Chris Abraham

People are reacting to masked federal agents as proof that the rule of law is ending. That fear is legitimate. History shows how quickly unaccountable armed power can turn brutal and unjust.

But what keeps getting missed is why this does not trigger universal rejection. Many Americans believe the rule of law already failed in their daily lives. Not in theory, but on the street. Open drug markets. Encampments. Repeat violent offenders cycling through courts. Borders that feel unenforced. Police constrained. Institutions frozen. From their perspective, disorder won first.

So when Trump signals force, even ugly force, they do not hear tyranny. They hear reassertion. They hear someone finally willing to make the law real again.

This is not about loving chaos. It is about believing chaos already took over and that only pressure can push it back.

That is what I mean by the resettlement of America. It is a frontier instinct. When a place feels lost, people do not reach for process. They reach for sheriffs. They want the ground retaken, the lines redrawn, and the rules enforced again, even if the method is harsh and risky.

None of this makes it moral. History is full of innocent people being crushed when states use force to reassert control. That danger is real.

But politically, this is not a coup against America. It is America expressing what it thinks it needs to survive. A majority voted for friction because they think polite legalism failed and unmanaged disorder was tearing the country apart.

If that diagnosis is wrong, the answer is not panic. It is rebuilding real order that does not require men in masks. Until then, fear of state power will keep losing to fear of collapse.

When a child is in a full-blown tantrum, reasoning rarely works. Many parenting models recommend staying nearby but not engaging, so the child can burn off the emotional storm safely. This teaches self-regulation. You’re not abandoning them, you’re giving their nervous system space to reset. After they calm down, that’s when connection and guidance actually land.

People keep arguing this like federal agents are governed by Asimov’s Three Laws.

Like they’re hard-coded to never harm a human, always de-escalate, and sacrifice themselves before using force.

That’s science fiction.

In the real world, armed federal agents are governed by a threat model, not a morality chip. When a crowd blocks a vehicle, when someone suddenly moves, reverses, or refuses commands, that gets filtered through self-preservation and mission protection, not idealized restraint.

Activists keep acting like ICE, Marshals, or DHS are robots running a pacifist firmware update. They aren’t. They’re humans with guns, adrenaline, and rules that prioritize control over negotiation when things go off-script.

That doesn’t make every outcome just.

It makes pretending they operate like Star Trek security tragically naïve.