There is a simple reason why the recent events in Minneapolis are relevant to British politics. Essentially, if it ever comes to pass that remigration becomes a serious proposition in this country, the attempts by US federal ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents to enforce deportation of illegal migrants, and the response to them, could be a harbinger.
The takeaway point from the current situation – which has now led to the deaths by shooting of two protesters – is that overt resistance is not coming from the immigrant communities that are the target of the federal action. Largely, we see the most visceral opposition coming from white middle-class activists, with a high proportion of middle-aged and elderly women.
While there are always differences between US and UK politics, with nuances set to trap the unwary, this much seems to be a common feature. Over here, it is very much the progressive 'liberal' tendency – bolstered by the Guardian and the BBC – who display the same 'empathy' towards migrants that we see across the Atlantic.
There is not a lot of use looking to the legacy media for an explanation of this phenomenon. In the main, both the print and the broadcast media are compromised on this issue, tainted by decades of DEI hires and wet, university-trained Lefties, to the extent that they are part of the very phenomenon we are seeing.
Social media is better, in the sense that there is a much wider range of opinion, but it is disjointed and chaotic, with the sheer volume necessitating careful winnowing of the content which, in itself, renders any analysis prone to selection bias.
In an attempt to get a better feel for the sentiment in the wake of the most recent shooting, I spent many hours, into the early hours of yesterday morning, trawling through posts on X, picking out some of the comment which I thought might best illustrate and explain what we are dealing with.
One such immediately struck a chord when the poster wrote of the protesters: 'Imagine the level of ideological capture required to stand shoulder to shoulder with ten thousand people in minus thirty degree weather, not to defend your own children, your own neighbourhoods, your own wages, or your own sovereignty, but to protest on behalf of illegal criminal aliens who violated the law to enter the country and would never endure that cold, that sacrifice, or that risk for you.
'That is not compassion. That is inversion. You are freezing your body to protect people who openly reject your laws, your culture, and your nation . . . while ignoring citizens crushed by crime, addiction, inflation, and collapsing public order . . . You have been trained to feel morally superior for defending outsiders while treating your own people as expendable.'
The post concludes: 'No nation survives when loyalty flows outward instead of inward. No society remains sane when empathy is weaponized against self-preservation. And no movement is more dangerous than one that convinces people to suffer proudly for those who would never lift a finger for them. That is not virtue. That is liberal brainwashing.'
The concept of 'liberal brainwashing' is one that is easily acceptable, certainly reflecting my own bias. Those affected by what I would see as a disorder would doubtless think of this discourse as a grave distortion.
A more direct response comes from another poster who wrote: 'I can't even process this any more. Americans – born here, raised here – freezing their a***s off in -15° Minneapolis, shutting down businesses, schools, entire streets, screaming "ICE OUT", attacking federal officers . . . all to shield illegal immigrants who have zero right to be here.
'For what? So rapists, murderers, child predators like the ones ICE just rounded up in Minneapolis stay free? So another Laken Riley, another Jocelyn Nungaray, another Rachel Morin gets butchered by someone who should've been deported years ago?'
Of the protests in general, she says: 'These aren't peaceful marches. This is Americans literally choosing foreign criminals over their own neighbours, their own kids, their own safety and it's not compassion – it's BETRAYAL. It's national suicide dressed up as virtue.
'Think about it: in places with real oppression, people risk everything just to speak. Here? You get to riot, burn, loot, assault cops in the freest country on earth and you use that freedom to defend people who break our laws and hurt us.
'If you're out there chanting for ICE to stand down while American families bury their daughters because of unchecked borders, ask yourself: whose side are you really on? This isn't resistance. It's entitlement on steroids. It's self-hatred wrapped in a protest sign. No real patriot riots against their own country to protect illegals over citizens. Period. Disgraceful doesn't even cover it. Wake up, America.'
Another poster I found particularly interesting put the current events into a broader perspective, defining them as the Battle for Minneapolis, starting a long thread by suggesting that the outcome may be a turning point not just in US history, but also world history.
The State of MN, he says, 'is currently a lawless state, in defiance of federal laws and forces. Having been caught in massive frauds, the state is now in open insurrection.'
Like many who are sympathetic to the broad thrust of President Trump's policy, he thinks it 'great that the current Administration is redefining America for the coming decades, as it finally revises our National Security Strategy for the current world.'
He continues: 'Most importantly, the Twin Cities [Minneapolis-St Paul] are small and isolated. Just two counties in the midst of the vast, Red Heartland, that includes the rest of MN. If the full force of the federal government can't bring Minneapolis to heel and enforce the law, this nation is over.'
In his view, if the battle cannot be won there, states such as California, New York and Illinois can never be controlled. They will all do as they please – and the elected national government will be able to do nothing about it. 'That's it for the Republic,' he says, 'elections in the rest of the country will have been effectively cancelled by the Left. If that happens, the fall of the US from world power will be swift indeed. A deindustrialised nation that is also split into factions can't compete in a world of new geopolitical blocs.'
At this point, he says, the Battle for Minneapolis is a draw. And a draw means that the left wins. Yes, the US is concentrating forces from around the nation. But the night – and sometimes the day – belongs to leftist mobs with no fear of arrest or repercussions.
The Attorney General, he says, can't even get someone who committed a federal crime on camera arrested, because the federal judiciary is in rebellion. There are no arrests of the insurrectionist politicians who enabled the massive frauds, just a grand jury being convened.
Where exactly will that jury be convened and who will be on it? If there are any MN Leftists on it, they will do everything possible to impede it, as they would for a later criminal trial. The courts are lost in MN.
If the rebels can't be dislodged – and it isn't happening so far – the rebels have won, he concludes, as the open rebellion spreads to much larger and more important places. Lose Minneapolis and lose the world. The stakes couldn't be higher. The strategy must change.
Some local insights from shorter posts also help. One seems to contradict the received wisdom of a mass uprising, saying: 'No, Minnesota doesn't show support. These are liberals from south Minneapolis, rich white women from Edina and strange looking people from the Dinkytown area. Mostly paid protesters.'
That's possibly true. The Twin Cities have a population of 3.7million to 4.1million, and we've seen not seen anything like that number on the streets – nothing but a very small proportion.
Another poster attempts to explain the phenomenon, remarking that these (deportation) operations are happening all over the US, but there are not bored, foolish white people standing in the way, harassing and obstructing. The reason given is that Minnesota is so high functioning and safe that they do not feel the consequences of the open border or consider the second-order effect.
That gels with another poster who says: 'The thing to understand about Minneapolis is that this is a very white collar, professional, Fortune 500 city of people with college educations. This is not a working-class city. Keep that in mind when you see mobs out on the streets doing their street theatre tantrums.'
This is redolent of the 'Fraser Nelson effect' where a comfortably-off Times columnist, living in the largely white and prosperous area of Richmond on the outskirts of London, can happily discount concerns about mass migration, writing that things have never been better.
Someone else just offers a lament which is not untypical of many posters, in a text that could be directed at Nelson: 'What these naïve White people don't understand is that none of it is possible if the people they're literally fighting for and getting killed by ICE over became an overwhelming majority. …'
To close, I will add this comment (identified by a reader):
'Insurgencies generally rely on unpredictable acts of demoralizing violence against the imposing force (guerrilla warfare) and the use of the imposing force's sensibilities against them to weaken their resolve (women being used as suicide bombers, etc.).
'Courage and moral clarity are basically the only tools against this. The American left has spent years importing foreigners who will rely on taxpayer dollars for subsistence in exchange for unflinching left-wing political loyalty. This is a strategy by the left to retain political power at the expense of our country and our culture – which they do not believe in.
'Their actions in Minneapolis are to these ends. Most Americans are, at their core, pretty easy-going people who – as is natural – don't like to see middle-aged women getting shot in the head in their cars or ICU nurses getting dogpiled and shot in the streets.
'The left is using your sense of decency against you. They are relying on you to fold. The people who are dying for … welfare fraud are martyrs of a worldview that must be opposed.
'I think it's cynical (and untrue) to say that one should or must "harden their heart" in order to follow the correct course of action, but it's absolutely necessary that your understanding of what's right and wrong be clear and robust enough to withstand being used against you by bad actors.
'This administration is tasked with taking our country back from the forces of global leftism. At times, this will be ugly. The people who believe in killing babies, sexually mutilating children, stealing your money, and making your values illegal are not your friends, and you do not owe them the benefit of the doubt or have any obligation to meet them in the middle.
'They are counting on exploiting your sense of decency. They don't have one, and they want to weaponize yours against you. Don't let them. The illegals have to go back, the fraud must end, and the agitators and bad actors who oppose this will, from time to time, cross a line and be met with force. It will be recorded on an iPhone and broadcast globally in real time. It will look ugly. That's what evil looks like.
'I would suggest everyone learns to parse this reality appropriately. The establishment had no problem flying millions of third-world aliens into your cities and towns in the middle of the night during the Biden administration. They had no problems doing this against your will, with your money, sometimes behind your back.
'They do not care that you cannot buy a home, start a family, or find a well-paying job. They don't care that you can't take your kids to the park because it's overrun with foreign criminals; they don't care that you can't go to the mall or the movies or do half the things that you could do in living memory. The only thing they care about is importing and maintaining a class of subservient foreign voters to keep progressives in office forever.
'It's not good for our cities to be filled with street violence. But there's a very clear right and wrong side here. Do you have the clarity to be on the right side?'
And that has the ring of truth. As we watch the Battle for Minneapolis, we wonder when our turn will come.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/politics-the-ice-rage-cometh/