Journalist Adam Serwer goes out on patrol with the brave resistance in Minnesota

The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.

No matter how many more armed men Trump sends to impose his will on the people of Minnesota, all he can do is accentuate their valor. No application of armed violence can make the men with guns as heroic as the people who choose to stand in their path with empty hands in defense of their neighbors. These agents, and the president who sent them, are no one’s heroes, no one’s saviors—just men with guns who have to hide their faces to shoot a mom in the face, and a nurse in the back.

Minnesota proved MAGA wrong:

Researchers ran a simulation in October of civil war breaking out in the United States and the scenario closely resembled what’s playing out now in Minneapolis.

In that exercise, a president carried out a highly unpopular law-enforcement operation in Philadelphia and attempted to federalize the Pennsylvania’s national guard. When the governor resisted and the guard remained loyal to the state, the president deployed active-duty troops, resulting in an armed conflict between state and federal forces. While the location and sequence differ, the core danger we identified is now emerging: a violent confrontation between state and federal military forces in a major American city.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is sounding sensible now. We live in the Upside-Down.

I did my entire 94-minute dog walk this morning without listening to podcasts, music, audiobooks or anything but the world. One of the lenses popped out of my glasses and that’s the third time that’s happened in the past year so time for new glasses. I went to a Masonic event where all they had was Folgers coffee made in a drip machine with no creamer or sweetener and I enjoyed it, so now I’m rethinking my entire relationship to coffee. And I got a haircut. So I’m experiencing a lot of change now.

President Trump posted a long Truth Social rant about his new ballroom — amid devastating winter storms and fallout from federal agents shooting a protester in Minneapolis.

He complained that his “gift to the American people” is not being properly appreciated.

Political Wire

ICE agents killed a mother of three and emergency room nurse Despite blatant video evidence of the victims’ innocence, Trump, Vance and Noem smeared the victims with lies. Any of us could be next.