Gov. Tim Walz Urges Minnesotans To Keep Calm, Carry Phones. Trump Freaks The F*ck Out.
We know, any story on anything could be headlined 'Trump Freaks Out.'
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Wednesday gave a brief prime-time speech calling on the people of the state to keep resisting Donald Trump’s invasion of Minneapolis. In response to Trump’s threat the day before that a “DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING,” Walz pointed out that the massive deployment of federal agents to the Twin Cities “long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement. Instead, it is a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.”
He also told Trump it was time for him to take his tin soldiers and GTFO, although Walz used somewhat more tempered language: “Let me say, once again, to Donald Trump and Kristi Noem: End this occupation. You’ve done enough.”
Is it possible to burn a barn in a little over five minutes? Or is a barnburner* of a speech by definition longer? Here’s the video, and Walz’s office also helpfully provided a transcript, too.
Walz followed up with a TLDR version of the main points on social media, writing, “I’m making a direct appeal to the President: Let’s turn the temperature down. Stop this campaign of retribution. This is not who we are.”
Predictably, Trump on Thursday made clear that’s exactly who he is, threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act, because Americans who oppose his ethnic cleansing agenda (or simply didn’t vote for him) are traitors who must be be crushed by military force. But there’s no insurrection in Minneapolis. The violence is coming almost exclusively from the goons Trump sent there.
As Melissa Ryan points out at Ctrl Alt-Right Delete, Walz’s speech is especially remarkable because it sounds so much like “remarks a wartime president or prime minister would give on national television, rather than those of a state governor.” That reflects how Trump talks about the cities and states where he’s sent swarms of DHS goons and the National Guard: They’re enemy territory, to be subjugated and brought to heel, not really part of America.
Walz called that out too, noting that Trump “intends for it to get worse” and quoting his threat that “the day of retribution and reckoning is coming.” (And without any hope of Funny Hat Day for relief.) Walz correctly identified that talk as dangerous, and urged Minnesotans to keep responding as they have so far: By bringing their best values to the fight against fascism.
That is a direct threat against the people of this state, who dared to vote against him three times, and who continue to stand up for freedom with courage and empathy and profound grace.
All across Minnesota, people are stepping up to help neighbors who are being unjustly, and unlawfully, targeted.
They’re distributing care packages and walking kids to school and raising their voices in peaceful protest even though doing so has made many of our fellow Minnesotans targets for violent retribution.
As evidence of that last point, consider this Minnesota Public Radio story about a south Minneapolis church that, in the six weeks since the DHS goons started roundups, has delivered more than 12,000 boxes of food to families that are hiding in their homes, regardless of whether they’re church members (only about one percent are).
Walz reminded Minnesotans that they are not powerless or alone, and that they can resist, by helping others, and to have their phones ready to record ICE, to “establish a record of exactly what’s happening,” to create a record not only for history, but also for future prosecutions, because this shit is not going to last forever.
“Accountability is coming, at the voting booth and in court. We will reclaim our communities from Donald Trump. We will re-establish a sense of safety for our neighbors. We will bring an end to this moment of chaos and confusion. We will find a way to move forward — together.”
The governor also warned that Trump is looking for any pretext to increase attacks on civilians, saying, “Donald Trump wants this chaos. He wants confusion, and yes, he wants more violence on our streets. We cannot give him what he wants. We can’t. We must protest loudly, urgently, but also peacefully.”
Damn right; as analyses of civil conflicts suggests, nonviolent resistance campaigns are twice as likely to succeed as violent resistance, because they attract a wider range of participants, and because if the state reacts with violence, that’s far more likely to result in the public seeing the violence as an unjustifiable overreaction. This isn’t about being “polite” or restrained — resistance has to be real, and to get in the way of oppressive action.
That said, we would also be glad to see Walz mobilize the Minnesota National Guard to protect the people who are out there protesting this madness — although we fully comprehend that that would just bring a shooting war that much closer.
We’ll just close with this video from Minneapolis in which a wonderful Minnesotan hero — she actually exclaims “oh, ya, jeeze!” — embodies exactly what Walz was talking about.
Wiping her eyes from ICE’s use of tear gas, she explains why she was yelling “Shut up!” at the goons. “Well, I couldn’t just sit home. I’ve been in marches and stuff, I had to do something. You know, what can you do, until we vote again. This is just crazy!” As an ICE chud with a bullhorn orders protesters to get out of the road or be arrested, she shouts again, “Oh shut up! I’d like to meet him in person.”
Don’t buy the bullshit about Tim Walz inciting a rebellion. He’s encouraging us to tell all these bastards to shut up and leave our neighbors alone. That’s as patriotic as it gets.
*Also, why is Wonkette advocating arson?
[Pioneer Press / Speech transcript / AP / MPR / Ctrl Alt-Right Delete / Columbia University]
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Oh ya, Jeeze. Fuck ICE.
OT—Interview over. I have no idea how it went—fog of war and all that. 18 member panel and each got a question.
I feel drunk.