The recent (and ongoing) events in Minneapolis invoke historical parallels that are both instructive and alarming.
Thanks to Instapundit (here), Ace of Spades HQ (here and here), Real Clear Policy (here), and Power Line!
The recent events in Minneapolis are remarkable. Last week, an ICE officer named Jonathan Ross shot and killed a deranged 37-year-old anti-ICE activist, Renee Nicole Good, who was interfering in ICE operations as part of a coordinated campaign of obstruction by Fifth Column provocateurs. The unfolding drama is more than a self-defense shooting by an ICE officer who was targeted by a speeding SUV; it is nothing less than an orchestrated insurrection—a rebellion—attempting to nullify the results of the 2024 election and to derail the enforcement of federal immigration laws.
The events were not spontaneous. They were planned, organized, and calculated to produce a violent incident (call it a “George Floyd moment”) that could be exploited by the propaganda press to turn public opinion against President Trump and his commitment to deport the millions of illegal aliens whom Joe Biden allowed to invade the country. Democrats are trying to incite a repeat of the “Summer of Love” in 2020–riots that burned down large portions of Minneapolis and other cities. What is going on in Minneapolis is an attempt to provoke Summer of Love 2.0.
A. Blue States Resist Enforcement of Federal Immigration Laws
Why do I call what is going in in Minneapolis an “insurrection”? Because that is what it is. Recall the most controversial aspect of Joe Biden’s abysmal presidency. Was it the chaotic and humiliating withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan? The record inflation unleashed by unprecedented amounts of wasteful federal spending? The appointment of scores of radical activists to the federal bench, including the incompetent, far-left Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court? The reckless politicization of the DOJ? The freak show of LGBTQ cabinet appointments, including a transgender (Richard “Rachel” Levine), a gay man (Pete Buttigeig), and a ludicrously-incompetent lesbian (Karine Jean-Pierre) as White House press secretary? No.
The signature policy of the Biden administration, and the one that was most opposed by the American public, was Biden’s disastrous opening of our southern border to countless millions of unvetted illegal aliens, including dangerous criminals, many of whom were transported and housed at extravagant expense using taxpayer funds. Biden abandoned border security, relocated Third World refugees en masse, and generally surrendered our national sovereignty. A nation without secure borders is not a nation. Biden’s reckless immigration policies took the nation to the brink of doom.
Americans were furious, especially since President Trump had managed to lock down our borders in his first term. Biden and his inept VP, Kamala Harris, claimed that border enforcement would be impossible without passing an amnesty bill. This was a lie, and Americans knew it. So, President Trump was elected to a second term in 2024 based in large part on his vow to stop illegal immigration and deport the millions of illegal aliens. Upon returning to the White House in January 2025, Trump 2.0 quickly shut down the flood of illegal immigration through tough border enforcement. Not a single illegal alien managed to cross the border, in contrast to the hordes welcomed by Biden-Harris. Americans were jubilant.
President Trump kept his promise to deport illegal aliens who were driving down wage levels, overcrowding public schools, committing crimes, and consuming costly welfare benefits. Democrats favoring open borders (for reasons discussed later) were adamantly opposed to Trump 2.0’s policies. Blue state governors and blue city mayors, with the help of left-wing judges (mainly appointed by Biden and Obama), have done everything in their power to hinder and obstruct ICE, endanger ICE officers, and encourage “protests” and “demonstrations” that are little more than mobs of professional agitators and Antifa thugs who threaten, harass, impede, and assault ICE officers attempting to enforce federal immigration laws.
Illegal aliens are subject to deportation, period. Obstructing this is rebellion against federal law and the will of the voters. Insurrection, for short.
In blue cities, far-left Democrat mayors undertook to block Trump 2.0’s immigration enforcement. We have talked about the coordinated opposition to ICE in Portland, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, and other blue cities. Democrat elected officials have threatened to prosecute ICE officers for doing their job. ICE officers were doxxed, demonized as “Gestapo,” accused of “kidnapping,” denied adequate police protection, forced to remove protective fencing around ICE facilities, and more. A Wisconsin judge helped an illegal alien escape apprehension by ICE—and was rightly prosecuted and convicted. Other assistance to illegal aliens was more subtle, such as broadcasting ICE’s whereabouts to warn illegal aliens to avoid being caught.
Some rhetoric by Democrat officials bordered on inciting violence against ICE, and in fact assaults against ICE (including vehicular assaults) increased dramatically.
Deliberately kneecapping the deportation process is de facto advocacy for open borders and an attempt to nullify President Trump’s border security agenda. Democrats lost the 2024 election at the ballot box but are trying to change the outcome through mob rule.
B. Federal Law Is Paramount to State Law
Blue states cannot simply ignore, defy, or override federal law. Article VI of the Constitution—the Supremacy Clause—makes federal law paramount to state law. Our immigration laws were passed by Congress and cannot be cavalierly disregarded or circumvented by state actors. States and cities declaring themselves “sanctuaries” for illegal aliens engage a form of rebellion—aiding and abetting illegal immigration. Disagreement with the deportation of illegal aliens does not justify civil disobedience, let alone active interference with federal law enforcement (which is a crime).
If Democrats wish to protect illegal aliens from deportation, their recourse is to lobby for changes to federal laws, engage in elective politics, and peacefully work to change public opinion, not to obstruct ICE or try to prevent them from doing their job. Mob rule is not the solution. The rule of law requires that laws be obeyed and enforced. By promoting violence and anarchy, Democrats are engaged in a wholesale assault on the rule of law.
This is not the first time state officials have engaged in illegal—and unconstitutional—resistance to federal law. Prior to the Civil War, northern abolitionists attempted to prevent enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, a federal law requiring that runaway slaves who fled to “free” states be returned to their owners. The Supreme Court held that laws purporting to abrogate the Fugitive Slave Act were unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause. Abolitionists also engaged in violence, such as John Brown’s murderous rampage in Kansas in 1856 and raid on a federal armory at Harper’s Ferry in 1859, which he hoped would ignite a slave insurrection. Instead, he faced the gallows.
These events contributed to the polarization of America that ultimately resulted in secession, and a bloody Civil War. (Gov. Tim Walz has explicitly invoked the Civil War, calling ICE enforcement in Minnesota an “invasion” and assault on his state.)
Southern Democrats did not learn their lesson after the Confederates’ defeat at Appomattox in 1865. In the 1950s and early 1960s, some states in the Jim Crow south aggressively resisted school desegregation orders issued by federal courts in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Much like blue state governor now, governors in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama refused to comply, encouraged “massive resistance,” and condoned violent riots in opposition to desegregation orders.
In Arkansas, Gov. Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to prevent blacks from attending the all-white Central High School in Little Rock. President Eisenhower invoked the Insurrection Act to send in 1,000 troops from the 101st Airborne to Little Rock to uphold federal law. President Kennedy did the same to quell resistance to desegregation at the Universities of Alabama and Mississippi, in the latter case mobilizing over 30,000 troops. All of this was authorized—and, unfortunately, required–by federal law to enforce the Supremacy Clause. The nation faces a similar rebellion today.
In short, when insurrection-promoting Democrats such as Govs. Gavin Newson, J.B. Pritzker, and Tim Walz, or Mayors like L.A.’s Karen Bass, Chicago’s Brandon Johnson, and Minneapolis’s Jacob Frey demand that federal law enforcement officers desist from enforcing law, or simply leave the state altogether, they are engaged in lawless resistance that has always failed in the past. Democrats are on the wrong side of history. If federal troops are required to maintain order and enforce the law, Democrats will have no one to blame but themselves.
C. De-Legitimizing Self-Defense is a Threat to the Rule of Law
Just as fundamental as the Supremacy Clause is the well-recognized doctrine of self-defense, which is a natural right essential to the preservation of human freedom. Democrats seek to ignore the right of self-defense, without which citizens are helpless to protect themselves from violent predation. The exercise of self-defense by law enforcement officers is crucial to the maintenance of law and order, without which we would descend into barbarism and anarchy.
Liberals always root for the criminal. Examples:
Trayvon Martin was killed in self-defense by George Zimmerman in Florida in 2012. Liberals ignored the facts and defended Trayvon Martin.
Michael Brown was killed in self-defense by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. Liberals ignored the facts and defended Michael Brown, a hoodlum.
Kyle Rittenhouse was tried and acquitted of murder charges arising from his self-defense against violent, misfit attackers during the riot in Kenosha, WI in 2020. Liberals ignored the facts and defended the rioters who were chasing and attacking Rittenhouse.
Predictably, when an ICE officer in Minneapolis, who had previously been seriously injured by a vehicle wielded as a weapon, shot and killed the deranged driver of an SUV speeding toward him, liberals ignored the facts—including crystal clear video footage–and defended the anti-ICE activist behind the wheel. Motor vehicles can be and are used as weapons. Terrorist attacks using vehicles are increasingly common, in both Europe and the U.S. For example, mass casualty events involving vehicles occurred in New Orleans (ISIS, using a truck, in 2025) and Waukesha WI (SUV attack in 2021). Officer Ross himself was previously attacked by a vehicle.
Under the law of self-defense, Officer Jonathan Ross was clearly authorized to use deadly force to protect himself. Yet Democrat officials in Minnesota condemn Jonathan Ross, praise Renee Good, and call for ICE to “get the f#ck out of Minnesota.” The leftist, Trump-hating media slobber over Good in the same manner that they did the “Maryland Man,” the illegal alien MS-13 gang member and accused human trafficker Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
D. Media Complicity as Propagandists
The propaganda press serves as the Democrats’ PR organ. The primary mission of most media outlets is to undermine the Trump administration. Not surprisingly, the news coverage of the Minneapolis shooting was very biased against the ICE officer and slanted against the propriety of his use of self-defense. Contrast the media’s kid glove treatment of Michael Byrd, the Capitol Police officer who shot and killed the unarmed miliary veteran Ashley Babbitt in the Capitol on January 6. Byrd was celebrated; Babbitt was demonized. Some said that “she got what she deserved.” The same people are trying to canonize Good.
Reporters realize that they exercise enormous influence over public opinion and work hard to promote the narrative most advantageous to the hard Left (which these days is synonymous with the Democratic Party). Remember the prosecution of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for trying to subdue a career criminal and lifelong drug addict, George Floyd? Reporters were rabidly hostile to Chauvin and nauseatingly sympathetic to Floyd, who was a loathsome lowlife and druggie.
Sadly, at least in blue states the leftist media reinforces public opinion in favor of illegal aliens. Remember the San Francisco jury’s acquittal of an illegal alien with five previous deportations who shot and killed Kate Steinle with a stolen gun in 2015? She was sight-seeing with her father on Pier 14. The illegal alien claimed the shooting was an “accident.” The press reported it as such and treated the acquittal—an obvious example of jury nullification in a sanctuary city–as “normal.” Thankfully, the Right has a flotilla of radio programs, blogs, podcasts, webzines, X accounts, and social media influencers to tell the truth.
E. Why Are Blue States Fomenting Rebellion?
It is all about control.
Blue state Democrats are trying to conceal the massive amounts of welfare fraud (and likely election fraud) that keeps Democrats in power. The revelation of longstanding fraud in daycare and child nutrition (Feeding Our Future) programs in Minnesota by the huge Somali community, on an epic scale, finally got national attention due to citizen-journalist Nick Shirley’s expose. Now, even the propaganda press has to cover the story. The amount of welfare fraud in Minnesota alone is estimated to be $8-9 billion! And that is just the tip of the iceberg.
States with larger populations than Minnesota, such as California, New York, and Illinois, surely have even greater amounts of fraud. Refugee populations from Third World countries have a much higher incidence of welfare usage than other groups, and—sadly—a greater proclivity for fraud. Some cultures, including Somalis, seem to be inherently prone to fraud. Democrat elected officials encourage (or ignore) fraud in exchange for campaign contributions from the plundered funds, and to maintain the “goodwill” of immigrant voting blocs. Welfare fraud is simply a cog in the Democrats’ political machine, just as it was in Boss Tweed’s corrupt Tammany Hall in 19th century New York City, the Pendergast Machine in early 20th century Kansas City, and the Democrat corruption that still characterizes cities such as Chicago.
The only difference is that the modern welfare state is much more generous—and subject to fraud—than it was in the past.
The reason why Democrats are so opposed to uncovering and correcting welfare fraud is that doing so would certainly expose the election fraud that operates in parallel with it. Voting fraud—bundling phony mail-in ballots, casting ballots by “ghost” voters who have died or moved, letting illegal aliens vote, or simply falsifying election results—is the quid pro quo for condoning welfare fraud. Cities with large immigrant populations present the greatest opportunity for both welfare fraud and election fraud.
Without election fraud (and the illegal immigration that enables it), Democrats would not be able to maintain political power in many states. Democrats favor illegal immigration, and therefore oppose the deportation of illegal aliens, because they believe their continued political power is at stake. Radical ideology plays a role, as does identity politics, as does the deranged Trump hatred by Angry (or Affluent) White Female Leftists (referred to as AWFLs)—all reinforced by college indoctrination, white liberal guilt, and media propaganda–but these “followers” are merely the foot soldiers or useful idiots empowering the corrupt political machines that govern most blue states and blue cities.
The reason Democrat officials in blue states and blue cities are willing to go to the brink of civil war in their opposition to Trump 2.0’s immigration policies is that mass deportation of illegal aliens would destroy their political hegemony. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey allowed rioters to burn down large swaths of Minneapolis–including a police station!—in 2020 because they place a higher priority on maintaining their political standing with immigrants and minorities than they do protecting the public at large or maintaining law and order.
To repeat: It is all about control.
F. Who Are the Resisters and What is Their Goal?
The Resistance is not organic. The anti-Trump lawfare, the conflict in Charlottesville in 2017, the staged J6 “insurrection,” the Antifa riots in 2020, and the anti-ICE protests since President Trump took office, were all manufactured by a cabal of Deep State operatives, left-wing media propagandists, and shadowy, behind-the-scenes groups funded by George Soros and other oligarchs who recruit, train, supply, and even transport “protesters” who are little more than paid agitators. The slain anti-ICE agitator in Minneapolis—who was coaxed into becoming a domestic terrorist–was recruited and trained by such a group.
Sadly, as the “No Kings” protests staged by the Soros-funded Indivisible group illustrate, mentally-ill AWFLs (many of them senior citizens channeling the 1960s) abound, as do disgruntled Gen Z misfits in Portland and elsewhere, gender-confused malcontents (Good became a lesbian after bearing three children in two heterosexual marriages), and lazy moochers from all ethnic backgrounds of the type who voted for Zohan Mamdani in NYC.
The funding of the network of NGOs who orchestrate and organize the anti-ICE subversion must be identified, thoroughly investigated, reviewed for legality, and publicly disclosed. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
G. How Will This End?
We are at an inflection point. The nation could end up in another civil war. The rhetoric of blue state officials such as Gov. Tim Walz suggests that is their goal. They are certainly encouraging mobs to swarm ICE and obstruct federal officers in the performance of their duties. If anyone is to blame for the shooting in Minneapolis, it is the Democrats who egged on the unstable group of agitators to engage in reckless and dangerous obstruction. Democrats seem intent on taking the nation to the brink of mass armed conflict.
Anti-ICE agitation is thuggery, and resistance to enforcement of federal immigration laws is insurrection. As legal commentator Josh Hammer stated,
The implicit threat of all so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, whose resistance to the federal government smacks of John C. Calhoun-style antebellum “nullification,” is to tell the feds not to operate and enforce federal law in a certain area — or else. The result is crass lawlessness, Mafia-esque shakedown artistry and a fetid neo-confederate stench combined in one dystopian package.
Inciting mobs to resist the enforcement of federal law never ends well, as the events in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama 60 years ago demonstrate. Riots are a political weapon of the Left. The “Summer of Love” was an example. Democrats seem intent on a sequel.
The events of the past week represent the greatest threat to the rule of law in my lifetime. If the Trump administration played by the same rules that Biden’s Justice Department did under the partisan hack Merrick Garland, the FBI would identify and arrest all of the anti-ICE agitators who interfere with their duties, J6 style. Interfering with federal law enforcement officers is a federal crime, more serious than briefly trespassing in the Capitol. Such mass arrests would be very polarizing, but there may be no alternative if Democrats’ radical rhetoric doesn’t abate.
Will ordinary Americans ignore the fog and din of the biased media and support the President they elected and the policies they voted for? Will public opinion sustain Trump 2.0’s MAGA policies?
I pray for the nation. I pray that Americans stand up for their President and the rule of law. I pray that the madness in Minneapolis ends without further violence and that we rid the country of the fraudsters, illegal aliens, and criminals who are trying to sabotage our republic on its 250th birthday.
https://misruleoflaw.com/2026/01/11/anatomy-of-an-insurrection/
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