Tens of thousands of people march in downtown Minneapolis in subzero temperatures to protest the massive presence of ICE agents over the past several weeks Friday, Jan. 23, 2026. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

The winter of 2026 will go down in state history as among our finest hours. 

What happened here will be studied by social scientists and historians as one of the great victories of nonviolent resistance in recent times. Minnesotans showed that brutality and sheer numbers could not overcome communities that were united in their opposition to the usurpers.

People are right to be skeptical about whether the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown here is ending, as announced Thursday by $50,000 man and border czar Tom Homan.

But I’m confident they are leaving for a simple reason: They’re losing.  

What happened and why it happened offer important lessons for our future and for democracy defenders across the country, so let’s focus for a minute before we dance on the grave of the authoritarian attempt: 

The resistance was communitarian. By now it’s almost cliche: Minnesotans — and especially Minneapolitans — were looking out for their neighbors, be they immigrants or the people protecting them. Neighborhoods came together again as they did after the police murder of George Floyd and the chaos that followed, all during a pandemic. The lesson here is to get to know your neighbors.

The sense that we’re all in it together motivates great acts of both charity and courage. 

The resistance was libertarian. When I talked to friends and family around the country, I put it in these terms: Imagine that 3,000 masked, heavily armed outsiders were roaming around your community, routinely racially profiling people, including off-duty police (!); detaining immigrants here legally  — including young children — and shipping them across state lines; smashing the car windows of observers and arresting them before releasing them without charges; and, of course, shooting and killing two American citizens and injuring an immigrant in a case of mistaken identity. When you put it in these terms, Americans around the country got it.  

The resistance was nonviolent. (Mostly.) When authoritarians are employing brutality, armed resistance feels justified. Second Amendment enthusiasts might even say constitutional. But it often leads to a spiraling cycle of violence and repression, e.g., the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Bullhorns, whistles, chants, shouts, songs, mockery and marches were more effective than violence could ever be.

This is not a new or untested strategy. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said during his Nobel Prize acceptance speech: “Nonviolence is not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation.”

The feds’ support, meanwhile, collapsed when they engaged in indiscriminate violence.

The nonviolent resistance helped win the battle for public opinion, which was crucial. An NBC poll showed that two-thirds of Americans believe the Trump administration’s immigration tactics have “gone too far,” with similar numbers in Minnesota, according to another poll.

We too often think of authoritarians as omnipotent, acting with impunity in the face of all resistance. Nothing President Donald Trump says or does seems to matter. But this is not true, and that attitude of despair is precisely what the authoritarian needs. Authoritarians have frequently been defeated in the face of mass resistance, from the Eastern Bloc to Latin America. Once the authoritarian loses popular legitimacy, it’s only a matter of time before the regime collapses.

Our strong institutions were an important bulwark. Outsiders who kept bleating about “paid protesters” have clearly never stuffed themselves with hot dish and baked goods at a Minnesota PTA meeting, caucus, hockey game or church event on a subzero night.

Indeed, as Madison McVan reported this week, churches (and let’s add mosques and synagogues) were crucial to providing material and spiritual support to immigrants and those defending them.

Minnesota ranks highly — 2nd in the nation in one survey — in indices of social capital, i.e., family unity, social support and volunteerism. If you feel like we’ve taken a beating in recent years — the killing of Floyd and unrest and rioting that followed, the looting of our safety net programs, the assassination of former House Speaker Melissa Hortman — you’re right, but our strong institutions have helped us remain resilient.

Our big corporations were not part of that institutional infrastructure. They were silent, and then mealy-mouthed. The days of corporate noblesse oblige are over, especially when the authoritarian demands unquestioning fealty from them. 

The judiciary stood up to the authoritarian attempt. Attorneys for immigrants worked under impossible conditions to defend constitutional rights and due process. 

More than a dozen federal prosecutors quit in disgust.

And, federal judges refused to be cowed. In scorching orders — from appointees of just about every recent president, including a protege of conservative icon Antonin Scalia — many refused to countenance the legal chaos and unconstitutional usurpation the federal government unleashed here. They provided a near daily drumbeat of evidence of the Trump administration’s lawlessness. This severely undercut the administration’s message that Operation Metro Surge was a “law enforcement operation” when anyone could see it was a politically-motivated, performative show of aggression.

During one hearing, Judge Jerry Blackwell — who was the lead prosecutor of Floyd’s killer, Derek Chauvin — reminded the federal government’s lawyers of the seriousness of the executive branch’s insubordination in failing to release detainees, as he’d ordered: “The DOJ, the DHS, and ICE are not above the law. They do wield extraordinary power, and that power has to exist within constitutional limits.”

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara was a PR bonanza for the resistance, even though many Minneapolis activists loath MPD. I learned from O’Hara’s many local and national media appearances, for instance, that there’d been three homicides in Minneapolis as of late January, and two of them were committed by the feds. Considering the traditional blue wall of silence, you’d expect O’Hara to refrain from criticizing the feds, but he landed punches instead. (No permanent friends, and no permanent enemies: a political maxim worth considering.)

Although this moment was far bigger than party politics, there’s a few things worth mentioning:

Some Republicans provided important bipartisan messaging. I’m sure there are others, but Sens. Jim Abeler, Zach Duckworth, and Julia Coleman and Reps. Marion Rarick and Nolan West gave fellow Republicans and Republican-leaning independents a subtle signal that it was OK to question the constitutionality and effectiveness of Operation Metro Surge.

By contrast, Vichy Republicans, like U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, turned against fellow Minnesotans and gave aid and comfort to the authoritarian outsiders. Grudges aren’t healthy, but we shouldn’t forget. Now they’ll receive their just deserts because the Democrats will likely win in November.

Which means those Republicans will be just another in the long line of Trump’s marks.

A lot of Democrats paused their endless factional disputes, or as one militant leftist posted on X last month: “Liberals, leftists, moderates, socialists, communists, and f*cking all the rest have an opportunity here to come together and fight fascism. That means, for the moment, FOR THE F*CKING MOMENT, to not be a dumb*ss b*tch about factionalism and old beefs. Just for now. For a bit.”  (I’m sure this very column will bring the requisite calumny from said factions — see item #8 — but that’s all to the good, as it signals a return to normalcy.)

Finally, respect localism. When the feds chased a man at high speeds through my neighborhood Wednesday, which led to a three-car wreck, I found myself in a state of agitation and contempt for the usurpers that was only matched previously by the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. 

It hits different when it’s your own neighborhood. Which, I realize, is morally provincial. After all, other neighborhoods have been dealing with this on a daily basis for two months. (Some communities have suffered under repressive policing for much longer.)

And, for that matter, other nations have been dealing with rulers’ boots on their necks  — including proxies of the United States government — for years, and, in some cases, decades.

So my final takeaway is that we ought to be extremely humble when we seek to impose our will on other people, communities, states, nations. 

Now, let’s spend the weekend toasting and dancing in the streets.

A federal agent grabs a demonstrator as they attempt to drive a truck through the area while protesters gather after ICE officers shot and killed a woman through her car window Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026 near Portland Avenue and 34th Street. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

Minneapolis Public Schools canceled school on Thursday and Friday, citing safety concerns related to incidents involving Border Patrol* agents Wednesday.

Federal agents deployed tear gas at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis Wednesday afternoon as students were being dismissed, hours after an ICE agent shot and killed a woman a few miles away, according to the teachers’ union.

The incident occurred hours after an ICE agent shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good in the Powderhorn neighborhood of Minneapolis, sparking protests and a vigil that attracted thousands. 

Roosevelt High School is home to the Spanish immersion program for Minneapolis Public Schools. The student population is around one-third African American and one-third Hispanic American, according to the district. 

The Minneapolis Federation of Educators Local 59 said in a statement a union member was detained by federal agents at the school but later released. 

“We will not tolerate ICE inhibiting our city’s youth from their constitutional right to attend school safely or inhibiting educators from doing their job,” the union’s executive board said in the statement. 

El Colegio High School, a nearby bilingual charter school, announced Wednesday that classes would be held online until further notice. 

*Correction: Due to incorrect information from the teachers union, a previous version of this article misstated which federal offcers were at the school. 

Gov. Tim Walz announces he will step down from the 2026 gubernatorial election Monday, Jan. 5, 2026 at the Minnesota State Capitol. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

The moment Gov. Tim Walz was cooked was little remarked upon at the time, but in retrospect illustrates how he and his administration were sleeping through an enveloping crisis.

At the late 2024 budget forecast, he said disability and autism services were driving state government spending beyond expectations. When he was asked about potential fraud in the autism program — about which we’d reported an FBI investigation six months prior — he seemed unfamiliar. I traded texts with an incredulous reporter who was there and wound up publishing a column called, “Minnesota: an easy mark.” 

More recently, Walz faced the full force of the right-wing propaganda machine in the past two months. It was a frightening sight to behold, and a healthier democracy would never be host to such a parasitical malignancy.

Although restoring American democratic habits of mind to eviscerate that propaganda machine should be on our lengthy, long-term to-do list, the lesson here for me is that the most underrated tool in the political toolbox is … governing.

Deadly dull, I know, but the word governor even has the word “govern” in it: competently administering programs to help people who need it; ensuring Minnesota’s children are learning literacy and numeracy; and managing the state’s vast infrastructure assets. That’s the job.

Former St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, another one-time rising star in Minnesota politics, recently faced the same sort of governing reckoning as Walz, when Mayor Kaohly Her pulled off an upset November victory promising to make stuff work again. May Democratic elected officials everywhere take notice.

We live in perilous times, no question, but Minnesotans are right to expect a minimum level of competency in these matters of public administration. It’s especially important for the party of government, i.e., the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, to pay attention to details, like whether a 3,000% increase in spending on the autism program is reasonable, especially when some of the providers had ties to Feeding Our Future.

Tim Walz is at heart a decent man, and he doesn’t deserve what’s been thrown at him in recent weeks — especially a despicable allegation leveled by the president of the United States and the odious propagandist Nick Shirley that Walz was involved in the assassination of former House Speaker Melissa Hortman.

He made some mistakes, but he’s not evil, unlike some of the loudest and most influential voices in American politics today, whose greed and lust for power are boundless.

Walz’s first term was marked by almost constant crisis, none of it his doing. He was a mostly steady hand, even as Republicans came to despise him during the pandemic and the aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd.

His second term comprised major legislative accomplishments — for which the credit mostly belongs to Hortman and the late Sen. Kari Dziedzic — as well as his (again, in retrospect) disastrous candidacy for vice president. All the while, thieves were stealing the people’s money with gusto.

Walz has served the community of Mankato, the people of Minnesota and his country.

And now he has saved us from what would have been a deeply divisive campaign, and which would have put the state of Minnesota under federal siege.

Unlike former President Joe Biden, who doomed his party and the country with his insistence on running for a second term, Walz is stepping aside before any more damage is done to his state and the DFL. He says he’ll focus all his energies on cleaning up the mess.

He deserves our thanks for that service and for making this decision.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com.

Gov. Tim Walz speaks after the end of the special session in June Tuesday, June 10, 2025 at the Minnesota State Capitol. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

Gov. Tim Walz ended his campaign for a historic third term on Monday amid mounting pressure from members of his own party and intense attacks from Republicans over widespread fraud in state-run social services programs.

Walz defended his record in a statement and said he was certain he could win a third term, but couldn’t give his entire attention to rooting out fraud while running a campaign.

“I’ve decided to step out of the race and let others worry about the election while I focus on the work,” Walz said in a statement.

Some Democratic-Farmer-Labor elected officials have quietly worried for months that Walz’s name at the top of the ticket would hand Republicans the governorship for the first time in 15 years and sink Democrats’ prospects down the ballot.

Walz met on Sunday with U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who expressed her interest in running for governor, The New York Times reported. Other possible Democratic candidates include Attorney General Keith Ellison and Secretary of State Steve Simon

A slew of Republicans have already entered the race including House Speaker Lisa Demuth, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and former congressional candidate Kendall Qualls.

Walz spent 12 years in Congress before winning the governor’s race in 2018. After the DFL won control of both chambers of the Legislature in 2022, Walz signed in the law the most significant progressive agenda in at least a generation, including free school meals for all students; paid family and medical leave; and the legalization of marijuana.

He burst onto the national political stage in 2024 after former President Joe Biden abandoned his campaign for re-election and then-Vice President Kamala Harris selected Walz as her running mate. Walz became a frequent target of President Donald Trump, whose attacks continued even after Trump won the presidential election.

Walz announced in September that he would run for an unprecedented third, four-year term, after deliberating for months. The assassination of Walz’s friend and close ally, House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman in June, forced Walz and his family to weigh the potential costs of another four years in office.

Trump’s attacks on Walz ratcheted up in recent months as national Republicans learned about the wide-scale fraud that has taken place in Minnesota’s social services programs during his tenure, including the highly-publicized Feeding Our Future scandal, in which fraudsters pocketed hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars intended to feed children during the pandemic.

In December, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson announced new fraud charges in state-administered Medicaid programs, estimating that fraudsters have stolen as much as $9 billion in government funds. Walz disputed Thompson’s estimate, painting it as a political attack.

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com.