💀“Domestic Terrorist” Edition

According to the Trump administration’s elastic new definition of “domestic terrorist,” Renee Nicole Good—a poet, mother, neighbor, tea-and-cookies provider, and self-described “shitty guitar strummer,” apparently posed such a grave threat to national security that she had to be shot dead by a federal agent on a residential Minneapolis street. Her alleged crime: existing near ICE agents while caring about other human beings. In a stunning upgrade to the war on terror, the administration managed to look at a 37-year-old woman remembered for kindness, compassion, and community and see Osama bin Laden with a library card.

Friends and neighbors described Good as gentle, loving, and protective of those around her, which in Trump-era logic is exactly the problem. She was not armed, not violent, not leading an insurrection, not storming a Capitol, so naturally, officials reached for the only label left in the drawer: “domestic terrorist.” It’s a term now so diluted that it can apparently be applied to anyone who shows up, stands nearby, or fails to applaud while federal agents flex their authority in public.

Homeland Security’s portrayal collapses under even the lightest contact with reality. Good was a writer, a parent, a neighbor whose biggest known offenses included making messy art and winning an undergraduate poetry prize. But in an administration that pardons actual extremists while criminalizing empathy, the real danger isn’t violence. It’s solidarity. Loving your neighbors, protecting your community, and being visibly humane are now treated as subversive acts.

So let the record show: in 2026 America, you can help storm Congress, assault police officers, and get a presidential pardon, but stand peacefully on your own block, and you may be posthumously branded a terrorist by the same people who insist this is all about “law and order.”

Rob Rogers - Substack and Andrews McMeel

Clay Jones - Substack and Claytoonz

Pat Bagley - cagle.com/bagley

Matt Davies - Andrews McMeel

Joel Pett - Tribune Content Agency

Mike Luckovich - Creators

Jimmy Margulies - King Features

Nick Anderson - Substack and Tribune Content Agency

Adam Zyglis - cagle.com/zyglis

If Donald Trump is truly devoted to “America First,” Americans are left with a small, reasonable question: why does “first” apparently require a world tour, several invasions, the dismantling of alliances, and a side quest for Arctic real estate?

Take Venezuela. Since when does “focus on the homeland” mean seizing a foreign president, announcing the United States will now “run” another country, and eyeing its oil like a drug kingpin inspecting a wharehouse full of fentanyl precursors? Americans struggling with health care costs, housing, and utility bills can sleep soundly knowing their government has found the time and resources to dabble in old-fashioned imperial administration (strictly in the name of domestic priorities, of course).

Then there’s Greenland. When voters chanted “America First,” many assumed it meant bridges, wages, and schools, not annexing a massive, frozen island belonging to a NATO ally because it looks lonely on a map and might contain minerals. Denmark, which inconveniently already owns Greenland, has been told to relax. This isn’t colonialism. It’s just proactive shopping for national security bargains.

And of course, no “America First” agenda would be complete without methodically weakening NATO, the alliance built by America that has helped prevent major war in Europe for generations. Why maintain partnerships when you can insult allies, question mutual defense, and hint that protection is a subscription service? Nothing strengthens America’s global standing like reminding longtime partners they’re replaceable, preferably by silence.

Put it all together and the doctrine comes into focus. “America First” doesn’t mean less foreign entanglement. It means America everywhere, loudly, unpredictably, and with invoices to follow. It’s a worldview where diplomacy is a nuisance, alliances are bad deals, and sovereignty is negotiable as long as the branding sounds patriotic. The slogan stays the same; only the map keeps expanding.