I’m a strong law-and-order guy and police supporter, so you might think I’m in favor of Trump’s crackdown on Minneapolis. After all, undocumented people – illegal aliens, if you will – are breaking the law. ICE is there because their boss, Trump, sent them there to enforce the law, which is their job. Just as I support the Oakland Police Department from fake attacks by its opponents, so too I ought to support the administration’s actions in Minneapolis. Right?
It’s not that simple.
For one thing, I have to consider who ICE’s boss is. Donald Trump is an evil, treacherous man, and you can’t unconvince me of that. As a native New Yorker I’ve been aware of this creep most of my life (we’re the same age), and ever since he entered politics I’ve grown more stern in my condemnation of him, his nepotistic family, the quasi-religious quacks who form his base, and the people he employs to obey his commands—like Hegseth, Noem, Bondi, Vance, and Miller, and those awful Mar-a-Lago-faced blond mannequins he hires as his official spokespersons.
For another thing, peaceful protest is protected by the Constitution. Yet as we know, all of these big protests contain a small share of violent people, who give a bad name to the majority. I learned this many years ago, when I was a diehard supporter of Occupy Oakland. Then I saw, up close and personal, how a tiny minority of Black Bloc idiots wrecked the dreams of Gandhi and Dr. King and turned peaceful protest into random violence. Such people do indeed deserve to be held accountable. But was Alex Pretti violent? From the videos, he didn’t appear to be. He was a peaceful protester, he had a license to carry a concealed weapon, and thus his shooting can only be construed as murder—an evil act.
Can anything good come from evil? It’s an old philosophical question. Every religion, including Christianity, suggests that, Yes, goodness can sprout from within evil, and overcome it. America does need sound borders. Trump claims to be fighting to secure our borders and to round up people who entered the country illegally. From most rational points of view, those are worthy goals. But as someone who worked in the California wine industry for many years, I also know that our entire economy depends on the undocumented workers who harvest our fields, who take jobs that documented Americans don’t want. They’re good, family men and women, only they happen to lack official citizenship.
Then I think of what MAGA also represents. Its psycho hatred of the LGBTQ spectrum and increasing oppression of it are very offensive to me. I’m a student of the Nazis and their rise in the 1920s and 1930s. First they came for the Jews, and then all of Europe was in a Gestapo dictatorship and World War II killed some 40 million people. It all started with one man, one fanatic, whose fans would have supported him even if he’d stood in the middle of the Kurfürstendamm and started shooting people.
As a Jew it’s impossible for me to forget the Holocaust. It could have happened here, in America, except for the miracle that we have a tradition of liberty, freedom, democracy and idealism that, until now, has made the rise of megalomaniacs—of which we’ve had many—impossible. But with Trump, what long seemed impossible now seems, if not imminent, at least in the realm of possibility. And Minneapolis is where the test case is being rolled out.
Yesterday, it was announced on the news that Trump is “de-escalating” the situation, after Alex Pretti’s murder and Bovino’s asinine reaction, which resulted in his apparent demotion. Not even Trump, who’s largely immune to criticism, could stand the national wave of revulsion to him and his policies. He knew the midterms don’t look good for Republicans even before the Minneapolis fiasco, and the thing he dreads most in this world is a Democratic Congress that would impeach him a third time, but this time with the Senate finding him guilty.
As a Jew, a gay man, a wine guy, a non-Christian, and an American, I believe in resisting Trump and his movement with all my might. I believe history will uphold my convictions in this respect; indeed, I believe history will state that America came this close to becoming a religious-fascist dictatorship before the American people, in their righteous fury and indignation, arose, threw their bodies onto the gears of the machine, and stopped MAGA in its tracks. I have that spirit burned into my conscience. When times are as perilous as these, if you don’t stand up against tyranny, you’re supporting it.
And so the equilibrium of my life has been upset. I want to support law enforcement. But I want to stop this authoritarian bully, Trump, before it’s too late. What to do?
Decision: I stand with the people of Minneapolis. The tens of thousands who despite subzero temperatures are taking to the streets to demand ICE leave their city. I wish it hadn’t come to his. I even criticized Renee Good. But Alex Pretti is a bridge too far. Trump fucked around by killing him and is now finding out he can’t stand in the middle of the street and shoot people and then expect adoration from the crowds.
Steve Heimoff