From the moment that U.S. citizen Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed by an agent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Minneapolis, it was clear that a storm of pent-up emotion was about to be released, in defiance of the Department of Homeland Security’s cruel, gestapo-style “immigration enforcement” surge in both Minnesota and throughout the United States. The regime has lashed out in turn, increasingly directing its violence and intimidation toward U.S. citizens attempting to stand up for their loved ones and neighbors, whether that’s detaining people and allegedly offering to pay them for the names of immigrants or protest organizers, or simply applying brunt, physical violence, as in the case of 21-year-old California resident and citizen Kaden Rummler, who was permanently blinded by an immigration agent this week when he was shot in the face by a “less than lethal” munition. All the while, there has been a sense that something momentous and even more terrible is coming, with the authority of the highest office of the land behind it. And Thursday morning, President Donald Trump voiced what that might look like, threatening to immediately invoke the Insurrection Act in Minneapolis, which would allow him to deploy the military directly against Americans. Here’s his terse, typically lie-ridden statement:
The Insurrection Act of 1807, despite Trump’s assurances that “many presidents” have declared it, hasn’t actually been invoked in the United States in more than 33 years at this point. The last time just so happened to likewise be connected to another famous case of police brutality employed against an American citizen, Rodney King. When courts found the officers who engaged in a savage, senseless beating of King not guilty, Los Angeles erupted in protests and riots in anger over the decision, leading President George H.W. Bush to deploy American troops to disperse the riots. More than 60 Americans were killed over the course of almost a week of unrest and carnage. Trump has threatened on numerous occasions to invoke the act himself, in cities like Portland and Chicago, but hasn’t yet followed through. Senate Republicans are therefore playing their little “he doesn’t really mean it” game, with Majority Leader John Thune today saying in response: “I think he’s threatened that other places, other states too. So, I mean, we’ll see what happens there. Hopefully the local officials, working with not only the federal law enforcement, ICE and other agencies, but also the local law enforcement officials will be able to settle things down.”
“We’ll see what happens there,” sounds like a great plan, yes?
This feels like just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of what Trump may have planned for Minnesota and Minneapolis in particular. The Insurrection Act notably is not the same thing as martial law–it does not give the federal government the right to say, suspend civil liberties of citizens or replace the state’s own police or national guard forces. But with that said … is there a single person who genuinely believes Trump would not immediately suspend/ignore civil liberties of citizens in Minnesota after invoking the Insurrection Act? An entire national propaganda apparatus would immediately spring into effect to justify the decision. Winding, ineffectual lawsuits would eventually end up on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket, where the conservative justices would likely rubber stamp Trump’s right to deploy the military to whatever ends he desires. The question hangs in the air: Who is going to do anything to stop this, if the Trump admin simply decides to ignore the law as they almost always do?
Protester permanently blinded after DHS agent fires nonlethal round at close range
— Raw Story (@rawstory.com) Jan 13, 2026 at 10:30 PM
Because rest assured, the residents of Minneapolis are not about to simply disperse and allow ICE agents to go about their brutal business. Just yesterday, another man targeted by ICE in a traffic stop there was ultimately shot in the leg after a crowd came to his defense, causing the officer to fire what DHS termed “defensive shots.” We’re talking about daily situations where the residents of Minneapolis are just coming streaming out of their houses, grabbing random objects like “a snow shovel and a broom handle,” in this instance, to defend their neighbors from ICE aggression. What is going to happen when they’re met not by hastily recruited ICE agents slipping and falling in the snow, but genuinely trained members of the U.S. military? Here’s hoping that those soldiers remember the point made by Sen. Mark Kelly, which now has him embroiled in legal persecution by the Department of Defense, that they are obligated to disobey illegal orders directing them to turn their weapons on Americans. Meanwhile, what of Gov. Tim Walz’s prior insinuation that the state’s national guard could be mobilized to protect citizens? Walz can appear on primetime TV as he did yesterday, to insist that federal agents “end this occupation,” but the words “national guard” were never mentioned, and the whole thing feels entirely toothless. Will he just stand by as the military takes to the streets of Minneapolis?
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche calls what is happening in Minneapolis an “insurrection” and threatens to go after Governor Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey over their “terrorism.”
— John Q. Public (@publius24.bsky.social) Jan 14, 2026 at 10:58 PM
It bears repeating that what the citizens of Minnesota have mobilized against is essentially a brownshirt army of newly recruited and untrained ICE agents assembled by DHS to act as a personal wing of a quasi-military operation that answers only to Donald Trump, a textbook step in the establishment of a fascist dictatorship. Mere hours after the killing of Renee Nicole Good, DHS was already blasting recruiting messages out to social media accompanied by music that is literally only known to neo-nazis as a beloved anthem, promising a utopian world following the bloodshed of purging the country of the undesirable. This is a concerted effort by the likes of Kristi Noem (and perhaps architect Stephen Miller) to see exactly how close they can tiptoe to simply posting “heil Hitler” on main. It feels like we’re about a week away from the DHS Instagram thumbnail simply being an anthropomorphic swastika, shaking hands with an American flag.
And now, Donald Trump wants to take the situation to an even higher level of intensity with the threat of the Insurrection Act, which at the end of the day might actually be less about the deployment or presence of the U.S. military, and more important simply as rationale for applying even more violent tactics against Americans. Like any authoritarian, Trump seems to be hungry for brutal repression, hoping he can break the national spirit through violence and propaganda. Maybe he’ll start talking about wanting to suspend midterm elections again as well? As even more masked government thugs pour into the city, and opposition bristles in preparation for the clashes to come, how many will end up dead, and which of our lawmakers will dare come to their defense?
