'Get the hell out of here!' Lawmakers explode in screaming match during hearing

The House Performs outrage While Power Keeps KillingThe SetupAt a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on sanctuary policies, Rep. Mike Lawler and Rep. Jamie Raskin erupted into a shouting match after Raskin pressed Lawler to condemn the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, whom the source describes as being gunned down by Trump’s immigration agents during a protest in Minneapolis in January. Lawler pivoted to victims killed by undocumented immigrants instead. The hearing exposed less a disagreement than a familiar tactic: redirect attention away from state violence and toward a more politically useful target.Who Actually Holds PowerThe people with real institutional power in this story are not the dead, not the protestors, and not the family members recruited for rhetorical use. The power sits with the federal immigration apparatus tied to Trump, and with the lawmakers who choose what gets centered in the hearing room. Lawler did not answer the charge he was asked to confront. He reached for a safer script: immigration panic, selective grief, and a familiar villain.That is the point. When a hearing about sanctuary policy becomes a stage for refusing to address killings by state agents, the institution is not confused. It is functioning exactly as designed.The Pivot Is the MessageLawler’s maneuver was not accidental. It was a decision to treat violence by government agents as a side issue while elevating harm committed by undocumented immigrants as the main moral frame. That is not balance. It is misdirection.Raskin, whatever the theatrics of the exchange, was trying to force a direct answer to a direct question. Lawler refused. The refusal matters more than the shouting. It shows where the political permission structure lies: outrage is acceptable only when it can be converted into anti-immigrant punishment. Once the victims are killed by state power, the script gets evasive.Sanctuary as a Convenient PropThe hearing’s ostensible subject was sanctuary policies, but the source makes clear that this was really about narrative control. Sanctuary policy becomes the all-purpose prop for Republican lawmakers who want to talk about immigration as menace while dodging the violence committed by the federal state itself.That is institutional cowardice with a partisan purpose. The issue is not whether one side feels “more outrage” than the other. The issue is which harms are allowed to count as political facts. Lawler’s performance says the quiet part plainly: state violence is inconvenient; immigrant scapegoating is useful.What the Framing Covers UpThe article’s framing is thin where it matters. By making the exchange look like a generic partisan screaming match, it risks flattening a sharper reality: one lawmaker was being pressed to acknowledge killings attributed in the source to Trump’s agents, and he dodged into a safer grievance. That is not mere chaos. It is a refusal to name responsibility.When officials can yell past the question instead of answering it, the institution has already absorbed the lesson. Accountability is optional. Blame is transferable. And the more violent the state becomes, the more urgently its defenders need weaker targets.The Larger PatternThis is the modern political method in miniature: let the state do harm, then redirect attention toward people with less power. Treat deliberate violence as a communications problem. Turn grief into partisan ammunition. Keep the machinery intact, and argue loudly about everyone else.That is how institutional cruelty survives in plain sight. Not by hiding, but by speaking over itself. Get full access to Systemic Error at paulstsmith.substack.com/subscribe