Alan Zendell, January 23, 2026

In 2025, a dear old friend moved to St. Paul, MN to spend his final retirement years with his family. For a few months, it was a joyous time, and he looked forward to the future. On January 19, he posted this on his Facebook account:

Situation here is getting tense. We are experiencing the shutdown of business where employees are scared to show up for work especially if you are a brown skin person. This is a big problem with restaurants and it doesn’t matter if you are an American citizen. Schools, hospitals, social service facilities, big box stores, large manufacturers, are facing serious disruptions. The streets are patrolled by armed and well protected thugs who show no affinity to the residents of this city and treat most as terrorists. Unless the government reduces its violent behavior, this will spiral into a civil war.

Today, a New York Times/Sienna poll reported that 61% of Americans believe ICE has gone too far in its tactics. Even one in five Republicans polled said that, though the more interesting number may have been that 56% of Republicans responding couldn’t answer yes or no. That tells me Republicans are so conflicted over the way the Trump administration is pursuing its goals, they’re simply in shock.

We’ve all been watching the protests against ICE in Minnesota for weeks. While the Trump administration calls the protestors domestic terrorists, and Trump himself, with Stephen Miller ranting in his ear, threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act, we, the public have seen no evidence that the protests are anything other than law-abiding demonstrations protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. On the other hand, we have seen ICE officers brutalize innocent people and violate their civil rights on a daily basis. When concerned American citizens form watch groups to peacefully document what ICE is doing, they are attacked, and in the case of Renee Good, murdered.

And now, it has come to light that ICE agents have been illegally instructed that the Fourth Amendment protections against search, seizure, and arrest unless those actions are performed under a warrant from a judge, do not apply to them. Homeland Security Secretary Pam Bondi, in a power grab typical of everything the administration has done this year, seems to have usurped the authority of the Fourth Amendment and claimed the authority to issue administrative warrants. That’s exactly the way Hitler’s Gestapo acted to purge Germany of all opposition to Nazi dominance.

According to today’s Times, the citizens of Minneapolis and St. Paul have now said, “Enough is enough.” Business leaders have called for a general strike and declared Friday, January 23^rd a “Day of Truth and Freedom.” Does that sound like an insurrection? Compare it with the anti-government protests against the repressive regime in Iran, where whole neighborhoods have been set on fire, and more than 3,000 people have been killed, according to Iranian state radio.

Peaceful protests have been a hallmark of American life since the days of the Civil Rights Movement, when leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. responded to lynchings and church bombings with nonviolence. And while several recent American administrations have criticized other countries, like North Korea, Russia and China for violating the rights of protestors, ICE’s actions have now become the focus of the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Its Chief, Volker Turk cites Trump and ICE for arbitrary and unlawful arrests that often tear apart families, violate the dignity of those arrested, and ignore due process requirements.

Vice President JD Vance visited Minnesota, claiming he was there to lower the temperature of the conflict between ICE and local authorities. But rather than seek a middle ground or try to bring opposing sides together, he merely repeated the talking points of Republican influencers and laid the responsibility for the violence and unrest squarely at the feet of Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who accused Vance and Trump of deliberately trying to stir up civil unrest and disorder to justify further crackdowns. We’ve seen all this before with other actors in other places. It’s the way dictators undermine the rule of law.

Frey, for his part, claims that everything happening in his city is the result of retribution from Trump. When asked for proof of that assertion he referred to Trump’s own words in a recent Truth Social post: “FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!”

It’s not just ICE and not just Minnesota. Our president is recklessly leading our nation down some very dangerous paths, and in the process alienating all of our major allies and delighting our principal adversaries, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. China is rushing to fill the economic vacuum created by Trump’s tariffs and Russia is killing thousands of Ukrainian civilians and leaving the rest without heat or power in a frigid winter. How much longer are we going to tolerate the disingenuous, self-serving madness of Trump and his supporters?