumptions, and uncomfortable encounters—some thoughtful, others condescending, and a few simply surreal. What struck me most wasn’t disagreement itself, but how quickly curiosity disappeared. People who reached out to challenge me were often unwilling to articulate their own red lines. They wanted distance, not dialogue. Order, not accountability.

That discord and indifference stays with me.

I stepped away from social media and began writing—not to persuade, but to understand where my anger, fear, and grief were coming from. What emerged was a deeper unease about power, dehumanization, and how easily we look away when harm is done in our name.

The killing of Renee Good was a tragedy. Before opinions hardened, I did what I try to do when facts are contested: I read. According to publicly available Department of Homeland Security use-of-force guidelines, firing at a moving vehicle is generally prohibited except under narrowly defined circumstances involving imminent threat and no reasonable alternatives. Deadly force is not authorized simply to prevent flight, and officers are expected to move out of harm’s way if feasible rather than escalate force.

What is not disputed is that shots were fired into a moving vehicle and a woman lost her life. Those facts alone should compel sober scrutiny, not partisan reflexes. Instead, we saw something else: premature character assassination, politicized narratives, and a disturbing lack of empathy—before any thorough investigation had concluded.

I consider myself a centrist. I support legal immigration. I do not support open borders. I also do not support tactics that rely on terror, militarization, and dehumanization. These positions are not contradictory. They are rooted in a belief that policy can be enforced without abandoning humanity.

What troubles me most is not the existence of immigration enforcement, but how it is being carried out. Masked agents in military-style gear. Raids that terrorize communities, schools, houses of worship, and homes. Escalation instead of de-escalation. Force deployed as a first response rather than a last resort. These actions don’t just affect undocumented individuals—they fracture trust, endanger bystanders, and erode the moral authority of the institutions meant to protect life.

We should be asking hard questions:

• What training do agents receive, and for how long?

• Are they adequately trained in de-escalation and crowd control?

• Are constitutional rights being protected?

• Is force being used proportionally and judiciously?

• Who is overseeing accountability when things go wrong?

These are not radical questions. They are the bare minimum in a democracy that claims to value human rights and the rule of law.

What I find most alarming is how quickly cruelty is justified when it is framed as “order.” History has shown us where that logic leads. Dehumanization always begins with language—“illegal,” “criminal,” “terrorist”—labels that flatten complex human beings into disposable categories. Once a group is stripped of dignity, violence against them becomes easier to excuse. This pattern is not new. We’ve seen it before, and we’ve promised ourselves we would recognize it if it appeared again.

As a Jewish woman, I am guided by the principle of Tikkun Olam—the responsibility to repair the world through justice, compassion, and ethical action. That responsibility does not stop at my own community. History has taught us, painfully, that when governments begin targeting “others,” safety is an illusion. Silence has never protected anyone for long.

I believe deeply that most people—across political lines—possess empathy and decency. I also believe many are exhausted, overwhelmed, and unsure how to engage without being attacked or dismissed. But disengagement comes at a cost. When we stop questioning power, when we excuse brutality because it is inconvenient to confront, we become complicit in the erosion of our shared humanity.

This essay is not an attempt to convert anyone. It is an invitation—to pause, to question narratives that ask us to abandon compassion, and to remember that accountability is not partisan. It belongs to all of us.

We can disagree about policy. We should debate solutions vigorously. But we cannot afford to lose sight of the fact that we are talking about human lives—not quotas, not optics, not political wins.

If we cannot draw a moral line at cruelty, if we cannot insist on dignity even for those we disagree with, then the damage will not be limited to one group. It will define us all.