Today’s post is off topic. I’m supposed to write about Britain here. Sorry, but I’ve been watching the US, the country I grew up in and thought I knew, teeter on the edge of authoritarian* rule, so what the hell, let’s throw my self-inflicted rules out the window and talk about what’s happening in Minnesota.
Minnesota’s in the middle of the continent and so far north that it hangs off the clothesline of Canada, gathering icicles until March. Or is that June? I’ve been gone so long that I forget. Until recently it was known primarily for being cold and bland. People talk about Minnesota Nice, which you could define as a culture of overwhelming politeness and an allergy to confrontation. I lived there for forty years, and spiky New Yorker that I am, I didn’t do well with all that blandness and the confrontation allergy–or the cold. I wouldn’t have picked it as the most likely place to face down an occupation by heavily armed federal agents and do it with resilience, with grief, with compassion, and with flashes of humor. But it has. I’m in awe of the people I know there and of all the ones I don’t.
If you follow the news, you’ll know that some 3,000 of Trump’s federal agents were dropped into Minnesota–mostly to Minneapolis, but they’ve made forays into its sister city, St. Paul, into the suburbs, and into a few rural towns. They’re not all from ICE–Immigration and Customs Enforcement–but let’s use it as shorthand.
Embarrassingly irrelevant photo: I did have some shots of Minneapolis in more peaceful (and warmer) times but I seem to have deleted them in an effort to free up some space on my phone. So here’s a photo or a prehistoric stone quoit in Cornwall. Anyone can spot the connection, right?
If you believe the governmental noise, they’re there to detain the most dangerous illegal immigrants, but they’ve swept up the legal as well as the undocumented. They’ve swept up people with a criminal record and people who have none, citizens and non-citizens, immigrants and the native born, always focusing on people with brown and black skin, although they’re not above snatching the occasional Asian or (irony with never die) Native American. They’ve been stopping cars and pulling (literally pulling) people out, smashing windshields while they’re at it, and bundling them into unmarked cars. They’ve been grabbing people at work, at home, in parking lots, at bus stops, on the way home from school or the supermarket, at school. They’ve been detaining children.
I could go on but if you follow the news you know all that. I could also fill a post with the ways they’re breaking the law, violating the constitution, and ignoring court orders, but I’m working hard not to rant here, and not to tell you too much of what (I hope) you already know.
What I want to do instead is draw on what friends have told me about living through this moment, which a lot of them are calling an occupation.
Kids living in the cross-hairs
A white friend has two children whose father, her ex-husband, is latino. She’s terrified for the kids, although last I heard she hadn’t started keeping them home from school. They’re native-born citizens but they look latino and ICE agents are not known for caring about niceties. So the kids carry copies of their identity documents with them and their mother drills them on what to do and what to say if they’re stopped. She loses sleep over how to reclaim them from the system if they are taken, and whether she’ll be able to reclaim them. When their father, her ex-husband, picks them up, she asks him to keep his papers on the front seat because if he’s stopped they won’t give him time to open the glove compartment. Last time I talked with her, she was thinking it would be safer if he didn’t see the kids up for a while. He’s a naturalized citizen but that may not protect him. They could easily sweep him up and they could take the kids with him. It’s dangerous to be in the car if you’re latino. It’s dangerous to be on the street.
Some time after the occupation started, the kids asked what they could do to look more white.
Let that sink in. It’ll break your heart.
Their mother also loses sleep over whether she’ll have to scoop the kids up and flee.
How likely is she to have to do that? No one knows. That’s why, at 3 a.m., people make plans, or at least understand how unprepared they are. The central issues are where they could go and how, but another one is what to do with their much-loved dog. They can’t abandon her. They might not be able to take her.
At a time when we’re all feeling helpless, I was able to do one thing: email friends and ask if they’d be on standby to take the dog and either keep her or find her a home where she’d be loved. Without hesitation, they said yes, as I’d known they would. Everybody exchanged phone numbers. It’s one less middle-of-the-night worry for a mother stretched almost to the breaking point.
It was a small thing, but I felt like I’d done a good day’s work.
My friend’s family is safer than many, but their story gives you a sense of what people are living with.
Legal observers
I used to live in South Minneapolis, close to where Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot and killed by federal agents. It seems to be the epicenter of the conflict. Some people I know are acting as legal observers. These are ordinary people, giving up their time and risking detention and, it turns out, death, to protect their immigrant neighbors. What they can do is limited, but they patrol the streets armed with phones and whistles. If they see ICE stopping a car, watching a playground, cornering someone, chasing someone, beating someone, dragging someone into an unmarked car, they blow their whistles, they record what’s happening, and they use social media–encrypted neighborhood chat groups–to alert the neighbors. They record license plates. They escort kids to school and stand by to make sure they get on and off their school buses safely. It sounds like nothing, but they make what’s happening public. ICE hates them.
And the people ICE hates aren’t just the people patrolling the streets. When whistles start to blow, neighbors come outside. They yell. They watch. They record. They blow more whistles. More heavily committed people are on neighborhood chat groups that formed in the wake of the George Floyd killing and that now carry alerts about local raids, so they hear about them that way. So when ICE stops, people gather.
George Floyd? He was the man whose death sparked off the Black Lives Matter movement. That also happened in South Minneapolis.
Two observers have been killed and some uncounted number that we’ll just call a lot have been dragged into cars and detained, then eventually photographed, occasionally told they’ll be added to a list of domestic terrorists, and released into the cold–it’s been -20 F. for part of this time; cold enough to turn your thoughts to ice–with no coat, no phone. A person could freeze out there, but a group of volunteers, Haven Watch, has formed to meet released detainees, bring them into their cars to warm up, and give them coats, a hot drink, and a burner phone, then find them a way home.
Ilhan Omar, one of Minnesota’s senators, sent out an email mentioning a legal immigrant–a refugee–who was “visited by ICE and swiftly taken away. Her children produced paperwork proving their mother was in the country lawfully. ICE ignored them, shackled [her],and flew her to a detention center in Texas. Days later, they released her in Texas with nothing but the shirt on her back. Family and friends had to help her get back home to Minnesota.”
And those are the lucky one–the people ICE releases. The undocumented and some random number of people who are in the country legally are moved into detention centers, where conditions are reported to be horrible and elected officials are only occasionally allowed in.
One woman who hadn’t been detained wrote that “agents showed up outside my home. They didn’t approach the house, but they parked there, watching. They’ve taken photos of me, they know my car, and they followed me to intimidate me. It worked. I ended up removing my children from our home out of fear. . . . This is the reality we’re living in. Families trying to help other families are being harassed and intimidated. Our rights are being stripped away in plain sight.”
If you’re connected to the right people, Facebook has become a useful forum for people to exchange information, personal testimony, the occasional rant, and news articles and commentary published by smaller magazines. One reporter wrote, and someone copied onto Facebook, that what he was seeing in Minneapolis looked a lot like what he saw during the Arab Spring in Tahrir Square. It was spontaneous, it came from the grassroots, and it wasn’t centrally organized.
Flashes of hope
That people continue to turn out in huge numbers–one estimate is tens of thousands–is a massive sign of hope, but there are less visible ones. A friend who lives in an old people’s housing complex organized a letter writing session. She drafted sample letters to the governor, Minnesota’s senators, corporations who’ve visibly supported ICE. Chaos ensued. People couldn’t get online. People confused links and email addresses. People stopped writing to declaim, as my friend said, “About how awful this all was. I felt like a Kindergarten teacher who lost control of her class.”
Still, letters were sent.
Elsewhere, both individuals and organizations collect and deliver food to people whose situation makes them vulnerable and who are afraid to go out. Local cafes, coffee shops, and restaurants offer free drinks and soup to frozen legal observers. You can’t understand the value of that until you’ve lived through a Minnesota winter. In Cornwall, where I live now, when people say “it’s freezing,” they mean water freezes. In Minnesota, they mean their eyelashes are frosting over, and no, I’m not exaggerating about that. If you wrap a scarf around your nose and mouth, which is tempting and I’ve done it, your lovely warm breath will first turn to frost on the scarf, pressing a layer of ice against your face, and then rise up toward your eyes. In no time at all, each time you blink you can feel your upper eyelashes grasping your lower ones and then gently letting go. They do let go–you won’t end up with your eyes frozen shut–but it’s a very strange feeling.
A yarn shop is selling a pattern for a red hat modeled on one Norwegians are said to have worn as a symbol of opposition to the Nazis. Proceeds go to immigrant aid organizations.
I mentioned that people had brought some flashes of humor to their resistance. They’re not dressing in inflatable costumes the way people did in Portland. Different situation, different responses. But I have seen clips of two demonstrators zipping downhill on a sled decorated as a giant can of de-icer. A second group dressed as bowling pins with the heads of Trump and his cronies and waited at the base of the hill until someone rolled a giant bowling ball downhill and they obligingly fell over. A third group went down on a sled decorated as a swan. What that had to do with anything is beyond me, but it was lovely.
I’ve leaned heavily on old friends for the information I’ve used, and we lean heavily to the left. But what’s happening is wider than my old circle of friends. A former neighbor who’s not particularly political and not of the left writes, “Words can’t describe what a sad mess it is here. Never thought I would see Minnesota like this.”
Since the shootings
As I write this (a day or so in advance of posting it), a widespread and angry response to the second, meticulously documented, shooting has forced the federal rhetoric to be toned down a bit and a few layers of support have peeled away from Trump’s anti-immigrant push, but ICE is still on the streets in Minnesota. Federal prosecutors are bringing charges against people for “everything from spitting to throwing an egg or brick at federal agents. The defendants are also accused of other efforts to impede law enforcement, including blocking, striking or bumping agents’ vehicles, shoving agents and resisting arrest.” (Sorry, the article’s behind a paywall, but hey, it’s there.)
This morning, again on Facebook, a suburban organization warned of “ICE agents . . . impersonating concerned community members in an attempt to gather information about vulnerable individuals and to target the helpers too. . . . As long as ICE is in our community, we have to set aside ‘Minnesota Nice’ and be comfortable telling people we cannot share information with people we do not personally know.” Someone else posted about finding a car abandoned on his street, windows smashed, keys and identification inside, evidence of another abduction. “When I tell you it’s worse than it seems,” he wrote, “I’m not exaggerating. People are disappearing all over the place and we may never know their stories. I’ve started to lose count of how many I have personally witnessed.”
Through neighbors, the writer was at least able to notify the missing driver’s family.
The Nation magazine has nominated Minneapolis for the Nobel Peace Prize.
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* I used the word authoritarian. It’s a more moderate word than fascist and I’d like to sound marginally well balanced, but you could argue reasonably, I think, for either word. Whichever one we go for, it’s deeply troubling.
Notes from the U.K. 
Thanks. I also have friends in Minnesota. You did not call out what this is: Fascism. My grandfather Giles Wetherill fought in a war against Fascism. 80 million people died because of Fascism. Now many people are supporting Fascism that have ignored this. For the past 25 years I have lived in Portugal. Final presidential elections are on February 8 narrowed down to two candidates; Seguro who is left center and the far right Fascist candidate Andre Ventura the leader of the Chega party. The other day I passed by a demonstration supporting Ventura while driving my car. I rolled down the window and yelled “Ventura e a Fascist!” His supporters had a puzzled look on their faces like it was the first time they heard this statement, like they did not understand he is, or like they did not know what fascism is! Ventura will lose! Most of the Portuguese voters are not that stupid and the rest of the parties that did not gain enough votes to continue all support Seguro! There is hope for the antifascist like me here, in the British Isles, in the US, and the rest of the world!
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It’s amazing how short people’s historical memory is, and terrifying how close these parties can come, even if they lose.
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I don’t think most people have much of an historical memory or even knowledge. Once most of those who experienced WWII or even local disasters are gone, it seems we are doomed to experience something awful again. This time the mentally deranged president is the current front man for those who have been trying to make most of us into just capitalist assets like other equipment that costs as little as possible at the same time we are also just consumers whose duty is to buy, buy, buy. Bush 2 said it out loud. Overlay racism and the fear white nationalists have of being outnumbered and losing control and we have this violent mess. I fear for my biracial grandchildren and their nonwhite mothers, all born and raised here. Think of the fear and anxiety of these families in Minnesota. It is happening here in my California county too. I drove by ICE detaining someone recently before Minneapolis blew up. I didn’t know what to do. I’m 81. I protest with others. My son was out walking early a few months ago and saw ICE chase and capture a young man. He challenged them but saw they would get physical with him out there alone at 6 am. These things haunt us. Thanks for your description here. Hoping the midterms will make a difference. Read Jeff Sharlet’s The Family for the 100 year lead ip to now.
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A friend’s son–a bit of a tough guy–got into a face-off with ICE agents hassling a woman who was selling fruit. A crowd gathered and was filming and he was able to back them down by asking if they were going to hit him in the presence of all those witnesses. I’m amazed by the power that what the Quakers call bearing witness has had in these confrontations. In this one, the woman got away. I’m guessing my friend’s son distracted them enough. I’d also guess that if it had been 6 a.m. with no one around, they’d beaten him silly and detained him. The best thing to do, I think, is have the phone ready and be prepared to bear witness. But I’m saying that from the safety of a couch in Cornwall. It’s terrifying, and yes, it would haunt me too.
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Thanks for the Quaker mention since my Wetherill family are all Quakers and defied their religion to defend Philadelphia against the British and contribute materials for the uniforms of Washingtons army regiment. The Quaker religion preaches non violence and peaceful resolution to disagreements. After the Revolution my family and Betsy Ross were forgiven and accepted back into the religion and merged with Free Quakers that the rebellious Quakers formed after their expulsion. What they did was considered self defense and not a violation of the commandment “Ñao Shall Kill”. Now it has changed to “Nao Shall Murder”. Which makes self defense not a violation.
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You know about the Quaker history with violence during the English Civil Wars? This was before they committed to nonviolence and they fought. It’s a bit of history that surprised me.
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I am not a Quaker historian. The Wetherill’s left Yorkshire after Cromwell fell and the Monarchy returned and the Quakers were accused of being allied with the religious cult that wanted to assassinate the King because they believed that Jesus was going to return and become King of England. Many of the Quakers were jailed but the Wetherill’s left Yorkshire to the Pennsylvania colony founded by William Penn who was a Quaker. Other Wetherills fled to Ireland and then during the potato famine immigrated with the help of their cousin Samuel Wetherill and his son. That lineage was the Wetherills that went west and discovered Mesa Verde.
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Getting out was an understandable choice. They were a brave and persistent bunch. If you ever get interested in the history, though, the early years are both surprising and fascinating.
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My heart bleeds for your native country, Ellen. We have Americans as friends, we’ve visited and enjoyed and felt welcome but I’ve long wondered about some of the ideas that seem to pervade the society. The gun laws, the health care system, even the electoral system which costs so much money for a candidate to campaign. I’m not condemning these ideas because they’re different from ours, I know enough to see there are reasons behind much of it even if I can’t agree. What I worry about is the ease with which things have polarised, so that a country built almost entirely on immigration, ideas of freedom from persecution and a desire to make good has turned into something that I barely recognise.
Every day, there seems to be another occasion to worry, with lies and hypocrisy becoming normalised, with the threats to citizens, allies and enemies all eliding together, so that no-one can take a breath, no-one can relax or trust. I desperately hope that something gives, that people remember their own humanity and recognise that of others.
I can’t help thinking that the system has given a rich, entitled, old man a gift, a whole country to play with and enough followers (and opportunists) to keep him in power. My hope is, that it couldn’t happen here, that our constitution and general attitude is sufficiently different to prevent it but still, at the back of my mind, is a worm of doubt.
May your friends be safe and decency prevail, soon, for all our sakes,
Love
Jeannie
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Thanks, Jeannie. It’s amazing–not to mention depressing–how easy it is to polarize a country, to bring out what’s worst in people. All you need is a slick surface, no morals, and a bit of help from the media to get yourself heard. The US, though, has been polarized for a long time. I can look back to the 60s and 70s and see a kind of dress rehearsal, but on a much smaller scale. What’s changed– Well, a lot of things have changed but one of the things is that the people in power used to play by the rules–the laws; the constitution. It didn’t make for an even playing field but in hindsight I do see that it set some limits. Now all that’s out the window.
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Thanks for the post Ellen – what a contrast between the best and the worst of humanity. How anyone can support the current regime is totally beyond me.
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If I understood it– Yeah. It’s beyond me too.
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After reading recently that a YouGov poll wanted more done about immigration in the UK and more people voting for Reform, real life has been depressing me. The Minnesota occupation is terrible but it is heartening to read about the stories of so many people out there witnessing and helping those in need. I hope this tide will turn soon.
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The appeal of Reform is depressing, and a tribute to the bankruptcy of Labour and the Conservatives. The Lib Dems seem to be too bankrupt for their bankruptcy to be worth mentioning. I read that the Conservatives who aren’t talking about defaulting to Reform are talking about becoming Lib Dems. But immigration, yeah. Politicians start out saying they’re going to deport the worst of the worst (and wildly exaggerating the numbers), then end up snatching 5-year-olds on their way home from school. If this doesn’t give people in other countries pause I don’t know what it’s going to take.
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Ellen,
Here’s a song by Bruce Springsteen in case you missed it. Brought serious tears to my eyes.
Jan
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Thanks, Jan. It looks like I’ll do a mid-week follow-up post and I expect I’ll include this. I’ve had the link for a day or two but I still haven’t listened to it. I really do need to.
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I wouldn’t have picked it as the most likely place to face down an occupation by heavily armed federal agents and do it with resilience, with grief, with compassion, and with flashes of humor. – Seems about right to me. I think the overwhelming polite are the people who can stand up in times like this.
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Heroism, it seems, is about having the need thrust upon you, not just about rising to the occasion. Minnesota has had the need dumped on it in industrial quantities. And it’s risen to the occasion.
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Thank you for this excellent post. First person stories are always powerful, and at this moment Americans need to see the Minneapolis story told in all parts of the globe.
So happy to see Springsteen’s Streets of Minneapolis #1 on iTunes in UK.
Spread the word. America needs redemption from the authoritarian grasp of a sick, twisted, evil leader – and those followers who fail to see the darkness.
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It does, it does. I just hope it can find a way back.
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I have been following all this and it beggars belief. Who would have thought…
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I know, I know. I’ve never been starry eyed about American politics, but this I never imagined.
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Same here…
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What’s happening in Minn. and the blue states (where ICE is unleashed) is heartbreaking. As a Latina living through this, I can’t put into words how angry I am, but I channel it into doing what I can for the communities impacted. Kids are traumatized by what they see happening in their schools and on soccer fields. Being a citizen doesn’t protect brown-skinned people (as I explained to my kids). Over 170 U.S. citizens have been detained by ICE (ProPublica). Today, Don Lemon and four other journalists were arrested for reporting at a church on Jan 18 in St. Paul, although a magistrate refused to charge Lemon. It’s lawlessness here, but I predict the resilience of the people will overcome this fascism. And thank you for helping a family have one less worry.
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I hope you’re right. I so hope you’re right.
What I was able to do was so small but, absurdly, I feel so good about it. I hear more and more about people delivering groceries to families who haven’t been able to go out, and delivering kids to school. We’re not at the point of hiding people in attics yet, but truly these are terrible times.
I hope you’re right.
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Every day is a new heartbreak. In my town, three toddlers were left in the home when their parents were snatched. A good neighbor took them in. As a Latina living through this, I try to channel my anger into action by doing what I can for the communities affected: protesting, donating, sharing resources, etc. Today, Don Lemon and four other journalists were arrested by ICE for a protest they covered at a St. Paul church on Jan. 18, even though a magistrate rejected the prosecutor’s claim. It’s lawlessness unleashed, but I know the majority of the people do not agree with this administration and will fight until the day they are all booted out of office.
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I know people are capable of doing brutal things, especially when they’re paid and told it’s all for the greater good, but what on earth do you tell yourself at 3 a.m. after you’ve left three (presumably screaming) toddlers on their own and dragged off their parents?
Thank you for doing what you can. It matters, not just in helping however many families get through these times but it helps keep us all human. Strength to your sword arm.
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Thanks for this, Ellen — it’s also a form of bearing witness, and we need every bit of that right now. I’m in Saint Paul, not Mpls, and I’m keeping my head right down as I try to extricate myself from this hellhole of a country, but it’s still frightening. My neighbourhood is heavily Hispanic, and I’m a little surprised that ICE isn’t more present, but they’ve hit the big box stores a mile or two up the road, and they’ll be here soon enough.
The resistance in Mpls has been amazing, and there’s a lot happening here, too, sort of under the radar; I hope it’s sustainable once the press loses interest and the situation doesn’t feel like so much of an emergency; there’s no glamour in most of this work, but Minnesotans may have less need of that than people in other places who aren’t a generation or two from having to get up at five every day to milk the cows.
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Good point about hoping it’s sustainable once the news cameras move on. That’s one place I think social media can help. A lot of what happened in Portland seemed to be sustained by the visibility that came from people posting and circulating.
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The words of your friends’ children are an absolutely heart-crushing indictment of what is happening here in the US and how it feels. ICE is in my area too and I am glad to report that communities are likewise rising up to protest and to protect others. I think many of us have had our batteries recharged and feel oddly reinvigorated by seeing the example that everyday Minnesotans have provided of what resistance and community allyship can look like and must look like. Yes, there are the horrors of the shootings and the abductions and the dystopian visual of roads full of abandoned vehicles whose owners have been disappeared but we take encouragement from the imagery of ordinary people showing up every day and deploying their own privilege in the hope that they can assist community members who are being targeted. There is nary a hope to cling on to in the US these days so we have to grab at those glimmers when we see them.
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It’s those glimmers of hope that keep us going. I didn’t know ICE had moved into Pennsylvania but I’m glad people are stepping up to protect their neighbors. I send my deepest respect.
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I am too old and lame to march in protest, so I have been watching aghast, You have summed things up very well for the European audience. Thank you.
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Years ago, when there was a huge demonstration against I forget which US invasion of which country, an older cousin was too old to march, but he took the subway into Manhattan and stood in a doorway seeing the marchers off. We do what we can–write letters, deliver food, talk to friends and neighbors. It all matters.
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I’ve been aware of this on the news, but the personalisation in your post, and the link to the Springsteen song, make it so much more real. I’ve read a lot about WW2 and there are so many parallels it’s really scary.
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The parallels–mixed metaphor alert–are bouncing around in my head too. I grew up in the shadow of World War II and somehow assumed that it would repeat but never quite like this.
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Although my Mum remembers WWII, she doesn’t talk about it very much and it hadn’t ever really occurred to me that it might repeat. We live in frightening times
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We do indeed. I don’t expect an exact repeat. Someone said history doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme. The rhymes are highly uncomfortable.
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Minneapolis has set a great example of how to respond to ICE/Border Patrol. Protesting is useful, but actually supporting those targeted is so much more. And bearing witness to what is actually happening. The government is insisting that there is some leftist group organizing and funding what’s happening. They don’t understand how grass-roots resistance actually works.
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I’ve been around a long time and I’ve never seen a movement rise so spectacularly from the grass roots. I’m sure someone in an office is DC is making plans to catch the Lord High Antifa because surely this wouldn’t happen without one.
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I wonder if one day one of them will actually look up what antifa means.
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I’d be surprised. The next question is, do they have any objection to being characterized as fascists?
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So powerful. When I was talking to people mainly in Virginia /DC last year things were starting to get frightening, and it’s intensified since then.
From a purely selfish, Anglocentric pov I can see Britain getting more hostile over the last couple of years and I fear we’re just 1 election cycle away from this level of crazy in Britain.
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I wish I could argue that that’s impossible but I can’t. I do wonder, though, as Trump becomes more and more of a public embarrassment, what that’s going to do to Europe and Britain’s rightwing worshippers. It could get interesting.
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It’s been surreal and horrifying to live in Minnesota. My school district has set up online learning for families who are to afraid to send their kids to school. Even kids who still come have spotty attendance records, and some of them tell me – when I ask why they were gone on such-and-such day – will tell me in their kid words that it’s fear of ICE. It’s like the gestapo are roaming our streets. Thanks for taking a break from your regularly scheduled programming to write this. P.S. On a lighter note, I had the eyelash freeze a few days ago. The wind made my eyes water, and the temp froze them together, just as you described. Such a weird feeling.
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It’s enough that adults are living through this, but the kids must really be struggling. What district are you in? And yes, very much like the Gestapo, seizing people, demanding to see identification.
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Trump and his “mates” are just evil. I cried when I read about those kids asking how they could look more white. Some of those humourous videos of sledges/bowling balls are ai- generated and should be labelled as such. It’s no accident that ICE are behaving so badly in Tim Walz’s home state, yet its having an impact elsewhere as I was pleased to note that Texas returned a Democrat in a recent election (I dont pretend to understand what the election was for exactly). He will be cancelling all elections next. He man
should be in prison.
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edit – delete *man* typo
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I’ve seen any number of faked videos. This one was real–I recognize the place and I’m pretty sure I know the group that decorated the sleds: they look like the work of Heart of the Beast Theater. It’s the kind of thing they’d do.
The election in Texas was a special election to fill a vacancy in the state legislature. The district is conservative–small C–and heavily Mexican-American. Trump (no, I can’t explain it) polled well among latino voters in the last election, including Mexican-Americans, who are a large segment of the latino population. His attacks on immigrants and latinos, though, has lost him that support. His party had just reconfigured the election districts for the November elections to favor itself, and that may backfire massively, since they were counting on the support of latino voters.
I’d love to see Trump in prison and if he were younger and his health better I’d consider that a likely eventual outcome. My bet, though, is that he’ll die first. Cloud. Silver lining.
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Fingers crossed, eh?
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Indeed.
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… I try not to scream … First something on perspective : The woman GOOD, and the man PRETTI, were executed, and they were white. I read somewhere at an other blogger’s site, that last year in ICE custody 37 people died – what equals three a month – , and in this year already seven – double the amount, progress is made. These more than fourty (known) people were non-white. Just coloured un-desirables, labeled as gangsters and what-not-criminals, so seemingly not really news-worthy.
I may be wrong, but it’s how it looks from here.
ICE is a militia, this is not “policing”, it is not “military”, it is just a fucking militia under federal command – in the end the PresOfOurHearts. The back bone of that whole organisation is not that mercenary type in a black coat, it is not that fat apparatchik they put on the helm, the boner of this troupe is hard ideology – it points towards Miller, and Bannon, perhaps Vought – the ideologues of the new Trumpistan that will happily replace that woke lefti shit real Trumpistani men have to endure any given day.
I think Minnisota / Mineapolis is just a play ground, to train the guys, to develop & learn tactics. It is all about owning the public space, about intimidation, un-safety, about violence : in the open, menaced, always there below threshold.
It is nothing else but the SA, street fighters with a badge, but – because Trumpistan – with automated weapons. The aim is the whole damn nation – not only cleaned from those unwanted, the human dirt, but also shaken and un-safe to the core, no security / safety outside the party, the movement, the militia – you are either within, then you are a good Trumpistani, or you are out, then you are scum and get what you deserve.
The blue-print of a fascist society and state.
“American exceptionalism” – ? My arse, Europe had this since the first Worldwar, the duce took over 1922, Adolf was fucking late to the party. And you idiots trundle behind. Zum Kotzen.
There is a possibility that the POOH himself stops the worst. The POOH has the emotional intelligence of a stain of vomit, but he feels when things go bonk. He is interested in foreign politics for two reasons, they distract from his friend Jeffrey, and it makes him rich – never forget that he is only interested in his prick and his wallet, not in the common loosers. The indolent Wolkoff (or whatever his name), and the terrible sob & sil make sure that the fix is in, and that daddy POOH gets his cut.
So inner-Trumpistan politics came a bit out of focus, and the ideologues took over. The POOH understands that too many dead white loosers are no good – the question will be whether he (still) can control the ideologues. Their natural ally is the VicePres, a very disgusting specimen of spinelessness. When the old idiot kicks the bucket their time will be ripe.
Yes, there are midterm elections coming. But hey – we all know that they will be fake, right ?! There will be enough braindead to believe the old lies.
A good militia at hand will at least do no damage, to the right people at least, tehee …
And frankly – I can not believe that any fucking “Republican” – what a shame to soil the word res publica ! – that any of these cretins will oppose the hard-core-maga troupe when it comes to “steal” another unnecessary election. The ones who did speak out (remember the idea to put the POOH before a judge because of that love fest in January some years ago, BRUWAHHAAAH – sorry, so yesteryear, I know) – anyway, these nest foulers are already out, and if some retiring old timers blab about the beloved POOH, so be it, they go away by themselves. Exit of the cowards. The rest turned into Missy Lindsays. What follows are young thugs, who already grew up in the maga swamp.
Protests ? Yes. Good. A protest song by Springstein ? Yes. Fine.
Something else ? Something that works, perhaps ?
None of the ICE murderers will go to jail, they all will be unpunished, whether they shot a white person on the street, or killed a captive by neglect or blunt force. That is the message.
Sorry for the diatribe. It is absolutely useless.
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1. Yes Good and Pretti are known because they were white but also because they were shot in the open, where it was documented and made public. Which is a reminder that making things puslic does still matter.
2. Minnesota as a testing ground is a reminder of the parallel to the Spanish Civil War, where German weapons and tactics were tested.
3. Do the protests, the songs, the effort to make this public matter? Yes, they fuckin’ well do. They keep this from being Kristallnacht, by which time the public was too afraid to object. A few layers of support have peeled away from Trump. Not enough yet, but they may be crucial. See the recent special election in Texas, where a Democrat won. Will the elections in November be fair, or even happen? Not if Trump & Co can help it, but nothing’s fixed yet and I haven’t given up hope. Frankly, I don’t have a better tactic to offer. We do what we can.
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