12 Hours America – U.S.-Crash

Twelve hours America - and everything lies open: a country between hunger and megalomania, between poverty and power, between ideology and fear. Twelve hours that show how deep the fractures have become, how violence has become part of daily life, what racism does - how freedom of expression disappears.

In St. Paul, ICE agents enter a company. Bro-Tex. A place where people work, nothing more. What happens feels like a derailment that no one catches anymore. Peaceful demonstrators are pushed to the ground, and then you see something you should not have to see again: pepper spray shot directly into faces from close range, people screaming and unable to breathe, others vomiting, others staggering away like people for whom the world suddenly became too fast. A vehicle driven by the same agents reverses and misses a group of bystanders by an amount one could call coincidence - or luck. In some moments it becomes unclear who is supposed to protect and who actually needs protection.

Angela Deeb says afterwards: “Physically, my body hurt, but of course our hearts hurt today.” In her sentence lies something that goes beyond the moment. It is the quiet realization that violence does not only strike the body, but also the idea of how a state should act. While no one yet knows where the detained workers have been taken, one feeling remains: helplessness. As if someone entered the room and took the light with them.

Then Clay Higgins appears in the news. The Republican from Louisiana. The only vote against releasing the Epstein files. A man who likes to present himself as a fighter but already loses his composure when a T-shirt does not suit him. It is a short clip that says more about him than any speech. Someone who blocks clarification while claiming to defend it. Someone who pretends strength but recoils from the truth as from an open flame.

At a press conference, the question is whether the victims in the case will be protected. Pam Bondi says she will “refuse any release of information that could hurt the victims again.” The sentence falls into a quiet room like a stone. One feels the heaviness of the topic but also the unease in the wording. Blanche adds that the law has not been signed, that the victims will of course be protected, and that the language “contains carve-outs to ensure exactly that.” It sounds like an attempt to speak safety without being able to guarantee it. Words meant to reassure but standing on thin ground.

While the question of responsibility remains open, Jake Lang marches through Dearborn. A man who played a role on January 6, celebrated by some, condemned by others. His appearance meets rejection here, exhaustion, outrage. When he is struck in the face, his march collapses for a moment, not only physically but also inwardly. Dearborn shows that a city eventually has enough. Not of protest. But of people who misuse the place to celebrate their own hardness. We will not show video recordings of this. The scenes are so racist that we will neither publish them nor reproduce them as a “document of the time.”

And while all of this happens, Donald Trump sits in the White House at a dinner that looks like a piece from a world untouched by reality: Melania, Cristiano Ronaldo, JD Vance, Tim Cook, later Elon Musk. A table full of faces that in this moment seem like a counter-image to the rest of the country. Out there people screaming and crying. In here people smiling and clinking glasses.

It feels as if two worlds lie on top of each other without touching. One world in which violence, fear, and uncertainty shape the hours. And another in which those gather who believe that a set table is a sign of stability. The truth lies somewhere in between, but no one seems willing to look there.

As Thanksgiving and the holidays approach, I encourage everyone who is able to support local food banks and volunteer their time. This morning, I was at my church in Winchester, and I’m grateful for the volunteers and organizations working tirelessly to ensure families across Virginia have food on the table and feel cared for this season.

Twelve hours America.
Twelve hours in which a country showed more of itself than it wanted to.
Twelve hours after which one simple truth remains:
that in this wealthy country more and more people are going hungry.