I’m from the midwestern U.S., lived in Minneapolis for three years while I was in law school, and have many friends there. So, events in the Twin Cities have been much on my mind lately.
In reading on the subject of politics, I try to read across the center-left and center-right. Here’s what got my attention over the last few days:
Kevin Williamson on Andrew Sullivan’s podcast
That is, two actual dispositionally conservative commentators:
Williamson:
When you dress people up like soldiers, they’re going to act like they’re at war. When you tell them they’re at war, they’re going to act that way.
Sullivan:
When you tell them they have absolute immunity—
Williamson:
Yeah, that doesn’t help.
…
Williamson:
American politics will normalize when we [Americans in general] decide that we care about the future of our country more than we care about owning the libs or the other side or more than we hate our political opponents and cultural rivals.
Sullivan:
When we love our country more than we hate our rivals is the key moment. And we’re not there.
Williamson:
Not even close.
Sullivan:
And Trump is making it worse. How do you cooperate or compromise with forces like that?
Williamson:
Well, I don’t think you do. I mean, I’ve had this conversation, some uncomfortable conversations about this with some friends, because occasionally it comes up that someone in my world has offered a job in the Trump administration or has had a job in the Trump administration. What should I do? How do I go about doing this?
And the answer I give them, which they don’t want to hear because everyone wants to take the job, is there’s just no honorable way to serve in the Trump administration. I don’t think there’s an honorable way to be in the Republican Party right now or to vote for its candidates or to support them. And particularly until the Republicans make a kind of corporate act of penance about the fact that their guy tried to pull off a coup d’etat against the United States government in 2021. Until they get right about January 6th and what actually happened, what that meant, they’re just not going to be a party that patriotic, intelligent people can honorably be associated with.
Sam Kahn (at Persuasion): “They Keep Lying to Us”
Who are you gonna believe: Kristi Noem in a bomber jacket or your own lyin’ eyes?
Damon Linker, “The Pundits’ Reality Deficit”
The contemporary Republican Party is a machine for the fostering and promotion of hatred of tribal enemies—and in power, for the infliction of punishment against them. A party like that forms policy based entirely on a pair of linked considerations: Does it hurt our enemies and/or help our friends?
Linker critiques columns by Ross Douthat, Ramesh Ponnuru, and Jonah Goldberg and concludes that even Goldberg is too optimistic. Linker holds up Jonathan Last’s recent “Triad” column at The Bulwark as more clear-eyed:
(Quoting Last, as quoted by Linker:)
Another pleasant fiction people tell themselves is:
Things may be bad in America right now, but it’s not actual fascism. Not yet, at least.
Well that depends on who you are and where you live, doesn’t it?
For me, a middle-aged white guy in New York City, my day-to-day life is pretty normal. No actual fascism detected.
But for Renee Good, there was quite a lot of actual fascism. She was killed by a masked agent of the state. The federal government then labeled her a “domestic terrorist” and lauded her killer. This same government is now attempting to prevent any investigation of, or legal accountability for, the killer’s actions.
…
ChongLy Scott Thao is living with actual fascism. Masked, armed agents of the state showed no warrant before dragging this U.S. citizen out of his house, mostly naked, in the freezing cold, detaining him, and interrogating him before finally letting him go.
Citizens attempting to exercise First Amendment rights in Minneapolis are living with [actual fascism] (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/18/us/minneapolis-federal-agents-misconduct-protesters.html):
“A protester detained, her bra removed and wedding ring cut off, and some of her clothes never returned. The “gratuitous deployment” of pepper spray. A couple’s car surrounded by agents, who pointed semiautomatic weapons at them at close range.
“A federal judge in Minneapolis cited the episodes in an [unusually detailed ruling on Friday] (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/16/us/minnesota-ice-immigration-agents-protests.html) that found a pattern of misconduct by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and ordered them and other immigration agents to stop using excessive force against protesters while conducting their operations in the city.”
…
Federal officials have unilaterally declared that they don’t need warrants to break into homes. Though I suppose reasonable people could disagree on whether or not this constitutes actual fascism until such time as the Supreme Court rules on it.
The point is: If you live in Minneapolis, right now, you cannot walk the streets without fear of violence being done to you by masked, armed agents of the state. If these agents harm you, you have no redress and they will face no accountability. Your children are not safe from government violence when they are in school. Your home can be invaded at any moment. Armed agents may demand to see your papers. They may shoot you if you are “disrespectful” to them.
That is actual fascism, right here, in America.
The fact that this actual fascism is not everywhere, all at once, does not change its character.
And finally: In societies where actual fascism does exist everywhere, all at once, it always begins as localized episodes. That a majority of Americans does not seem to appreciate this fact is another facet of our self-delusion.
(Some internal links omitted.)
Linker again:
And all of this is happening without the president invoking the Insurrection Act, which he is clearly itching to do whenever a sufficient pretext presents itself, and which would give him enormous additional powers to deploy regular military forces to back up ICE with no clear way for either Congress or the Supreme Court to curtail them.
…
From what are these pundits averting their gaze? From the reality of the political world they reside in. Having lived through the thoroughgoing collapse of their party into a vehicle for lashing out with rabid animal spirits, they keep going on as if nothing fundamental has changed, as if the 90 percent of Republican voters who approve of how Donald Trump is governing in early 2026 will at some point very soon wake up from their fever dream to begin thinking about politics in terms of coherent ideologies and reasonable policies.
Henry Olsen (at The Liberal Patriot): “Warning Light for Team Blue”
There are nonetheless some important indicators that do not tell this robustly positive story. Understanding the mixed signals the electorate is sending will be key if Democrats are to fulfill their dreams and usher in a blue wave.
This article focuses on polling metrics, but that’s not what’s most strategically important. For that, we have Noah Smith and Ruy Teixera to weigh in:
Noah Smith: “Resistance is necessary, but it’s not enough”
Noah’s training is in economics and his posts are characteristically full of charts and graphs. The ones in this post illustrate how the Democratic Party still hasn’t figured out how to attract support. His diagnosis:
I have seen zero evidence that progressives have reckoned with their immigration failures of 2021-23. I have not seen any progressive or prominent Democrat articulate a firm set of principles on the issue of who should be allowed into the country and who should be kicked out.
This was not always the case. Bill Clinton had no problem differentiating between legal and illegal immigration in 1995, and declaring that America had a right to kick out people who come illegally.
I have seen no equivalent expression of principle during the second Trump presidency. Every Democrat and progressive thinker can articulate a principled opposition to the brutality and excesses of ICE and to the racism that animates Trump’s immigration policy. But when it comes to the question of whether illegal immigration itself should be punished with deportation, Democrats and progressives alike lapse into an uncomfortable silence.
Every Democratic policy proposal I’ve seen calls to refocus immigration enforcement on those who commit crimes other than crossing the border illegally. But what about those who commit no such crime? If someone who crosses illegally and then lives peacefully and otherwise lawfully in America should be protected from deportation, how is the right-wing charge of “open borders” a false one?
More generally, I have seen no attempt to reckon with why Americans were so mad about immigration under Biden. I have seen no acknowledgement that Americans dislike the violation of the U.S. law that says “You may not cross the border unless explicitly admitted under our immigration system.” I have seen zero recognition of the anger over quasi-legal immigrants’ use of city social services and state and local welfare benefits.
I have not seen any Democrat or progressive even discuss the concern that too rapid of a flood of immigrants could change American culture in ways that the nation’s existing citizenry don’t want. Nor have American progressives looked overseas and wondered why the people of Canada and (to a lesser degree) Europe have forced their own governments to decrease immigration numbers dramatically in recent years. …
Nor have I seen much attempt to grapple with many other issues that hobble the progressive movement—the unfairness of DEI, the blatant permissiveness toward crime and disorder in blue cities, the dependence of progressive governance on useless or corrupt nonprofits, the unpopular stands on certain trans issues, and so on. Those issues aren’t as important as immigration and inflation, but they contribute to a general perception of the progressive movement and the Democratic party as being out of touch with the masses and unserious about governing.
Ruy Teixera (at The Liberal Patriot): “Democrats and the Siren Call of Culture Denialism”
Teixera holds up Smith’s article as one of the few clear-eyed reviews of Democrats’ failure to engage with political realities.
It is not too much of a stretch to see Democrats’ cluelessness on the economic front as of a piece with their culture denialism. Both stem from an unwillingness to challenge what their professional-class supporters are comfortable with and engage with the realities of contemporary politics and economics.
A Democratic Party that can’t come to terms with the concerns of the demos, the people, is not going to be able to win elections or live up to its name. That does not mean full-bore left-populism is called for. Quite the contrary. But there’s no indication that the Democratic Party is in tune with the concerns of those holding the votes it needs.
I haven’t linked anything discussing the utter madness of recent U.S. foreign policy, but I don’t want to diminish its importance. I feel quite confident that the U.S. has recently managed to significantly diminish its international influence and power, which will have generational impacts and, in the end, lead to deep regrets. Trump doesn’t understand soft power, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t exist and didn’t matter.