Is Trump About To TACO On His Minnesota Invasion?

Sounds like could be, here's hoping!

The bar of Republican moral standards sure is in hell! Shadowy cabal of pedophile elites, yawn. Candidate indicted 91 times and tried to do a whole coup, whatever.

But executing a white man in cold blood, recorded from many angles, then the federal government refusing to investigate and protecting the identity of the shooter and agents involved, that is damn low. And then the likes of Greg Bovino, Scott Bessent and Trump blaming Alex Pretti for his own shooting — TEN TIMES at point-blank range, and after Pretti had been pepper-sprayed and disarmed of a holstered gun he did not brandish — because Pretti had a licensed gun that he was legally allowed to own, well, if there is a bar too low for Republicans to cross anywhere, surely it’s somewhere down around there, next to the photo that eerily resembles the Nazi one.

While the large majority of Republicans is still willing to limber up and limbo down, it is uncomfortable how Pretti looks like their base: a literal Boy Scout and choirboy, a responsible gun owner, a patriot who served veterans at the VA. Perhaps even the base is starting to notice that government by terror applies to them too.

Maybe there’s not going to be a swimming pool?

ICE goons will shoot white people in the face and/or in the back of the head, deny them emergency medical care and blame the victim. They will ignore any need for warrants and bust down anybody’s door they want to, ransack their houses and rob them, then claim they’d heard an immigrant stayed in that house once. Pocket-Constitution-huggers, do you feel treaded on yet?

Naysayers alarmed by Pretti’s murder who think Trump should de-escalate include no less than the Wall Street Journal editorial board, the New York Post editorial board, and whoa, even Bari Weiss’s Free Press!

Noem, girl, you in trouble.

And did hell freeze, even Kyle Rittenhouse is now conceding that he should not have been running around the streets of Minneapolis with a gun, and that was stupid of him. Kyle Rittenhouse reflecting, reflect on that!

Rittenhouse is sure easy to dislike and still an asshole, but it sure does seem like growing up every single adult in his life was an idiot who failed him.

Anyway, Trump’s disapproval ratings on immigration issues, once his strength, went down nearly two points over the past week, and now only 38 percent of voters still approve of how Trump is handling immigration things. What’s more, his overall approval rating, which was already tanking over voters’ unhappiness with the economy, went down almost an entire whole more point, bringing him down 26 points from where he was a year ago, OUCH.

And even on immigration among Republicans, Trump’s approval has slipped from 88 percent in March to 76 now. Still pretty fucking depraved, don’t get us wrong, but it shows that as tightly-sealed of a bunker as the conservative propaganda echo chamber may be, it is not impenetrable.

For example, Chris Madel, the hopeful Republican candidate for governor who until Monday was polling at the top among Republicans. He dropped out of the race, AND out of being a Republican entirely, saying that even though he had been on board with the deportations and making words about FRAUD, he could no longer support the national GOP’s “stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so.” And for good measure, “United States citizens, particularly those of color, live in fear. United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That’s wrong.”

Well, amen. As long as a person is alive, maybe there’s hope that their MAGA-fried brain may someday be revived, if only by being alerted to the smell of dollar bills being waved under their nose.

With Walz not running again either, the field is now wide open for the 12 other Republican hopefuls ahead of the August 11 primary, including MyPillow Guy Mike Lindell. Why not! It’s not like any Republican will have a shot a chance at winning.

Sheeeit, even Kentucky-fried chucklefuck/chair of the House Oversight Committee James Comer suggested on Fox News that maybe it was time for ICE to leave the Twin Cities, hokaaaay, and go to another place that actually wants them there (while still blaming Democrats for Pretti’s death, natch).

And welcome to the resistance, CEOs of more than 60 major Minnesota corporations! They have signed a letter publicly calling for de-escalation. Signees include CEOs of Target, Best Buy, 3M, General Mills, Hormel, the Minnesota Twins and Vikings, Allianz, Cargill, Land O’Lakes, Sleep Number Beds, Hormel, Winnebago and the United Health Group, all bravely risking inflaming the Old Man’s hemorrhoids to stand up for their shareholders’ greenbacks. You know it’s bad when Republicans have lost potted meats, the Trix rabbit, and beds for the infirm! Now the Proud Boys will have to avoid mention of Lucky Charms and Cheerios during their spanking rituals.

So then what do you know, after many grown rich white men pleaded with him, surely with tears in their eyes, on Monday afternoon Trump finally struck a more conciliatory tone, as if his TACO, his backdown, his get-down, the get-out, may finally be on its way, alabado sea Dios.

Great! Now Tim Walz can just say he gave DHS a million billion hardened criminals, send Trump some AI picture of a bunch of brown guys in chains he can repost, and then Trump will be satisfied, having been seen to have a “win.” As his best friend Jeffrey Epstein relayed to the Russians, that’s the most important thing to know about the guy.

And Trump desperately needs a manufactured win, because even 3,000 armed ICE goons hopped up on goofballs can’t sustain athletically pepper-spraying journalists in the face and shooting people in sub-zero temperatures all day, every day, forever. Not with that thin Texas blood of theirs.

So let this be the beginning of the end, although we won’t believe it until we see it. Until next time, anyway.

[Minnesota Star Tribune archive link / New Yorker archive link]