The time is now
After another fatal ICE shooting in Minnesota, blue states – like the rest of the world – must recognize that the only way to fight American tyranny is to act together
A poster of Banksy’s “The Flower Thrower” hangs on an office wall in Kyiv. (c. Martin Kuz)
Mark Carney detonated a verbal grenade in the calmest of tones earlier this week. Speaking to leaders and officials from around the world who gathered for an economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, the Canadian prime minister called on smaller nations to join forces in the struggle against American tyranny.
Without naming the country or its unstable leader, Carney depicted the United States under President Donald Trump as an apex predator seeking to feast on its former Western allies. He implied the obvious — Trump intends to destroy the U.S.-led international order that has prevailed since World War II — and urged his fellow leaders to quit appeasing the Tang-colored man-child.
“There is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety,” Carney said. “Well, it won’t.”
Warning that “the middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu,” he called for a new global strategy that he framed as a matter of survival. “In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice — compete with each other for favor or combine to create a third path with impact. We shouldn’t allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity and rules will remain strong if we choose to wield them together.”
His words came to mind this morning when, for the second time in two weeks, ICE agents fatally shot a protester in my hometown of Minneapolis. Alex Pretti, 37, a VA nurse and registered gun owner, had taken to the streets after the killing of Renee Good, a mother of three, earlier this month. Video analysis shows that a half-dozen federal goons jumped him and, after pinning him down and removing a firearm from his body, shot him at least 10 times.
In the aftermath of ICE murdering another U.S. citizen in broad daylight, Carney’s recent appeal to world leaders should double as a rallying cry for elected officials in America’s blue cities and states. Democratic mayors, governors and members of Congress who represent the power of legitimacy, integrity and rules must choose to fight together on behalf of the country as the Trump regime widens its armed occupation.
The ICE campaign of terror — carried out by militarized hordes of untrained, trigger-happy Proud Boys who arrest and kill under protection of “federal immunity” — exploits the country’s size to induce a collective sense of helplessness. The images and reports of state violence committed in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland and elsewhere during the past year have provoked a unifying fury among untold millions of Americans who oppose fascism.
But the distance between each flashpoint fragments and dulls that rage. Filtered through TV and social media, the attacks on U.S. citizens and legal immigrants — ranging from preschoolers to people with disabilities — appear to happen far away, somewhere almost unreachable. The reaction stymies a larger groundswell of resistance, isolating residents in each besieged city and leaving them to confront federal forces on their own.
A lack of vocal, visible Democratic leadership nationwide has defined Trump’s war on America as much as ICE’s brazen executions of protesters and the federal propaganda machine that distorts and justifies each killing. Democrats possess the power to harness and direct the righteous anger coursing through the country. They can begin by taking Carney’s advice to discard the tendency “to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety.”
A refusal by Democrats in Congress to fund ICE would represent a step in the right direction. At the state and local levels, Democratic governors and mayors should vow to support Minnesota, including sending National Guard troops to Minneapolis and encouraging people from across the country to join the resistance in the Twin Cities. Other states could replicate the strike staged Friday by businesses throughout Minnesota to protest the ICE crackdown. Clergy in other cities could follow the lead of their Minneapolis counterparts and demonstrate at airports to condemn deportation flights.
Such actions would help dismantle the silos and feelings of impotence that so far have prevented people in one part of the country from rising up to show solidarity — rather than simply voicing it — with those in another. To borrow again from Carney, Americans need to summon “an urgency to take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish to be.”
A couple of days after the Canadian leader spoke at Davos, Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a similar message with a sharper edge. In a scolding tone, the Ukrainian president bemoaned that “too often European nations turn against each other — leaders, parties, movements and communities — instead of standing together to stop Russia. …Instead of taking the lead in defending freedom worldwide — especially when America’s focus shifts elsewhere — Europe looks lost, trying to convince the U.S. president to change. But he will not change.”
Residents in Minneapolis are standing together to stop a despot who rivals Russia’s. They know Trump will not change. We must link arms with them if we want to defend freedom in America. The time is now.
Etc.
— Those looking to lend a hand from afar will find a range of organizations worthy of support on the Stand With Minnesota site. Click on the plus signs along the page’s right edge to expand the list under each category.
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America cannot correct its path by pretending to agree with its current administration in hopes of avoiding retribution. No one man is powerful enough to avoid the retribution of 100 million voters (or more) willing to tell him NO. Appeasement will only get us more shootings, lies, flagrant disegard for the law, aggression against our allies, and isolation in this emerging dictatorship we once called a democracy.
Truth to power