27th January 2026
For the last few weeks those of us outside of Minnesota have had glimpses via social media of the street violence and other thuggery of federal government agents.
As this blog has said before, it is as if we are Christopher Isherwood observing the violence and other thuggery in the streets of early 1930s Berlin. There is what we could see – but there was also what that indicated about what we could not see, and about what may happen next.
As it happens, two gross incidents were actually caught on camera and footage quickly circulated on social media: the summary executions of Renée Good and Alex Pretti.
The shared footage showed both killings to be murders, notwithstanding the lies immediately asserted by federal government figures and their supporters.
Federal government figures and their supporters wanted people to disbelieve what they could see, and to believe what they were told instead.
It was a sheer test of reality: you had to choose between the horrific obvious truth or the comforting official untruth.
And it was not obvious that many would pass this test.
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The lies told by federal government figures and their supporters about the murders of Good and Pretti had certain features.
One feature was the confidence that the lies would be adopted by others, even if not believed – that the lies would be sufficient for subservient mainstream media outlets to “both sides” the issue.
To its disgrace, the British Broadcasting Corporation even led with “analysis” slop about “sharply contradicted narratives”.
(Source)
The federal government figures and their supporters promoting these lies had every reason to believe this tactic would work, for it has worked so many times before.
But this time the lies did not work
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One reason the lies did not work was because of another feature of those lies.
The lies come from a certain type of superficial politics.
For example, federal government figures and their supporters talk about “free speech” whilst using the law in various ways to silence and punish unwanted speech; they talk about “non-intervention” but clap and cheer at casual use of lethal force abroad; they talk about “free trade” and “free enterprise” while nodding along with erratic tariff setting; and so on.
Fine-sounding words and phrases which appear to be about first principles are in fact meaningless slogans.
These people simply do not think-through what they are saying – or they don’t care about what they are saying, which is much the same.
And this is where they here came a cropper, to use a British term.
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One immediate impulse of federal government figures and their supporters in respect of the killing of Alex Pretti was to blame the fact he had a legally possessed gun.
How they must have been so happy at coming up with this line, to combat the concerns of those horrified at the murder.
But so eager were they to “own the libs” they forgot about those who own the guns.
Their snap response was a contradiction of the rights which many in the United States believe to be protected by the second amendment – often small-c conservatives and Republican party supporters.
The witless federal government figures and their supporters did not realise the import of what they were saying in the rush to defend the federal agents who murdered Alex Pretti.
Often federal government figures and their supporters get away with a superficial approach to political principles – but here they tripped up very badly in the eyes of their natural supporters.
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The lies could not hold.
News reports began to mount of Republican politicians who would not be satisfied with what they were being told to believe.
The camera footage was plain; the lies made no sense.
Something seemed to snap.
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One theme of this blog and my posts elsewhere is that policing a large population is not easy.
I was brought up in the 1970s and 1980s Birmingham of the notorious West Midlands Serious Crime Squad:
And also during the Troubles, where the Royal Ulster Constabulary and other organs of the British state had little or no legitimacy or support with a significant portion of the people of the north of Ireland/Northern Ireland.
Policing and law enforcement generally requires the consent or at least the forbearance/acquiescence of the community.
Even the hateful and cruel Gestapo and the Stasi derived part of their power from the support – even enthusiasm – of many in their respective communities.
But one thing police or law enforcement agents should avoid is actively alienating the policed.
Casual and provocative brutality at scale is not a sustainable model for any police force or law enforcement agency.
It prompts counter networks of opposition and a loss of legitimacy among neutrals and the usually deferent.
And as in the north of Ireland/Northern Ireland, policing simply breaks down for significant portions of the local population.
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There now seems to be de-escalation in Minnesota.
The local head of the border force has been demoted and moved elsewhere.
The president’s spokesperson is making conciliatory noises.
The tide seems to have turned, leaving various fools and knaves exposed on the beach.
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If there is de-escalation then that will be a significant set back for the president and his adviser Stephen Miller in seeking to contrive a pretext for invoking the Insurrection Act.
As I set out here this is their obvious objective – but they also need to have a sound enough basis to survive legal challenge.
It would seem that they thought that fomenting disorder by heavy-handed use of the National Guard and now ICE/Border Patrol would create the circumstances where they could plausibly invoke the Insurrection Act.
But the thing about disorder is that it is, well, disorderly.
By definition, disorder does not go to plan.
And the disorder fomented in Minnesota has resulted in it being now harder for Miller and others to invoke the Insurrection Act: dishonesty has been exposed, natural supporters upset.
The cause of disorder is seen widely as the government itself, and not supposed “insurrectionists”.
Wise politicians avoid instability, as it rarely works out as instigators of instability intend.
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Just as this eventful month of January has seen something seemingly snap in international affairs, with how Trump was forced to climb down over Greenland and the prime minister of Canada setting out a coherent alternative vision to being bullied by the United States, something seems to have snapped internally in the United States too.
Ruptures inside, and out.
Of course, federal government figures and their supporters are still there, and they can find new ways to misuse and abuse power.
They will still seek to swagger and to intimidate.
Indeed, things may even get worse.
But both at home and abroad there has been a loss of deference to their aggression and dishonesty.
And that deference will be difficult for federal government figures and their supporters to regain easily.
Federal government figures and their supporters should remember that hubris is often followed by some nemesis or other.
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As always informative and careful to show the factual basis of judgments.
May I remonstrate with “the summary executions of Renée Good and Alex Pretti.” Even summary executions are usually preceded by some judicial or quasi-judicial process. For instance Churchill proposed at one point that everyone who was identified as having participated in the Holocaust – not just Himmler’s thugs but technicians and clerks – should be summarily executed. However he proposed a short formal enquiry by an officer of the rank of major or above to verify participation.
Both Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed without any enquiry at all. That should not be described as execution. It was murder. Those involved in the killings should be branded murderers and if possible brought to justice.
Thank you, DAG, I feel my sense of rising panic slowly diminishing whenever I read your very sensible analyses. The world is still terrible, but you help to frame it in a coherent fashion.
I found it interesting how the fact that Alex Pretti had a legally possessed gun was immediately spun as sinister, as a cause for suspicion.
Usually – particularly after mass shootings – we are told that possession of guns is a good thing and there should be more of them.
Although we see far more armed police in England than used to be the case, these are usually present when there is good reason, often to protect from terrorist attacks. We have had tragic incidents when firearms have been used and it has turned out that an innocent person has been injured or even killed but these seem to be rare and are always followed by some serious investigation.
Just for information, is it usual for those involved in raids for illegal immigrants or in deportations to carry firearms?
Interestingly, when Secretary Noem “spun” the fact that Alex Pretty had a “Concealed Carry” permit and was in possession of a firearm at the time he was murdered, one of the quickest and most strident objections came from… the National Rifle Association.
You can sense the reason for their panic.
Thank you for another clear analysis…please keep sharing these pieces.
The federal entities of the DHS, CBP and ICE all existed throughout the presidential terms of both Barak Obama and Joe Biden – and certainly in the case of Obama, were both active and effective at removing illegal aliens from the country. This was something the federal government achieved without drama or crisis.
Under the current US Administration, however, several things have changed. First, a massive increase in budget has allowed these agencies to significantly increase their on-the-ground manpower… but the advertisements and recruiting drives they have undertaken appear to be specifically designed to appeal to disaffected and radicalised young white men and/or combat veterans. As we have also seen, their operating practices appear to be based on the maximisation of intimidation, not the identification of “illegal aliens” in the country. The violence appears to be both intentional and performative.
To quote the iconic Edward James Olmos as Commander William Adama (Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica): “There’s a reason you separate military and the police: one fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.”
The evidence available since the start of this administration shows that each time the federal government “surges” in to a new location, significant abuse follows. This post discusses two horrific murders, but there are other far less heinous but equally disturbing practices. For example, federal agents are now stopping so many vehicles in Minnesota/Minneapolis that civil departments are now simply returning vehicles to rightful owners without charge, just to keep the streets clear.
In the first Donald Trump presidency, the administration enacted a “child separation” policy to which the world’s response quickly became, “The cruelty is the point”. A similar principle seems to apply here: “the violence and intimidation are the point”. This time around, the entire purpose of sending federal agencies to “surge” against blue cities and in blue [Democratic] states is to generate an agitated response, which may in turn [perhaps in the eyes of the President] be sufficient to justify his use of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (18 U.S.C. 1385) to instruct the Department of Defense [War] to use troops to augment policing in blue [Democratic] states.
This seems to have the appearance of being designed to bring events to a “slow boil” – building through the summer until the November House and Senate elections scheduled to be held this year, so as to enable the federal government to either postpone the elections or to smother them with so much policing as to disincentivise traditional Democrat voters from turning out. This is not a secret, with President Trump himself stating on Wednesday 14th January, on television, that “we shouldn’t even have an election.”
So whilst I think that it is critically important to tackle each discrete act, particularly violence and especially murder with a decisive response, I also think that Americans – and the world – need to be completely clear-eyed about what is happening and why.
And as history has shown [with e.g. the big US Law Firms and Universities that capitulated last year, with form opponents who are now servile puppets], President Trump never goes away satisfied: once he achieves a small victory, he will always come back for more.
I’m not sure that the recent murders will be the watershed, but the way that they are handled might be more instructive. If the murderers are put on trial and given a full and fair hearing, then the consequence is that the sentences for the perpetrators will act as a dampener on the employees of CBP and ICE and may serve to discourage more wanton acts of violence. I suspect that is not the result the administration seeks… and as a result I have to wonder whether any consequences for these murders will either be delayed until after the elections this November, or just dropped in their entirety.
When the the Vice President and others declare that CBP and ICE agents have “absolute immunity”, they are not acting to dampen or reign in the actions of these federal agents, but to endorse and encourage more.
Brace, brace.
My mind went recently to the Atocha massacre, the 49th anniversary of which was a few days back.
In that case, left-wing activists were murdered with the intention of provoking a violent reaction from the left, leading to a far right dictatorship being established (or rather re-established, being Spain in the immediate aftermath of Franco’s long rule).
But that violent reaction didn’t come. Instead, it brought about a disgusted reaction, from all across society, and the intended coup was defeated before it had even started, the country moving more resolutely than ever into liberal democracy.
A useful reminder, perhaps, that just because something starts out looking like Berlin in the early 30s, doesn’t mean it ends up that way.
That is a brilliant comparison, and thank you for sharing.
Fascism is a far‑right, ultranationalist ideology that seeks to create a unified, obedient society under a dictatorial leader, using state power, propaganda, and violence to suppress opposition and enforce social hierarchy.
The fightback has begun, the Dems have gained control of the Minnesota state house from the GOP.
Nemesis rears her head and gives her verdict.
In other news, President Trump has warned the Iranian government that the only way they can avoid a savage smiting by the righteous in the Lord (viz. Himself) is to eschew nuclear energy — (like cannabis, it leads to more serious stuff) — and to stop killing protesters. Who says Americans don’t get irony?