Minneapolis Is Not the Story. Courage Is.
Trump wants Minneapolis to look like a threat.
He wants chaos on camera.
He wants fear in the headlines.
He wants an excuse in the script.
Because authoritarian cosplay only works if you can manufacture an enemy.
So
he waddles to microphones and pretends to be “concerned” about
violence, pretending to care about public safety, pretending to defend
order, pretending to protect Americans, when anyone with a functioning
brain understands exactly what this is:
A cornered criminal staging a performance.
When Trump threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act, he isn’t talking about law.
He isn’t talking about order.
He isn’t talking about safety.
He’s talking about survival.
His survival.
This is not governance. It’s panic management.
It’s a man who knows the clock is running.
It’s a man who knows the House may flip.
It’s a man who knows that when the MAGA shield breaks, the justice system is waiting.
So he reaches for the oldest fascist prop in the playbook: martial law.
Not because the country is collapsing — but because his control is.
That’s the cosplay.
That’s the act.
That’s the fraud.
But
while Trump performs authoritarian theater, something real is happening
in the streets, something he cannot script, cannot spin, cannot
intimidate, and cannot erase.
In subzero temperatures.
In brutal wind chills.
On the coldest day of the year in Minnesota.
People showed up anyway.
Not for spectacle.
Not for social media.
Not for performance politics.
They showed up for each other.
Thousands
of people marched through Minneapolis in minus-nine-degree
temperatures, with wind chills dropping to minus thirty-five, chanting
“ICE out,” carrying American flags, and holding signs demanding justice
for Renee Nicole Good, a U.S. citizen fatally shot by an ICE officer.
People were handed warmers for their hands while they used their voices.
Earlier
that morning, thousands formed a human picket line at the Minneapolis
airport so long it spanned the terminal. Clergy, labor unions, immigrant
groups, families, elders, students, all locking arms in an “ICE Out”
day of protest. Some were zip-tied. Some were loaded onto school buses
by police. About a hundred were detained. Businesses closed in
solidarity. Workers stayed home. People chose conscience over comfort.
Not because it was easy, but because it was necessary.
People brought hot tea to strangers.
Food to people they didn’t know.
Warmth to bodies they’d never met.
A
young business owner handed out free tea in negative twenty-degree
weather because, as he said plainly: “We’ve seen this before. It always
starts with one group. Then it spreads to everyone.”
That’s the line Trump fears more than any protest sign.
Because fascism never announces itself honestly.
It doesn’t say, “We’re here to erase rights.”
It doesn’t say, “We’re here to sort humans by value.”
It doesn’t say, “We’re here to normalize disappearance.”
It says: security.
It says: enforcement.
It says: order.
It says: protection.
It says: safety.
Until one group becomes the test case.
Then another.
Then another.
Then everyone.
Operation Metro Surge.
Mass deportations.
Militarized immigration enforcement.
Masked officers.
Racial profiling.
Children detained.
Families separated.
Communities targeted.
All wrapped in bureaucratic language and moral filth.
A five-year-old boy becomes a prop in enforcement optics.
Parents become “targets.”
Neighbors become “suspects.”
Citizens become “collateral.”
And
Trump’s DHS responds by calling protesters defenders of “murderers,
rapists, gang members, terrorists,” the oldest authoritarian trick in
history: dehumanize first, brutalize second, justify later.
But Minneapolis didn’t disappear into fear.
It stood up in the cold.
And
that matters more than any speech Trump gives, more than any threat he
makes, more than any cosplay uniform he puts on behind a podium.
Because here’s the truth:
The most dangerous lie in America right now is not Trump’s rhetoric.
It’s the illusion of normal life.
It’s the belief that this is just “politics.”
It’s the comfort of distraction.
It’s the sedative of routine.
It’s the illusion that someone else will handle it.
It’s the fantasy that democracy defends itself automatically.
It doesn’t.
Democracy is defended by bodies in the street.
By hands that show up.
By people who refuse silence.
By people who refuse numbness.
By people who refuse to look away.
And that’s why what happened in Minneapolis matters.
Not as a headline.
Not as a news cycle.
Not as a partisan story.
But as a signal flare.
Because while Trump plays dictator dress-up, people are freezing their asses off to protect strangers.
While he threatens martial law, people are sharing tea.
While he performs fear, people are practicing courage.
While he escalates cruelty, people are choosing solidarity.
While he sorts humans by value, people are defending human dignity itself.
This isn’t about immigration anymore.
It’s about classification.
Verification.
Sorting.
Permission.
Hierarchy.
Who belongs.
Who is tolerated.
Who is protected.
Who is disposable.
And that is fascism in its early stage.
Not tanks first.
Not camps first.
Not uniforms first.
Narratives first.
Labels first.
Dehumanization first.
Normalization first.
Silence first.
Trump threatening the Insurrection Act isn’t strength.
It’s exposure.
It’s fear.
It’s desperation.
It’s the sound of a collapsing grip.
He doesn’t threaten martial law because he’s powerful.
He threatens it because he’s losing control.
He doesn’t scream about Minneapolis because he cares about safety.
He screams because he sees resistance.
And the resistance isn’t violent.
It’s moral.
It’s human.
It’s communal.
It’s relational.
It’s collective.
That’s what authoritarians fear most.
Not weapons.
Not riots.
Not chaos.
But unity without permission.
Courage without leadership.
Solidarity without hierarchy.
Human beings choosing each other over fear.
So this is a tribute, not just to protesters, but to witnesses.
To the people who refuse to sit on their hands.
To the people who refuse denial.
To the people who refuse distraction.
To the people who refuse comfort over conscience.
To the people who refuse the narcotic of normalcy.
To the people who refuse to pretend this is just another political moment.
Because history doesn’t ask who posted.
It asks who stood.
Who showed up.
Who refused.
Who resisted.
Who chose courage when silence was easier.
Minneapolis is not the threat.
Authoritarianism is.
And the people in the streets, freezing, marching, feeding each other, protecting each other, refusing fear, are not radicals.
They are the immune system.
And they may be the last line between a collapsing democracy and a normalized fascism that no one bothered to stop in time.
— Michael Jochum
Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition
