This week, something changed in Minneapolis as the community confronted the administration’s enforcement agents. The masked individuals, who seemed eager to act and lacked compassion, were forced to retreat. The recent, blatant murders committed by ICE agents have clearly influenced Stephen Miller’s policy agenda, prompting the president to reconsider his association with Miller and Kristi Noem's controversial approach. While Miller may be the architect of these policies and Noem his supporter, the ultimate responsibility lies with Donald Trump. The roots of these policies can be traced back to Trump's birtherism attacks on Obama and were further solidified during his infamous descent down the escalators of Trump Tower.
The TACO epithet that has been attached to Trump’s backtracking began with tariffs, but has been amplified since his disastrous European excursion that ended with the Greenland fiasco in Davos. “Chickening out” is the bully’s gut reaction to pushback— when a targeted victim refuses the bait. When Europe balked, Canada’s Prime Minister delivered a blistering rebuke to Trump’s attacks on America’s closest allies. Invoking Vaclav Havel’s essay “The Power of the Powerless,” Carney took on Trump:
“Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships,” Carney warned, “Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty. They’ll buy insurance, increase options in order to rebuild sovereignty — sovereignty that was once grounded in rules, but will be increasingly anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.”
— NYTimes, “Trump Just Proved Carney’s Point,” by Ezra Klein
Trump’s flaccid response was to disinvite the Canadian to his “Board of Peace” vanity project— Trump’s petulant response to not being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The reversal this week in Minnesota seemed different than the others, however, and the deaths of the two Minneapolis protestors may prove to be a decisive moment. The videos of the two executions taken by bystanders were explicit in debunking the administration’s liars, who vainly tried to cast the victims as terrorists when it was clear to all that the terror was actually inflicted by ICE:
“Over the past year, the Trump administration has granted ICE agents virtual impunity to visit terror and violence on immigrant communities across our country. Today, in a horrifying tragedy, ICE agents shot and killed an unarmed woman. No matter how many lies this administration is already telling us about this shooting, our eyes can see this fundamental truth clearly.
— National Immigration Law Center
Neither shame nor regret sparked the administration’s decision to “descalate” and withdraw the Trump goons from Minneapolis. It was fear that the administration had overplayed its hand. Meanwhile, there is little doubt that the troops will move on and take root in another American city, raiding schools, churches, and job sites, looking for immigrants to fill Miller’s need for a body count. The goal now is not to remove the most dangerous interlopers, most of whom are easily found in Federal prisons and not in Home Depot parking lots, but to terrorize communities into compliance. Miller wants to cause suffering and pain. As the tip of Trump’s spear, Miller’s stewardship of the Trump plan to rid the nation of immigrants has focused on the poor and defenseless— more than 3800 children under the age of 18 have been detained by ICE. Cruelty in his name has given Trump pleasure.
Minneapolis has changed the narrative. The murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good have changed everything. As long as ICE was brutalizing Somali immigrants and the brown folks whom Miller despises, Trump’s numbers remained solid among his base and the spineless Republicans in the House and Senate. The videos splattered all over television news and the internet have complicated the administration’s message. ICE was beating and killing white folks. Agents were shoving unarmed women to the ground and indiscriminately harassing women and children who were not among the worst of the worst. Trump’s approval rates have taken a hit.
According to The Economist, as of February 10, the president’s disapproval rate stands at 56% and rising. His approval rates on issues like the economy and inflation are dropping precipitously compared to post-inauguration numbers. Even Trump’s signature issue of immigration has seen his approval ratings decline, dropping from +10 in January to -10 by February. He is losing support among non-MAGA Republicans and independent voters. This includes demographics that had shifted toward Trump from the Democrats in 2024, such as non-white, younger voters, and some women:
The major demographic shifts of the last election have snapped back. In today’s poll, Mr. Trump’s approval rating by demographic group looks almost exactly as it did in Times/Siena polling in the run-up to his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. If anything, young and nonwhite voters are even likelier to disapprove of Mr. Trump than they were then, while he retains most of his support among older and white voters.
— NYTimes, “The Voters Who Have Taken a U-Turn on Trump,” by Nate Cohn
There is even a decline in support among white evangelicals and the religious right:
Just over half (58%) of white evangelicals said they support most or all of Trump’s policies, down from 66% when he took office in 2025. Similar declines were seen among white Catholics, who dropped from 51% last year to 46% this year, and white Protestants who are not evangelical, who dropped from 46% to 33%, according to the report, released Monday (Feb. 9).
— Religious News Service, “White Christian support for Trump falls but still tops that of Americans overall,” by Bob Smietana
The unrest among voters has been exacerbated by the actions of ICE agents in general, but even more so by the inhumane treatment of immigrants and American citizens in Minneapolis. It is becoming clear to those who rallied to Trump based on their bigotry that they were used. Being white, a U.S. citizen, an unarmed woman, or a legal protester might not protect you from Trump’s wrath. This administration protects its own— the wealthy, the powerful, and their friends. For poor whites huddled in rural red states and white evangelicals, whose religiosity is tarnished by bigotry and self-righteousness, the economy still sucks. The Epstein Files and all the issues you thought you shared in the MAGA ether exist only as political honey traps to gain power for themselves. It is a ploy taken from the fascist playbook of lies and distortions meant to draw useful dupes who, in the end, will become its next victims.
Czech playwright and statesman Vaclav Havel epitomizes the role of a dissident in fighting autocracies. His Velvet Revolution helped lead to the fall of communism and a rebirth of democracy across the former Soviet bloc nations in Europe. He describes life under totalitarian rule that is chilling in its likeness to an America under a triumphant Trump:
“The post-totalitarian system touches people at every step, but it does so with its ideological gloves on. This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the working class is enslaved in the name of the working class; the complete degradation of the individual is presented as his or her ultimate liberation; depriving people of information is called making it available; the use of power to manipulate is called the public control of power, and the arbitrary abuse of power is called observing the legal code; the repression of culture is called its development; the expansion of imperial influence is presented as support for the oppressed; the lack of free expression becomes the highest form of freedom; farcical elections become the highest form of democracy; banning independent thought becomes the most scientific of world views; military occupation becomes fraternal assistance. Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.”
― Václav Havel, The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern Europe
Those brave dissidents who stood up to the street thugs in Minneapolis are, in many ways, an example for the rest of us. They have chosen to fight rather than to submit. They have shown the rest of us the inherent weakness of this regime— it destroys the very community it needs to support it. It pretends to pretend that community, with all its diversity, doesn’t matter.
