Adam Serwer, a writer for The Atlantic coined the defining description of our Trump dystopia. In 2018, during the Trump/Stephen Miller family separation atrocity, Serwer observed that, "Cruelty is the point."
And so it has continued into 2026 and grown crueller, to the point of homicide.
In his latest piece Serwer is more confident than I am that, "this moment", here in Minneapolis has reached a turning point and is about to calm down. We shall see.
Personally, "victory" for me means not just the departure of every trigger happy thug running amuk in this town, but the names and state indictments of every "agent" present for the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti ... as well as indictments against any and all who directed their presence in Minnesota.
Until then though, as Serwer writes today, Minneapolis and other Minnesota cities impacted by this murderous siege have every right to celebrate their activism and savor a moment of justifiable pride. ... no matter what happens next. An example to other communities assaulted by Trump's government has been set by the energy, bravery and demonstration of genuine moral conscience by thousands in this area.
So take a bow, folks.
Here's Serwer's concluding graphs in todays piece:
"The federal agents sent to Minnesota wear body armor and masks, and bear long guns and sidearms. But their skittishness and brutality are qualities associated with fear, not resolve. It takes far more courage to stare down the barrel of a gun while you’re armed with only a whistle and a phone than it does to point a gun at an unarmed protester.
"Every social theory undergirding Trumpism has been broken on the steel of Minnesotan resolve. The multiracial community in Minneapolis was supposed to shatter. It did not. It held until Bovino was forced out of the Twin Cities with his long coat between his legs.
"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."
(Brian Lambert)
