The Right Is Sneering at a Tragedy

A mother of three is dead, but the president, vice president, Fox News hosts, and others are hellbent on dehumanizing her.

View in Browser  Thursday, January 08, 2026 You already know what happened in Minneapolis yesterday. By now, nearly everyone has seen the video of Renee Nicole Good being fatally shot in her SUV by ICE agents. But you might not be aware of how conservative media has been covering the shooting. Dave Holmes turned on Fox News to find out. Today, he writes about what he saw, and he's found a devastatingly perfect word to describe it. It's not as tragic as the fact of Good's death, of course, but it's nevertheless gutting. What Dave saw on the faces of conservative commentators appraising a 37-year-old woman with a partner and three children, fatally shot, was: a sneer.   —Kevin Dupzyk, contributing editor Plus: Minnesotans are being treated to Tim Walz unchained What it feels like to be stranded in the Caribbean after the U.S. raids on Venezuela The fourth episode of Fallout season 2, is another dosage of high energy and forward-moving direction The Right Is Sneering at Renee Good. What Is Broken in Their Souls? A mother of three is dead, but the president, vice president, Fox News hosts, and others are hellbent on dehumanizing her. Call it the truest and most literal definition of morbid curiosity. Last evening, hours after a masked ICE agent fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Good, I did what I often do when unequivocally bad things happen in America: I checked to see how it was playing on Fox News. It was the top of the hour, and the shooting was the top story on Jesse Watters Primetime. A chyron screamed WOMAN RAMS ICE AGENT, GETS SHOT beneath video from the scene showing Good's SUV ramming nobody. That quote from 1984 rang in my head, the one about the party telling you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears, about how it was their final, most essential command. But this is Fox News in the second Trump administration, so forcing you to believe the opposite of what is clear and obvious was actually their second-to-last, almost-most-essential command. Their final, most essential command was to get you to sneer at a murder victim. READ THE STORY From trackers to home gym equipment, there's so many ways to level up your workout in the new year. Bryn Gelbart selects the most popular fitness gear worth trying. >> Online security is critical, especially as technology continues to advance and we struggle to keep up with it. That's why Bellamy Richardson found these password managers that'll keep your information secure. >> The Therabody Relief Is All Killer, No Filler Between New Year's resolutions and starting the long road to getting in shape for my wedding, I've hit the ground running on exercise after a long, indulgent break. My body hurts. And not always in that good, satisfying way runners love to talk about ad nauseam. On any given weekday, I wake up with soreness radiating down from my thighs to my feet. Lately, it's been worse, but the only thing that's saved me is my Theragun.   The percussive massage gun began as a popular recovery device for marathon runners and Olympians to soothe aching, overworked muscles and speed up the recovery process. But athletes aren't the only ones whose bodies need some relief, and massage guns aren't just for athletes anymore. This one is for the rest of us. By Bryn Gelbart The Lost Art of Reading an Actual Book It was just after 5:00 a.m., and I was wide-awake in a hotel in Rome. Jet lag, certainly. I grabbed my phone, responded to a few messages, then opened Instagram—and scrolled through it for the next hour. The slop had hypnotized me. After watching a video of a guy eating leftover Domino's pizza and orange soda for breakfast and making himself a cheese sandwich with potato chips for lunch, I snapped out of it.   What was I doing?! I could've been attempting to sleep or working out in the hotel gym. My laptop with its to-do list of work tasks was nearby. For fuck's sake, right outside my window was the Eternal City! Worse yet, the book I was reading was right next to me. At any moment, I could've put down my phone, picked up the book, and engaged with material far more fulfilling than videos of a guy's shitty diet. Instead, I scrolled.   We've all put down a book in favor of losing ourselves in a phone. It's like gorging on your kids' Halloween candy surreptitiously. There are fleeting moments of enjoyment, and then you feel slightly sick in mind and body afterward. Also, you feel dumber. By Michael Sebastian Follow Us Unsubscribe | Manage Preferences | Privacy Notice | CA Notice at Collection Esquire is a publication of Hearst Magazines. ©2026 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This email was sent by Hearst Magazines, 300 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019-3779