The Jan. 7 edition of the Journal included Ken Trainor’s column expressing optimism for 2026, invoking J.R.R. Tolkien’s coining of the term “eucatastrohe,” or good catastrophe. 2025 was a catastrophic year, made such by our current political atmosphere. Millions of Americans would agree 2025 was a very, very, bad, no-good, rotten year. Would 2026 be made better? Could it possibly be any worse?
Optimism is a healthy mindset. Ken opined that The Resistance to the clear assault on our democracy was seemingly getting better organized, with strategies like voting with our wallets, refusing to support complicit businesses and media outlets. Right. Pushback is vital. After almost a year of reckless actions by the current administration, perhaps 2026 will be, well, less catastrophic.
Ironically, a very short time after the Jan. 7 edition was made public, there was a tragic incident in Minneapolis. A 37-year-old woman, a mother of three, shortly after dropping off her 6-year-old son at school, was shot dead in her car by an ICE agent. Video strongly indicates she was attempting to drive away from her unwitting entanglement with ICE operations when the agent fired multiple shots through the car’s windshield. Other than the DHS’s immediate knee-jerk attempt to assign guilt to Ms. Good for her demise, this incident has garnered extremely vocal denunciations of yet another video-captured documentation of ICE’s ugly modus operandi.
While this very apparent act of wanton deadliness is symptomatic of what made 2025 such a difficult year for the majority of Americans, the particulars of this dreadful ICE incident should give pause to every person in this country. What happened on Jan. 7, clearly signals that, regardless of one’s race, gender or age, like Renee Nicole Good, inadvertently encountering ICE’s presence anywhere can very easily result in death. No one is safe. From minority neighborhoods to posh, well-to-do suburban areas, leaving one’s home for any reason might just get you killed.
Renee had simply driven her son to school. There is zero evidence she did anything to justify being shot dead.
That she was a white, female U.S. citizen meant nothing, for those of us who assume a certain skin color and proof of citizenship somehow provides some sense of being an exception to the authoritarian actions of the last year.
2026, just one week into the new year, understand that we are all potentially Renee Nicole Good.
Joseph Harrington
Oak Park