The Brown Shirts of Minnesota
Hordes of leftist activists are roaming Minneapolis and some other areas of Minnesota, attacking anyone suspected of having something to do with ICE, and the police have apparently have been told to stand down. No doubt the hordes believe themselves to be virtuous, so what they’re doing is A-OK.
Minneapolis police appeared to be missing in action as anti-ICE agitators carried out a series of alarming incidents, some violent, throughout the city on Saturday. In some instances, the mere perception that an individual might be pro-ICE was enough to draw the demonstrators’ ire.
One media outlet went so far as to claim that the MPSD had “completely turned over the city to leftists, as they are now forming groups to hunt down anyone who appears to support ICE, with this man [in the clip below] being saved by the feds just moments before being beaten for simply wearing camo.”
Actually, the beating stopped when one of the agitators shouted to his comrades, “He’s one of us.” …
In an extraordinary development on Saturday, anti-ICE agitators mistakenly identified a group of five tech engineers who were having lunch at a Minneapolis deli as undercover ICE agents and accosted them. …
In another case, a man wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the U.S. flag and the word “freedom” was forced to take it off if he didn’t want to get hurt.
More examples can be found at the link.
And then of course there was the church attack, featuring none other than Don Lemon:
Disgraced former CNN host Don Lemon colluded with anti-ICE activists now under investigation for storming a Minnesota church on Sunday—a “clandestine” operation that Lemon helped keep secret ahead of time before publicizing it once it began. …
… [T]he operation targeted Cities Church because an associate pastor is allegedly the acting director of Saint Paul’s ICE office. …
At the church, [the activists, including Lemon] disrupted the service with shouts of “ICE Out!” and other slogans. The pastor targeted in the operation was not present at the church on Sunday. …
Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon said Sunday that she is investigating the incident for a potential violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which makes it illegal to block access to houses of worship. Dhillon also took a swipe at Lemon, writing that his “pseudo journalism” is not protected by the First Amendment.
NOTE: I know you almost certainly know who and what the Brown Shirts were, but a little summary can’t hurt.]
Eventually someone will fight back, be armed or just not cooperate with their actions and it will be a severe injury if not someone dead. They will keep ramping it up until somewhere they get stopped.
It won’t be in a Marxist city.
I have been pondering the situation there, and this latest outrage crystallized my thinking.
Instead of deploying troops with all that entails, I would advise Trump to declare the Minneapolis-St Paul area an unsafe work environment for Federal employees, and direct that all Federal employees shelter at home until he is assured, publicly by Walz, Ellison, and Frey, that they will be safe. That should include Air Traffic Controllers for starters, and, of course, the staffs of all Federal Judges, and the staffs of any Federal welfare agencies.
It’s a crying shame what has happened to the Twin Cities, but it was quite inevitable. It happened because of the overwhelming liberal population that encompasses every aspect of life there.
As the Dems became more radical, the DFL continued on that path e.g. trans, open borders.
Lutheran Family Services was certainly behind importing all those Somalis. We can see how that has turned out.
The school system is a big part of the failure; K-12 and college. My oldest daughter is an alum of Carleton College and it is very liberal and to the point that no other viewpoint is tolerated. Maybe the kids on the football and basketball teams are not super libs.
The Twin Cities are an abject lesson in how liberalism has failed. This is what happens when group think rules the day.
In a way, I want to see the Twin Cities burn again; just like with the St. George Floyd riots.
Ah yes; the Red Guards are alive and well in MN and most assuredly will be in your nearest city very soon.
When you see stuff like this in MN and elsewhere , it encourages more and more regular folks to buy a gun and obtain a concealed carry permit.
I don’t own a gun, never have, don’t have plans to get one, but my hesitancy/resistance to owning a gun certainly has diminished over time.
Skip,
I have mixed views. For certain, the ones behind this mess want more violence, and if it’s a conservative or neutral fighting back and hurting or killing one of these animals, so much the better in their view.
If it’s one of them killing an ICE agent then perfect for Trump to invoke the IA and send in the troops. Again the left will declare the government are Nazis and declare a true CW. Heads they win, tails we lose….it’s a bad situation.
Oldflyer,
That is a clever idea.
physicsguy:
The left certainly hopes it is a
But the left very often go a few steps too far. I think they did last Sunday, at the church, and the left doesn’t control the media any longer.
A pessimist would say that the left looses and gets what they feared not what we have. Civil wars are like that.
The one problem with pulling out ATC is that it should be just approach and tower at KMSP. If one shuts down the regional MSP center that would disrupt a large portion of the air traffic for the country.
Trump is waiting for the DEMAND of law and order.
I’m still waiting for the funding sources for these professional troublemakers to be unmasked.
Mpls. mayhem. A few hours ago Tim Pool (TimCast) compiles current video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkif7QkYi70
At 12m he calls for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act — if he doesn’t, this chaos and violence will spread beyond Minnesota because Leftists will see there are no consequences to their cosplay gone threatening and overtly violent.
He starts this video with the NYTimes piece entitled “In Minneapolis, I glimpsed a Civil War.”
Among this and recent video (eg, Nick Shirley’s 2nd video drop last week) we see my old home in the Cedar-Riverside area of Minneapolis. It been turned into an unrecognizable “Little Mogadishu” under Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Congressional oversight.
I do consider myself a refugee from Omar’s Hell Hole District.
Let the CommieKKKrat rebel zones of “Sanctuary” AnarchoTyranny be liberated and occupied. Let the “(Commie)Democrats” become a slur of Evil like “Nazi.”
Someone is already dead, and the left has tried to capitalize on it, but I don’t think that has been the success they wanted.
Om:
Surely you know how to spell “loses” correctly?
Why is this particular error so common, especially among intelligent people who spell everything else correctly?
Marisa (6:10 pm), I see an *incredible* number of spelling mishaps on line. I conjecture that a lot of it may be due to autocorrect autocorrecting poorly.
(Also, a lot of it may be due to decades of faulty schooling now coming home to roost. Plus, a lot of it may be due to many people commenting on line who in the past have never had much occasion to write, and consequently, many more people than we ever imagined turn out to be imperfect spellers. Finally (I still conjecture), for many people, attention to spelling is increasingly considered to be not worth the bother — after all, you and I and everyone knows what word was intended, so what the heck.)
Note: these all are generalities, none of which are intended to apply to om.
About the anti-ICE mob confrontation at the church, what crimes may be involved?
Law Professor Steven Turley authoritatively explains in this short clip from FNC mid-day today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmiK5n6NXCE
TJ-
That would be Jonathan, not Steven.
Another problem in the Twin Cities is the media; with the Star-Tribune leading the list.
Liberal spin on everything and they never cover any stories that run against the liberal narrative.
@CynicalPublius, at X:
“When people think of 20th Century fascism, they usually think of fully-installed, oppressive central governments.
But when you trace the rise of 20th Century fascism, it usually starts with a criminal political party that does everything it can to undermine the legitimate authority of a prior democratically elected government. Fascist governments come to power through denial of legitimate laws, violent protests, media propaganda, the creation of martyrs out of criminals and rigged elections.
In the USA of 2026, can you name a political party that seeks to gain power through denial of legitimate laws, violent protests, media propaganda, the creation of martyrs out of criminals and rigged elections?
I can. How about you?”
I am going to do a post about Thuggery as a political tactic and a way station toward totalitarianism.
What were the actual polling results for greater Minneapolis in 2024? That’s the starting point for fed-up voters. How many of the party faithful are growing wearing of chapping their lips on their whistles? How many of the party faithful are growing weary of fighting neighborhood traffic congestion problems, just trying to get to work / grocery / school? Trump is playing the waiting game. You wanted it? You got it ! We’re here, if you should want to ask for help.
The interesting thing to me is how thuggish many “good leftists” are.
I remember Zombie’s post on the Berkely Milo riot. As I recall antifa showed up late, probably so more could see them arrive. They came into the riot in a very organized manner and then used violence to shut down Milo’s speech. Afterwards the smug, happy faces of the “good leftists” were telling.
There is no counter balance to the progs. The PD is on board, the politicians make money, the institutions work for the progs. This is make or break time. If the government does not crush this it will give progs in other cities the go ahead for violence against anyone they chose. The civil war will get real then. Local Leo’s and federals shooting at each other. By extension all law enforcement may then be degraded in the publics mind to being a non entity. As not being law enforcement, but, soldiers in a war that support prog agendas or not.
https://youtu.be/UAihDFKB-Sw?si=3ENR8aUeqjOFlUzA
A very good source of news. S2 Underground
Marisa,
An aside from current topic: my spelling errors go through the roof when using my phone and the the stupid autocorrect. I will never master the millenial/Gen z two thumb typing on these phone keyboards
Trump is waiting for the DEMAND of law and order.
Sennacherib:
Could be. That’s an interesting thought.
Much of the left’s current strategy is to provoke an overreaction by the Trump administration.
The shooting of Renée Good was good, but not good enough.
Waiting for Americans to DEMAND action is not bad counter-strategy.
Technically, you should probably analogize the protestors/rioters to the Rotfrontkämpferbund in Weimar Germany who were the Communist Party’s bullyboys, but the number of people knowing that name in miniscule.
Marissa:
It might have been a smart phone autocorrect helper.
Shirley it hasn’t ruined your day. Don’t call me Shir…. Don’t lose sleep over it, that would be a loss, for a lost cause.
You’re welcome.
“If it’s one of them killing an ICE agent then perfect for Trump to invoke the IA and send in the troops. Again the left will declare the government are Nazis and declare a true CW.” physicsguy
Declaring a true CW would be a fatal mistake for them. It would be perfect example of “Those the gods would destroy, they first make mad”. Though there’s plenty of evidence that madness has already taken over the woke cultural Marxists. So a CW, if not now may still be unavoidable.
“Democrat activists Jennifer Welch and Jim Acosta say mass prosecutions of Trump and Republicans would be necessary for national reconciliation when Democrats regain power, arguing that expanding the SCOTUS would be required to jail Trump.” We can safely bet that plenty of democrats share that hope.
Pray that Trump lasts till 2028 and that Vance is elected President for if not, the likelihood that the American experiment in Representative Governance will once again undergo another trial by fire will become a certainty.
Physicsguy – have you tried the swiping/gliding method of phone keyboard typing?
M J R et alia,
Your list probably does encapsulate a lot of the causes of online spelling mistakes, but I’ll add another. I’m commenting on a weblog and I believe I’m among friends.
To paraphrase om, I’m not losing sleep over any typos I may make here, and I hope no one else does either.
I have written a great deal in my life for grades and money (as I’m sure everyone here has) and was always a top performer in school spelling bees*. I’ll also wager I’m one of the fastest typists commenting on this sight. So, although I often make spelling errors here, I don’t fit into any of your categories. Commenting at neo’s place isn’t a job or a college course. None of us is paid to comment here, and, as far as I know, neo isn’t grading us.
I like to come here for neo’s insights on whatever interests her fertile mind and I enjoy reading the takes you and others have on those topics. I make spelling errors here because I’m typing quickly to get in some leisure reading and conversation among friends in the limited free time I have, and I’m not taking time to read and re-read my words for fear of being judged**.
*And, although I was a stellar speller in school, some of the most gifted students I knew were not. My current boss is brilliant and his spelling is atrocious. Spelling is not directly correlated with intelligence. Most intelligent people can learn to do it, but it does not come naturally to all intelligent people. The smartest kid in my grammar school was not a good natural speller. He worked hard at it, and got to be OK, but he was never great at it. And he went on to make incredible developments in the field of electrical engineering and even has a research lab named after him. I was fortunate in that I didn’t really have to learn. Once I had learned to read I could pretty much visually call up any word I had read in the past and see it in my mind and call out the letters to spell it. As can others. As has been discussed here in the past. People have different, natural spelling abilities.
**But of course I re-read and edited this comment.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was notorious for being a poor speller. He even once addressed a friend in writing as “Earnest Hemingway.” 🙂
https://www.dyslexia.com/famous/f-scott-fitzgerald/
Heh, Rufus, gotta love the sight of this site.
Round-up of Red State stories on the Church invasion.
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2026/01/19/don-lemon-digs-the-hole-deeper-with-new-comments-about-mn-church-incident-n2198305
That was pretty unintelligible, but I got the picture.
Pretty sure whatever type of Christianity he practices isn’t going to include much of Christ’s actual doctrines.
https://redstate.com/terichristoph/2026/01/19/keith-ellison-provides-top-cover-for-anti-ice-radicals-who-ambushed-church-n2198311
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2026/01/19/anti-ice-protest-leader-who-invaded-minnesota-church-just-did-the-dumbest-thing-imaginable-n2198283
QED
@ Ns > “Physicsguy – have you tried the swiping/gliding method of phone keyboard typing?”
Please explain – never heard of this technique.
I turned off auto-correct on every device that would let me.
It’s faster to type the correct word, even with revising typos, than to keep checking what it wants me to say, especially since sometimes I select the word I want and it changes it anyway, when I am no longer looking.
WordPress delenda est.
I am pretty sure that every computer screen in the White House now displays a count-down calendar to the November midterms.
Trump got Mexico to pay for the wall – and the Minnesota Democratic caucus is producing his campaign ads for free.
One theme of this blog is the pain of political change – and the widespread tendency to sacrifice integrity for social acceptance and fashionable radical chic.
There are still a lot of hive-mind middle-class Americans who (incredibly, I know) still believe mainstream media. Trump (and events) have moved many to a fence-sitting position. But to motivate these people to change their immediate vote (and their general opinions) – well, they need to be in pain in the runup to the midterms.
A lot has been done to flip the culture among younger people – it is now relatively hip to be conservative.
And the blue haired crazies of my own generation are lost… but that leaves a lot of people who never were politically aware.
Nothing like pain and fear of violent upheaval to focus the average stoopid voter’s mind.
In the era of short attention spans, to reach the clueless voter you must have the actual, physical reality of Leftie behavior immediately present, unmissable. That is the only way to cut through their narratives.
As in New Yawk, most of the pain is self-inflicted on a Leftie constituency. Screw ’em – maybe a handful will finally get it as they board up their windows/bleed/flee to Florida.
The rest of the country is looking and learning, but unimpacted. Dems in Washington DC and some Dem governors invited ICE in, cooperated, and are now making political hay out of the reduced crime.
Lotsa neighborly conversations in which the former MAGA nut is given new respect – if only because s/he called it right…. fear of pain, destruction of property, the realization that “the system” is not going to protect me… it focuses the mind.
It’s all good… Any action from the White House will be timed to maximize impact on the “herd of independent minds” as they prepare to vote.
Looks like to me that the actual fascists are ANTIFA. The left is a perpetual projection regime.
Saw a cartoon about Renee Good.
“Didn’t she know it’s dangerous to drive on ice?”
Brutal.
==
The most concisely descriptive headline: “Crazy People are Dangerous: Lesbian Suicide-by-Cop Edition”.
That’s the thing Saint Sparkles didn’t have a grip on. Trying to drive on ICE can be deadly.
“Drive, baby, drive!”
And just like that she becomes an accessory to murder.
I remember back when I still lived in CA, sometime between 2007-2008 when there was a bill being debated in the legislature to give drivers licenses to illegal aliens. The bill’s sponsor, Gil Cedillo, called those who opposed it “brown shirts.” Still not sure how being opposed to putting government issued ID in the hands of people who are not even supposed to be here makes one a Nazi.
Good point about the Minneapolis ATCC, PhysicsGuy. I don’t know about MSY, but on the other hand, most ATCCs are not located within the city. The Washington Center, for instance was in Leesburg, Va; and the Washington regional approach control was located a couple of miles from me in beautiful Fauquier County–about 40 miles from DC.
At any rate, my helpful suggestions for ’47’ will never reach his ears. A pity.
JohnTyler
I also do not have a firearm, but I’m considering getting one. When I was younger, I was a pretty good shot, but my eyes are not as good as then.
If you look it up, Americans own an astounding number of firearms, between 400 and 500 million depending on the source. That is substantially more than there are people in the United States.
That is a good thing, because we have seen the terrible things that happen when the people allow themselves to be disarmed. Just now, the Iranian government is killing tens of thousands of people. The situation would be far different if they were armed.
Minneapolis is a blue dot in a red state. The rioters would have a much different reception if they tried their thuggery outside of Minneapolis.
In Kurt Schlicter’s book about a second Civil War, the war starts after President Trump and Vance are assassinated by the left. The Democrats have made clear what they’re going to do if they ever get political power. Throughout history, people have learned that if a group says they’re going to murder you, believe them.
Bob Wilson, every family should have at least one pistol, one rifle and one shotgun.
Bob Wilson,
Interesting observation about Minneapolis. In my state, Boise is a purple dot in a red county, in a red state. That does not mean that the politicians in Boise are not out on the kook fringe the way they are in the Twin Cities – they are. I worry sometimes that the influx of people from WA, OR, and CA looking for a new nest to foul might someday mean the same kind of trouble for us.
buddhaha: …but the number of people knowing that name in minuscule.
minuscule plus one.
@om said:
> and the left doesn’t control the media any longer.
Yes, they do for a critical mass of the populace. Things are getting better, but we are far from having a free and working press. Right now we’re a smidge better than the Soviet Union in that regard.
Antifa are Marxists to Anarchists, they are using Communists term for anyone not a Communist in 1940s
@AesopFan:“if these are Keith Ellison’s terms, they are acceptable. Let’s test him on his loose interpretation of the law by organizing a group of Christians to storm Ellison’s mosque.”
That ship already sailed years ago: he called for DOJ investigation on a protest OUTSIDE a mosque in 2015. As AG in 2020, he submitted a brief on behalf of a mosque that “felt intimidated” by people recording video.
I know you’re just quoting someone, so it’s not aimed at you, but it’s way past time to play “what if the roles were reversed”. They have been, the two-tier system of justice is already in place in Minnesota.
The ship indeed sailed, 2015 is not 2025, and Kamala isn’t the queen with Timmy to back her up.
The ship indeed sailed, 2015 is not 2025, and Kamala isn’t the queen with Timmy to back her up.
As to the left’s stranglehold on the narrative:
What is that thing that replaced Twitter, and how is Hollywood doing? And of course who believes CNN or the other alphabet babblers? Case in point lynchings in Columbus Ohio in the 1950s recalled yesterday on air. Too much BS, beyond plausible deniability.
So the leftist media controls a critical mass of the population?
Good thing it hasn’t gone supercritical; all their heads would explode in a millisecond.
That critical mass of the Minnesota population had a fizzle when Saint Sparkles won her FAFO prize. No matter how hard the leftist media has tried, facts keep coming out to moderate their planned explosion of popular rage.
Invading churches, randomly harassing and threatening the general public aren’t a winning strategy, no matter how virtuous you are.
One of the characteristics of Brown Shirt is the agreed-upon arrangement that law enforcement will look the other way. Except if the victims defend themselves too vigorously.
@ Richard Aubrey > “Except if the victims defend themselves too vigorously.”
We have seen much too much of both your clauses, but the latter one is egregiously stupid in the long run.
See Ben David’s comment, and the reply to mine by Niketas.
@ buddhaha & AppleBetty “minuscule plus one.”
Make that at least two and more since most commenters here read everything.
Still miniscule in the context of even the USA’s actively engaged news readers, but better than zero!
Amaze your lefty friends with your new found knowledge about the Rotfrontkämpferbund (especially if you can say it with an authentic German growl), and add the remark by Skip: “Antifa are Marxists to Anarchists, they are using Communists term for anyone not a Communist in 1940s”
@ Niketas > “I know you’re just quoting someone, so it’s not aimed at you, but it’s way past time to play “what if the roles were reversed”. They have been, the two-tier system of justice is already in place in Minnesota.”
Absolutely true, and not just in Minnesota.
It’s amazing how many stories in the news are either focused on showing the two tiers, or on denying the two tiers, or is peripherally connected to the two tiers.
One would think we were back in the days of the medieval barons and serfs, with a very odd choice of who is in each group.
I knew you were talking about the excerpt, and I’m sure the author at Red State, Teri Christoph, knows the ship sailed long ago. I supposed she just wanted to evoke that particular meme about “your terms are acceptable,” which I have seen used in a large number of contexts.
One of my favorites is the Lefty complaining, “If only there were some way to make men accept their responsibility for the women they get pregnant and the child!”
Every pro-life person knows the acceptable terms are getting married before you have sex.
That was back when Democrats knew that only biological women could get pregnant, and assumed she didn’t just abort the child without telling the father.
Important update to the Church incursion story, and a shout-out to Ben David: this may be what gives some traction to the fence-sitters who don’t like Republicans, or Donald Trump, but see where the actions of the Brown Shirt brigades are taking the country.
Of course, as we all know, a lot of individual jurisdictions are already at the point Brad Slager raises concerns about.
But not all of them.
Yet.
https://redstate.com/bradslager/2026/01/20/the-don-lemon-church-incursion-could-serve-as-a-tipping-point-for-the-direction-of-the-country-n2198328