As ICE, CBP, and other federal agencies amp up their violent, lethal occupation of Minneapolis, the Deputy Attorney General, aka Donald J. Trump’s personal attorney, Todd Blanche hurls charges of “insurrection” and “terrorism” at state and city officials (Democrats elected by voters who have repeatedly voted against Trump). The ALL CAPS emphasis apes Trump’s.
Donald Trump plays the same card and adds a threat that he has issued before.
Neither Blanche, nor Trump have come close to seeing insurrection so often as has Stephen Miller. The zealous author, often referred to as the president’s most influential advisor, of the anti-immigration blitzkrieg sees insurrection nearly everywhere he looks (as noted by Conor Friedersdorf):
Insurrections are rare in U.S. history, but according to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, we’ve had lots of them just since 2024. In his telling, the perpetrators of recent insurrections against the United States include Joe Biden; the Colorado Supreme Court; U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani; U.S. District Judge Jennifer Thurston; Democrats; protesters in Los Angeles; protesters in Paramount, California; protesters in Compton, California; the city of Los Angeles; U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong; various “radical communist judges”; the Chicago Police Department; a crowd that the Chicago police didn’t stop; an Oregon judge; and “Democrat lawmakers.” (Miller has never called the MAGA movement’s storming of the Capitol an insurrection.)
First Los Angeles
What we’re witnessing in Minnesota is a more savage, perhaps more desperate, version of what has come before. In May 2025, Border Czar Homan promised, “We’re going to flood the zone,” and that’s what they did in Los Angeles in June. As Philip Bump observed then, “the Trump administration wanted to bring California to heel …,” to “inflict pain on an entity that Trump viewed as hostile to his presidency.” Bump also noted then, “Miller referred to isolated scenes of conflict as an “insurrection” over and over and over and over again.”
There’s no insurrection here, just lawless aggression by the feds. State and local officials, as in Los Angeles more than seven months ago, are trying to protect their communities and — fearing that Trump seeks a pretext to inflict greater military force — have called for calm.
The Trump playbook is hardly a secret. On the contrary, Trump’s state police forces have openly celebrated their brutality. In an op-ed (“Trolling Democracy”) last July, Nathan Taylor Pemberton wrote that Trump 2 and Republican surrogates have
relentlessly posted sadistic memes about policy decisions in the style of social media trends. A highlight reel of ICE arrests set to “Ice Ice Baby.” An A.S.M.R.-style video that features people in shackles boarding a deportation flight. An image of a woman being arrested, rendered in the style of a Hayao Miyazaki movie. The vice president has threatened his critics with deportation via a GIF image. One Republican congressman even suggested that an undocumented migrant be thrown out of a helicopter, Pinochet style. Faced with criticism over one such taunting post, Kaelan Dorr, a White House press aide, announced: “The arrests will continue. The memes will continue.”
In August Tess Owen wrote in Wired:
In recent months, official government social media accounts—primarily for the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and the White House—have resembled parodies of themselves. But experts say it’s intentional: The memes these accounts share are core to the Trump administration’s propaganda strategy. Through them, with attempts at Gen Z humor as the gateway, the administration reinforces an “us vs. them” mindset. Along with normalizing mass deportation, they also tap into Christian nationalist narratives and reach young men via callous jokes that have been recycled through the far-right online ecosystem.
Then Chicago
By the time Trump’s militarized federal agents reached Chicago, in September, ICE had become more violent. In October Politico reported:
In suburban Chicago last month, a masked ICE agent shot a pepper ball into the head of a Presbyterian pastor as he prayed outside an ICE facility. Another ICE agent fatally shot a Mexican immigrant in Illinois. Also last month, in New York City, an ICE officer was removed from duty after he was captured on video forcibly shoving a woman to the ground outside an immigration court. Meanwhile, earlier this month, ICE agents conducted a military-style raid on a South Side Chicago apartment building, detaining hundreds of residents, many of whom are U.S.-born children.
Directing violence and terror at perceived enemies
These assaults, unlike anything our country had seen before 2025, are directed by the White House.
In May the Washington Examiner reported a meeting in Washington featuring Stephen Miller with the top 50 ICE field officials.
“Miller came in there and eviscerated everyone. ‘You guys aren’t doing a good job. You’re horrible leaders.’ He just ripped into everybody. He had nothing positive to say about anybody, shot morale down,” said the first official, who spoke with those in the room that day.
“Stephen Miller wants everybody arrested. ‘Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?’” the official recited.
The White House got what it wanted. On May 28, 2025, the White House account on X posted this tweet, which has been viewed 1.9 million times:
Watch: ICE Tip Sparks EPIC Takedown of 5 Illegal Aliens Outside Home Improvement Store
Amplifying the threats to create fear far and wide
For the White House, amping up violence and terrorizing communities wasn’t enough. High federal officials articulating lies and slander wasn’t enough. The Trump administration sought to amplify the threats to immigrants and citizens alike so the message was crystal clear and hard to miss. In December, the Washington Post reviewed thousands of internal messages to tell the story (“IT’S A WAR – Inside ICE’s media machine”).
Seeking to satisfy White House demands, ICE responded frantically. From the Post’s story:
“To feed the beast” ICE scrambled to hire videographers to record the arrests and deportations. They worked overtime, filming day and night, to make the White House happy.
ICE added soundtracks (often violating copyright laws) to boost the likelihood of going viral.
To make the clips more frightening and “action-packed” ICE distorted what was happening on the ground. Many detainees had no criminal records; ICE simply crafted increasingly aggressive narratives. To mislead, they used video clips from distant cities taken months earlier. They edited women out of deportation videos, so the folks portrayed seemed scarier.
One official advised: “If the truth of the operation does not match the narrative of the ‘worst of the worst,’ it’s going to be killed.” Meaning: the video clip won’t be posted on social media.
We’ve learned from other sources — here and here and here and here and here, for instance — that ICE has deployed white nationalist, white supremacist, and Nazi language, graphics, books, and songs in its campaigns as well. All the better to demonize immigrants.
ICE gave exclusive access to its operations and video clips to rightwing influencers who could rouse up their followers with “wild scenes.”
ICE officials celebrated when the White House posted their clips (like the one immediately above this section). “White House just ran with it!” It didn’t take long for ICE to hit its stride with divisive, violent clips that pleased the White House.
On June 10, after hearing from the White House demanding highlights of the “worst of worst LA arrests across relevant accounts/channels,” ICE’s media machine went into overdrive posting 38 tweets over 11 hours.
The White House directive around the L.A. protests forced the agency to play more of an “attack-dog” role online to keep up with the administration’s demands, one former worker on the DHS media team told The Post.
“That was the turning point to get even more aggressive with their messaging, and to paint pictures of these places as war-torn,” he said. “There was a much more blustery edge, and a need to put stuff out as quickly as you can. You’re steamrolling everything.”
Minnesota and Minnesotans under fire
We’ve learned that(consistent with standard operating procedure when law enforcement uses lethal force) the FBI opened an investigation of the ICE shooting of Renee Good, but officials have shut it down. We also know that the feds have refused to share evidence of the shooting with Minnesota officials, have opened up an investigation of Mayor Jacob Frey and Governor Tim Walz, and that DOJ officials are pushing for an investigation of Good’s partner.
Yesterday we learned that DOD has placed 1,500 soldiers from the 11th Airborne Division at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska on standby for possible deployment to Minneapolis.
An out of control president, acting on resentment and whim, threatens us all.
Americans are confronting democratic erosion far beyond anything previously experienced in our lifetimes. We are witnessing a wannabe authoritarian — without an appreciation of, much less a commitment to democratic institutions — using the levers of power to dominate the country, enrich himself, and sow vengeance. The liberties guaranteed us by the Constitution, the separation of powers, the rule of law, the impartial administration of justice — all are at risk.