If you’re not pissed off, you’re not paying attention.

I’M THE CULTURE GUY AT THE BULWARK—I write about movies; I edit book reviews—and as such I mostly leave the political stuff to my colleagues. You need an obit of Diane Keaton banged out in an hour; I’m your guy. I leave policy and politics to Tim and Sam, JVL, Sarah, Lauren, and the rest of the crew. But almost every day I’m given a new reminder of why the work we’re doing here matters and why everyone should, at the very least, be concerned about the state of things, and, more reasonably, be outraged. All the time.

Consider the case of George Retes, whom Tim Miller interviewed on Friday. Here’s just a short clip in case you missed it. The full interview can be found here on our site and on our YouTube channel, here.

That shit should make your blood boil. It’s infuriating.

Look: I consider myself a pretty moderate conservative on immigration. Legal immigration is good; we should have more of it. Illegal immigration is bad; we should have less of it.

The problems with amnestying everyone illegally in the country or allowing wanton abuse of the asylum system are obvious to every conservative and every Republican: Moral hazard is real, and when you incentivize a thing (giving people who skipped the line a path to citizenship) you encourage more of it (illegal immigrants/asylum abusers).

But the problems with deporting everyone in the country should be equally obvious, particularly as we see it happen in front of us: If you incentivize deportation and urge agents to juke the stats by rounding up as many people as possible, you end up deporting not the criminals and drug importers but the farmhands and line cooks. Worse, empowering a semi-competent police force like ICE that is running TV ads begging unqualified people on the street to throw on a mask and start harassing people means you’re going to get innocent U.S. citizens caught in their crosshairs.

And this is what happened to Retes, a U.S. Army veteran born and raised in America who was on his way to work one day as a security guard at a legal marijuana farm when ICE agents teargassed his car, smashed in his window, arrested him, and held him at a detention center for multiple days on suicide watch without letting him contact his family or attorneys. As if that weren’t enough, DHS lied about him and said he was obstructing ICE agents to justify their brutality.

I understand not wanting to succumb to outrage or despair. But I don’t know how you can see stories like this and stay on the sidelines, to whatabout or both-sides the state of things. If you’re not pissed off, you’re not paying attention.

I’m biased—I work here, after all—but this is why we need The Bulwark and why I am so proud to work for an organization supported by hundreds of thousands of readers, listeners, and viewers every single day. And if you’re one of those moderates who is horrified by what you see and eager to support an organization that will help those who aren’t yet pissed off pay attention, I hope you’ll consider supporting our work too.

Joining Bulwark+ supports the work we do here telling the stories of those impacted by Trump’s policies, reporting on what’s really happening in Washington and giving a platform to pro-democracy voices so they can reach the widest possible audience. Help support the mission by joining Bulwark+ and by sharing our work.

The only way through is together. I’ll see you in your inbox on Friday with a new edition of Bulwark Goes to Hollywood.

–Sonny