Battlefield: Minnesota

America's dumbest conflict continues escalating

Jan 19, 2026

Tensions are rising in Minneapolis and the rest of Minnesota as local officials continue to encourage regular citizens to “resist” ICE deportations in the area. What form does that resistance entail? Oh, just some light vandalism…

And breaking into government vehicles and stealing guns from them…

And attacking somebody because he dares wear flag-themed clothing…

And barging into a church with Don Lemmon(?) — because supposedly one of the pastors is an ICE agent.

Of course, when you’re doing the important work of “hunting Nazis,” sometimes you might end up harassing innocent software engineers trying to eat lunch, just because somebody mistakenly thought they were ICE agents.

But hey, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.” (Where have I heard that before?)

This chaos looks like “Portland Midwest,” and is exactly what local officials have been encouraging. Today on “Face the Nation,” Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey dialed up the rhetoric by calling the presence of ICE agents an “occupying force.”

So much for turning down the temperature.

At the 1:20 mark here, Frey flat-out lies and claims that local officials work with ice when it comes to criminals — but the entire issue at hand is that overwhelmingly, Minnesota officials proudly DON’T work with ICE to hand over people getting out of jail. The few places in Minnesota that DO allow cooperation with ICE were actually SUED to prevent such cooperation!

If ICE were the root of this problem, wouldn’t the chaos be happening where they have the largest presence — Texas and Florida? Instead, those states quietly lead the nation in deportations.

When discussing the issue with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Frey suggested the situation would be diffused if the federal government simply stopped enforcing immigration law in the city.

These type of statements are why the Department of Justice is now investigating Frey and Governor Tim Walz. (I’m not at all thrilled about the DOJ opening this case, but OF COURSE Trump is going to go after these guys exactly how they went after him.)

Call me crazy, but if I wanted Donald Trump to do something, the VERY LAST THING I would do is threaten him with further resistance. Trump knows that if he rolls over and allows Minnesota to chase ICE agents out of the state, it will be about 10 seconds before California and Oregon and Washington do the same thing.

Trump, being Trump, isn’t going to fold this hand, he’s going to keep pushing chips into the middle, upping the stakes until the locals can’t possibly call. If Walz threatens to activate the National Guard as some sort of “resistance”…

Trump is going to raise the stakes and remind Walz that the president has more resources at his command than just the National Guard.

So on and on it goes — a situation in which neither side thinks they can back down will continue to escalate until something drastic happens. Unfortunately, that might be the plan.