On thugs
Those of us who tried to stop Trump from ever coming to power—and who then tried to stop his return to power—were accused of hysterics, of Trump Derangement Syndrome, when we talked about authoritarianism and the death of liberal democracy. Yet masked government agents summarily executing protesters in the street, under the orders and protection of the president, is now the reality and even the defining image of the United States—or at least the defining image of Minnesota, and the model will soon be exported nationally if it isn’t stopped right now by coast-to-coast revulsion and defiance. Let all those who denied what was happening, or who justified it, including in the comments section of this blog, hang their heads in shame forever.
People will say: but Scott, just recently you wanted Trump to overthrow the gangster regime in Venezuela! You want him, even now, to overthrow the bloodthirsty murderers in Iran! That makes you practically a Trumper yourself! How can you now turn around and condemn him?
Difficult as this might be for many to understand, my position has always been that I’m consistently against all empowered thugs everywhere on earth. If I’m against Trump’s personal thug army executing (so far) two peaceful protesters, then certainly I should be against Ayatollah Khamenei’s thug army executing 20,000 protesters, and Putin’s thug army executing however many it has. I’m also aware that, for Trump and his henchmen like Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem, Khamenei and Putin and the like are models and inspirations. No one can doubt at this point that Miller and Noem would gladly execute ten thousand or ten million peacefully protesting Americans if they expected to get away with it.
When two thugs fight each other, I favor whichever outcome will lead to fewer of the world’s people under thug rule. Or if one thug can still be defeated in an election and the other thug can be defeated only in war, then I favor electoral defeat where it’s possible and military overthrow where it isn’t.
This is a stance, I’ve learned, that will lose you friends. People will say: “I get why you’re against their thugs, but how can you also be against our thugs?” I’m writing this post in the hope that, even if people hate me, at least they won’t be confused. I’m also writing, frankly, in the hope that a few days will go by with me having discharged my moral obligation not to be silent, so then maybe I can do some science.
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Comment #1 January 25th, 2026 at 7:15 am
Without going into specifics concerning the people (or thugs) mentioned, I fear that ‘global thugness’ similar like entropy does not easily decrease. If you use thug One to get rid of thug Two, thug One as well as not mentioned third thugs will be strengthened and emboldened enough that the final state will be at least bad as the original state. See various cases throughout history.
Comment #2 January 25th, 2026 at 7:28 am
Thanks & good luck to all of us. This year looks scary: the last time the U.S. split open, the death toll was ugly.
Maybe we should all just flee to Israel? According to commenter “Israel is winning,” it’s super safe over there. Sure, the local government has issued a few alerts… but don’t you worry, Bibi just has a rather spicy sense of humor. Like Adolf.
Comment #3 January 25th, 2026 at 8:02 am
You call it thugs. The NYT calls it State Terror:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/opinion/state-terror-has-arrived.html?unlocked_article_code=1.HFA.nLRc.cVu5sod8lPQm
Comment #4 January 25th, 2026 at 8:05 am
I share your dislike of thugs but I’m less supportive of trump taking action against them because with Trump doing the removing I have to consider all sorts of ways the subject populations can end up worse off than before.
Comment #5 January 25th, 2026 at 8:35 am
Thanks for this message Scott. It’s painful that one has to be this explicit these days, but it’s even more painful to see what is happening to the USA (and the world, partially because of our own responsibilities FWIW)
Your position was always clear to me, even if I vehemently disagreed with you on a few counts, but I could hear your position clearly and I respected it. It pains me to see the situation in the UN (and your opinion about it). Yes UN is not perfect and needs reform, but it’s clear that the thugs want only to dismantle it to replace it with something of their liking. Such as that group of “pacifist” friends, buying their role with amount of money, and giving the master full king powers, including the sole right to chose the successor…
Comment #6 January 25th, 2026 at 10:37 am
I don’t feel empowered to dispute other people’s opinions, as long as we agree on the facts, e.g., Trump is an idiotic narcissistic sociopath, probably with onset Alzheimer’s, but your stance seems to me close to a variation of “the ends justify the means”, which I was taught in my formative years to be a suspect philosophy, albeit with some, notably rare, exceptions.
Anyway, I would be happy to march with you in protests against Trump’s reign of terror, and remain an admirer of your mathematical and scientific work.
Comment #7 January 25th, 2026 at 10:55 am
JimV #6: Nowhere in this post did I say anything remotely like “the ends justify the means,” or “I feel justified to inflict suffering now because of some 4D chess reason why I think it will lead to less suffering later.” In fact, quite the contrary: my focus is on relieving the maximum amount of suffering right now, balanced only by my desire to defeat the maximum amount of evil and injustice right now, which I don’t think counts as “4D chess.”
Comment #8 January 25th, 2026 at 11:09 am
i think there is still reason to hope that Kristi Noem would hesitate before ordering the execution of 10,000 protestors. Even Khamenei and Putin would, I suspect, prefer to avoid executing 10 million of their own citizens. I think you may well be right about Millar, though.
Comment #9 January 25th, 2026 at 11:30 am
It’s beyond shocking, what’s going on in Minneapolis. It’s a city I admire greatly, and respect for its openness and generosity of spirit. To see masked federal agents pepper-spraying restrained people in the face, dragging people from their homes without warrants, shooting at will. Detaining children!
I truly don’t know how the country moves on from here. One path (that of least resistance) seems easy, and leads to a very dark place indeed. All other paths seem much more difficult, and with uncertain outcomes in the near future.
I wish my American friends well.
Comment #10 January 25th, 2026 at 1:51 pm
Maybe, just maybe, illegal aliens should be deported.
I’m amazed at how anything that the Trump administration does is bad, but when other administrations deported people, there was no noise. And ICE is doing this work in other states, but only Minnesota is not cooperating, but the problem is ICE and not, well, Minnesota.
“Execution”.
Comment #11 January 25th, 2026 at 2:07 pm
So now you want to put down the T.rex. Do you hope that before the T.rex dies, it will eat more of the thugs harassing Jewish students in US universities? Perhaps send ICE after them, again?
Comment #12 January 25th, 2026 at 2:13 pm
To me, perhaps even more frightening than the state-sanctioned murder in itself is the victim blaming many Americans seem to engage in. On another blog I read a comment to the effect of “Why was this nurse not attending to his ICU patients?” Others pretend that the video evidence is not clear enough. The truth is too painful to acknowledge.
First they came for…
I agree that the downfall of the Khamenei regime is desperately to be desired, by any means. Still, the hypocrisy of Trump pretending to care about the slaying of protesters in Iran, while calling the victims of his own executioners ‘terrorists’, just like the Iranian governing scum is doing, is off the scale.
Comment #13 January 25th, 2026 at 2:22 pm
2 protesters killed in messy accidents. That’s bad.
But ≈55 people died in ICE operations during the Obama presidency.
But Trump got in his first year ≈10000 less homicides than during Biden’s first year.
Let Trump remigrate criminals and enforce law. ≈9998 lives saved. Media would have downplayed them, because being killed by criminals does not help the politically correct propaganda.
Comment #14 January 25th, 2026 at 3:12 pm
HV #11: I’ve always wanted to put down (or rather, disempower and ideally imprison) the T. Rex. I’ve never wavered from that position even once in the last decade, even when others around me did so, seeing more advantage that way for the causes they cared about.
And yes, when Jews all over the world are once again getting ripped apart by the velociraptors—harassed at universities, kicked out of clubs and professional societies, boycotted, subjected to vandalism and arson, murdered at a beach festival or on the streets of Washington DC, called “genocidal” if they refuse to acquiesce in their own genocide—and no one else comes to their aid, I’m ready for anyone to do so, even if it’s the T. Rex.
I see zero inconsistency here. If you see an inconsistency, that’s your problem, not mine.
I will always, always stand against all those who I perceive as bullies and thugs, in every instance, everywhere on earth. I like to think that I’d continue to do so if I lost all my friends over it, lost my career, lost everything my family owned. So certainly I’ll do so if the cost is merely some anonymous blog-trolls getting mad at me! 🙂
Comment #15 January 25th, 2026 at 3:21 pm
Iustin Pop #10 and Alessandro Strumia #13: At risk of stating the obvious, the core issue here is not ICE deporting people, nor is it even ICE agents murdering two protesters who posed zero threat to them, as everyone can confirm for themselves on video.
Rather, the issue is that after those murders happen, the President and the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Homeland Security Adviser announce to the nation that there will be no investigation and the murderers will face no consequences, because the new reality is that ICE is the President’s personal killing squad that gets to murder anyone it wants with impunity. I.e., that we now effectively live in a totalitarian state, and the Constitution is a dead letter.
We all saw this. You can’t gaslit the sane ~60% of the country, and persuade them that it’s something other than what they saw. So you can either engage with it or get lost.
Comment #16 January 25th, 2026 at 4:08 pm
So the trouble is, both sides say that “you can’t gaslight the sane 60% of the country and persuade them that it’s something other than what they saw. So I guess what’s left is to set up a prediction market about some sort of verdict of history, but I don’t know how to define the question and adjudication adequately.
Comment #17 January 25th, 2026 at 4:49 pm
Alessandro Strumia #13: “2 protesters killed in messy accidents.”
I find it very telling that some people use this kind of euphemism. A cold-blooded execution becomes a ‘messy accident’. What’s wrong with people like you? Did you stand in the back of the queue when empathy and common decency were being handed out? You know who else were good at covering up atrocities with euphemisms?
Scott #15: Well said.
Comment #18 January 25th, 2026 at 5:11 pm
Either you believe this is just chaos from an amateurish administration or someone has been carefully studying 1930s Germany to come up with a clear plan to stage those outrageous public executions and subsequent obvious lies from the regime to create so much anger against those federal “agents” that it’s only a matter of time before the other side uses violence as well, then the insurrection act will be invoked, then the cancellation of elections until “peace is restored”, which is never because they’ll make sure to never de-escalate the violence.
Comment #19 January 25th, 2026 at 5:42 pm
Dr. Aaronson at #7:
Well, for example, justifying breaking International Laws which we would condemn other nations from doing, and killing 80 civilians, in order to depose a foreign dictator, would seem to be a classic case of “the end justifies the means”. The same applies to killing innocent Palestinians in Gaza in order to eradicate Hamas.
Yes, you did not say the exact words “the ends justify the means”, but that is how I interpreted what you did say (in various posts). I am confused as to how it could be interpreted otherwise.
For the record you are probably a better person than I am and have certainly done more for humanity.
Comment #20 January 25th, 2026 at 6:11 pm
Everybody is against thugs and wants to see the thugs stopped. Including the roughly half of politically-active Americans who are well and truly convinced that Renee Good and Alex Pretti were murderous thugs enabled by the treacherous Minneapolis government to go out and assassinate honest police officers trying to do their jobs.
Also, nobody is going to agree to a policy of only taking action against thugs until they’ve checked with Scott Aaronsen as to whether or not they are really thugs.
So yes, we do kind of need a rules-based order that says we don’t go after thugs until some defined and hopefully impartial process has determined that, yep, those guys are actually thugs. Which will be a human process, and therefore fallible, and so sometimes we will be left looking at what seems to us to be obvious thuggery, and accepting that we’re not going to do anything about it.
The only alternative is a free-for-all in which everyone including the thugs goes all in against everyone they don’t like shouting “those guys are thugs, and all right-thinking people are opposed to thuggery!”. And if you’re thinking the Good Guys will come out on top in this free-for-all, maybe consider that the people most eagerly pushing for that state of affairs are people you and I would consider obvious thugs.
“Thugs”, is too ill-defined to be useful for this purpose.
Comment #21 January 25th, 2026 at 6:16 pm
Well said. I fully concur. I am against thugs and bullies, period. End of story. It’s amazing how many people don’t get this simple stance. Yes, there are plenty of grey areas in morality and ethics. Almost nothing is truly black and white. But this one seems pretty close.
Comment #22 January 25th, 2026 at 6:20 pm
JimV #19: The problem with “the end justifies the means” (or “you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs”) is that anyone who would kill people based on such vapid generalities is probably mistaken about whether the means in question will produce the desired end, or whether the end is worth attaining at all.
On the other hand, it’s clearly the case that some ends justify some means. For example, you agree that the Allied effort in WWII was, on the whole, just and necessary, despite how many civilians it killed? That, while it could surely have been prosecuted in a way that killed fewer civilians (eg, not bombing Dresden, or only bombing Hiroshima and not Nagasaki), it couldn’t have been prosecuted in a way that wouldn’t have killed many thousands of civilians? And that it would be grotesque, basically Axis propaganda, to compare the Allies’ collateral damage to the Nazi Holocaust or the Rape of Nanking?
If you agree about all that, then you already understand the most important parts of how I think about Israel’s wars of survival against its actually genocidal enemies.
Comment #23 January 25th, 2026 at 6:35 pm
John Schilling #20: But in this case, my side is also the side in favor of a rules-based process! In any sane system that could possibly be designed, there wouldn’t even be a question of whether you have an impartial investigation after government agents shoot protesters in the street and kill them.
Also, a minute on X, or the comments on public Facebook posts, would suffice to show you that not everyone is against thugs. Millions are proudly, openly in favor of what they see as thuggery.
Comment #24 January 25th, 2026 at 8:12 pm
Scott #15: “ICE agents murdering two protesters who posed zero threat to them”
As far as I know, ICE hasn’t murdered any protesters who posed zero threat to them. Renee Good drove her car into an agent so her threat level was well above 0 (yes, I’ve watched the footage from 4 different angles). I do have sympathy for Alex Pretti but I don’t see how you can be so sure that Border Patrol murdered him in cold blood as opposed to the officer mistakenly thinking Pretti was drawing his gun. Anyway that was Border Patrol, not ICE.
I take it the algorithm feeds you content of ICE agents acting thuggishly, but there is also footage of ICE agents behaving calmly and professionally in the face of far worse abuse and harassment than you or I have ever had to put up with (at least in person). Remember that these agents are just people who want to go home to their families at the end of the day, not monsters.
Comment #25 January 25th, 2026 at 8:23 pm
Dr. Aaronson @22:
Thanks for the reply. I don’t claim to be certain, but my impression from various historical readings is that the policy of bombing city centers instead of railroad lines (to and from the underground German factories and other places) was not a necessary or justified one; and that Japan had offered surrender on the condition that their Emperor not be deposed, but that we (having total control of the sea around and air over Japan, with most of the Japanese army across the strait in Russia) held out for unconditional surrender, prior to dropping the atomic bombs; and then MacArthur decided not to depose the Emperor anyway.
We hated the Germans and Japanese during WWII, but it turns out we in the USA are also susceptible of succumbing to authoritarian despots who institute despicable policies.
Comment #26 January 25th, 2026 at 8:37 pm
Martin Mertens #24: There likely still are good people in Border Patrol and ICE, but the ones we saw really did appear to be murderous thugs. As the entire world now knows, and as video from numerous angles proves, Renee Good swerved her car out of the way before she was shot, and Alex Pretti never removed his gun from his holster and was shot 10 times after he was already down and his gun had already been taken from him. If these were nevertheless tragic errors, then fine, let an investigation and a trial determine that. The only reason for the president and his henchmen to say there will be no investigation, the victims obviously deserved it, etc., is to announce that we’re now in a regime of state terror. I can’t look at these data and still imagine that they don’t know exactly what they’re doing.
Comment #27 January 25th, 2026 at 8:52 pm
JimV #25: Yes, historians and ethicists have debated for generations what the Allies could’ve or should’ve done differently, and it’s right that they should debate that enormous question for generations more.
But notice there’s an utterly insane position that zero serious historians, zero historians this side of David Irving and Darryl Cooper, defend—namely, that whatever evils the Allies committed make them just as bad as the Nazis and Imperial Japan, or actually even worse, the latter being victims who were just trying to defend themselves from Allied aggression.
To my mind, the analogous position is every bit as insane when applied to the case of Israel and Hamas. Yet in that case, and only that one, the insane position has millions of eager defenders, all across the world’s universities and NGOs and other elite institutions.
Comment #28 January 25th, 2026 at 9:03 pm
I commented on another one of your posts a few weeks ago that liberal democracy is failing all around the world because nearly every liberal democracy is either collapsing from within (including by turning into an authoritarian state) or at danger of getting invaded by a less liberal neighbor:
https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=9475#comment-2022970
https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=9475#comment-2022994
Another commenter replied that I’m wrong and that the US is not increasingly unable to hold credible elections and no one’s trying to invade Canada or the EU. I think my comments stood the test of time a lot better than theirs did.
Also, re: the current events at hand, the 1997 film The Second Civil War predicted essentially all of this back in 1997 as a result of two main factors: unsustainable levels of immigration and ratings-seeking news media. The only main variable at play, which was the other way around in the movie, was whether a pro-immigration federal government would be forcing anti-immigration states to take immigrants they don’t want, or whether an anti-immigration federal government would be deporting immigrants from pro-immigration states (recall the controversy around the Biden Administration cutting razor wire fences in Texas).
Given that the two main problems here are 1) liberal democracy is an inherently flawed ideology that eventually produces the outcomes we’re seeing (arguably especially when combined with social media) and 2) immigration levels have been excessively and foreseeably high for decades, I don’t think there are really any easy answers here and even if we “stop Trump,” the same basic structural factors will continue to be at play.
Comment #29 January 25th, 2026 at 10:43 pm
Ryan Landay #28: From my perspective, though, the American nativists are almost entirely wrong about immigrants being the source of their problems in life (we can leave European nativists for a separate discussion). The US has absorbed huge numbers of immigrants extremely successfully for centuries. Crucially, it had a nearly open-borders policy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which the nativists themselves look back on as a golden age.
If we look (for example) at Latino, Indian, and Chinese immigrants, they all make absolutely massive contributions to the US economy, and the vast majority of them just want to assimilate and become Americans, as earlier generations of immigrants did. The arguments for reducing immigration seem to me like a combination of forehead-banging economic illiteracy, rank falsehoods (“immigrants commit more crime”), Great Replacement conspiracy theorizing (“more brown people means that white people can’t have lots of kids”), and that old standby, envy and resentment of others’ success even when it’s objectively making you richer.
So, that’s my difficulty with the view that this is fundamental and structural. Just like with the Weimar-era theory that Jewish backstabbing was what made Germany lose WWI, the case seems so ridiculous on the merits, that one wonders whether it would’ve been on anyone’s agenda at all, had one or two enterprising and tragically-gifted demagogues not realized they could stoke it and ride it to power to the detriment of humanity.
Comment #30 January 26th, 2026 at 12:14 am
Trump is a populist demagogue. They can arise in democracies when large segments of the population are dissatisfied with mainstream politicians.
I firmly believe that the US institutions are stronger than this and can withstand, but they will be tested hard. The main thing here is that the balance of power has shifted too much on the direction of presidency on one side and atv the other side the ineffective partisan politics of GOP and DNC have led to desire for presidency that can act and get things done.
The fight over the illegal immigration I think is a fighting in the MAGA’s ground. We need to acknowledge that a large number of Americans are dissatisfied with DNC and progressive immigration policies. So I wouldn’t play the game in there. At the end, what we need is to win the outright majority to our side, and progressive leftist immigration policy is a weak hand. Biden’s immigration policy was a total disaster.
The fact that progressive protesters are fighting this is a wrong strategy. It is similar to politics that led DNC to lose the last election.
Whether they like it or not, Trump does have a popular mandate to fight illegal immigration and the more we play on it, the more it is a win for him in the game of politics. The general American public has a right to prevent illegal immigration and send the existing ones back. That is actually a legitimate democratic desire if majority of Americans.
The winning game here is to focus on economics and show that Trump’s policies are actually making the life worst for ordinary Americans.
Comment #31 January 26th, 2026 at 12:33 am
ps:
The leftist progressive wing of DNC is very harmful for good politics in the US. But it is very difficult for DNC to ditch them because they are a significant part of DNC base. Primaries in the US have led the national politics to be captured by minority of opinionated activists on both sides.
We need to reform that primary system so the choices that we have in the general elections are not limited to those favored by minority of activists and interest groups.
Reactionary politics to what a demagogue does is never a winning strategy in politics. You have to be measured, not outraged, be proactive and not reactive, if you want to win the game. You need to acknowledge why he actually has won the election despite all he has done and said.
You have to think about how the topic will be seen be many Americans you want to win over, not just those that have similar leanings as yourself. Will they see this as government killing innocent ordinary citizens or will they see it as government trying to enforce a policy on illegal immigration that they support and activists trying to prevent the government from performing what is a legitimate democratic mandate and being killed in the fights between them. If it is the later, they might not emphasize with the protesters and activists as you do, but rather with the government.
So we who dislike Trump and want him to be gone need to be careful on what moves we play.
The leftist progressive activists do not see that and will claim that this is all or nothing and it is worth to take a strong stance even if it causes us to lose the game to Trump. You can make your own judgement whether you are in that camp or you are in the camp that actually want to get rid of Trump and willing to acknowledge that he currently has a legitimate democratic mandate to fight illegal immigration.
Comment #32 January 26th, 2026 at 1:43 am
This is a clear and understandable stance, and I think I must agree.
But it’s a sad state of world we are in, when we have to hope the right dictator will win. Hope that he doesn’t turn on us, because we have no recourse when he does.
It’s the age of monsters.
Reason, empathy, reflection, responsibility, democracy, respect for rules and justice, discourse and diplomacy… they are seen as weak, maybe even pathetic. It’s “dominate or lose”. The only way to win is by making others lose. Preferring fast and easy and brutal short-term-profit over investing in long term sustainable growth.
It’s as if the notion of non-zero sum is forgotten
The worst thing is that this is self-perpetuating, even self-accelerating. Because if “the other guy” (always a guy) is strong, we must also elect a strong guy.
Comment #33 January 26th, 2026 at 4:11 am
Yes Scott, these cops would be jailed in Italy. When a cop over-reacts in a messy situation, journalists and judges sentence him based on slow-motion videos. Politicians find convenient to use cops as scapegoats. As a result, our police has such high standards that it’s ineffective. Criminals illegally present in Italy get a paper “go away”, ignore it, sometimes kill people.
It’s a balance, and Trump has the courage to avoid thousands of homicides at the price of a few police homicides, plus an artificial media noise where he is painted as the Hitler of Gestapo ICE thugs risking more assassination attempts.
Comment #34 January 26th, 2026 at 4:17 am
Scott 29.
The US was 90% white in 1950. Now it is 60% white. How is white replacement a “conspiracy theory?”
Comment #35 January 26th, 2026 at 4:50 am
In my view Jimmy Carter was a horrible president. He was considered that by many at the time and lost his re election bid in a landslide. History has also not been kind. He oversaw the destabilization of the Shah and assisted Khomeini’s return after secret meetings in Paris. He oversaw the first oil shock and lengthy gas lines and very high inflation.
I have no supernatural ability to peer into souls and see their objective reality as some political clans claim (reasonable for extreme cases I agree). In Carter’s case however I personally believe he had greater purity of soul than any other president in the modern era. Absolutely honest and principled and even refused to profit from his presidency in any way after he left office but just a bad president in practice.
There is no soul weighing service that can determine fitness for office except for those deeply embedded in ideology that falsely claim to auger souls. To read some of these comment you would conclude that Trump put Renee Good and Alex Pretti on a kill list and loosed his feral assassination squad to eliminate them because he has an evil soul. Actually they both were intentionally obstructing the duties of a law enforcement officer and so cannot be considered blameless. I am sure there are some political operatives that hoped for EXACTLY this to happen. I am not happy that this happened but high probability of occurrence given the situation.
How did Minneapolis become the Berkeley of the 21st century? They went from lutefisk festivals to Blows Against the Empire very quickly.
Comment #36 January 26th, 2026 at 6:48 am
Matthijs #32
Age of monsters relative to the totality of human history? Compared to the Assyrians, the Roman Empire, the Gaulish tribes, the African tribal conflicts, the slave trading British Empire, the Mongols, the Nazis, Belgian Congo, the Aztecs, the Ottomans, Japanese occupation of China and Korea, Khmer Rouge and so on and so on. Oh, so Trump stands out as a particularly evil leader relative to the above.
Comment #37 January 26th, 2026 at 8:01 am
Scott #27
>To my mind, the analogous position is every bit as insane when applied to the case of Israel and Hamas. Yet in that case, and only that one, the insane position has millions of eager defenders, all across the world’s universities and NGOs and other elite institutions.
When thug defenders sees the same videos as everyone else, they don’t report seeing a cold blood murder, and usually escape reality through cheap tricks (“thug is ill-defined”, “Obama did worse”).
You can guess where I’m going, right?
When you defend Israel, you don’t see the systematic destruction of Gaza, including killing 2-4% of the Palestinians, as a genocidal act, and you tend to rely on arguments that fall way short of your usual intellectual sharpness. To name the most spectacular examples: in recent discussions you’ve implied that the IDFs did their best to spare Palestinian lives; you’ve argued that Israel cannot be genocidal as long as they refrain from using their nuclear weapons (apparently missing the fact that such weapons would strike what the thugs in charge consider their own territory); and you’ve repeteadly implied that U.S. war crimes in WWII somehow entitle Israel to a discount on contemporary moral scrutiny (“Obama did worse”).
If you want someday to get why puting Israel on trial has millions of eager defenders all across the world’s universities and NGOs and other elite institutions, my bet is you first need to see these striking similarities with MAGA absolutists trying to defend their falling worldview. No, it’s not because of a lab leak virus devoring our brains. Yes, you can find better explanations.
Comment #38 January 26th, 2026 at 8:40 am
Alessandro Strumia #33:
In democracies, police is kept to high standards by definition, that is exactly the difference between liberal democracies and dictatorships a-la-Putin.
Are you that scared by crime that you are willing to condone masked, unchecked and poorly trained police?
Yes, of course you may think this is for the greater good. What do you think the good German citizens thought of the Brown shirts? Better their violence than the communists or the greedy jews starving our countrymen. And anyhow they are not targeting us, they are targeting them. We are not communists, we are not jews, we are not paperless immigrants from third world countries and surely we do not have the balls to protest in the streets in the face of masked ICE agents.
But once, out of your fears, you accept that a police force moves beyond accountability, there is no turning back. The authoritarian genie is out of the bottle.
Comment #39 January 26th, 2026 at 9:41 am
Alessandro #33
Trump has no courage, he just wants to project the image of a strongman, and is jealous of other’s accomplishment (see Nobel Prize discussion).
He is not avoiding any homicides. Crimes by immigrants (even illegal ones) is very rare, besides the illegal presence and sometimes illegal work. There has been only one highly publicized homicide by illegal immigrants. Obama was actually nicknamed the “great deporter” because he was able to deport the illegal immigrants who posed risk to society, and he did so without having to threaten the rule of law.
One can disagree about priorities or about what is “good” or “bad” (e.g. immigration), but due process is extremely important for a democracy, and your comments imply that you put that as secondary, which is the path to reach totalitarianism. I’m appalled that such a smart person like you don’t see that
Comment #40 January 26th, 2026 at 10:43 am
OhMyGoodness #36
The age of monsters as the quote from Antonio Gramsci: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters”
The old, stable world order is going out the door. It’s unclear what will replace it.
What is clear, though, is what we see now: extreme political movements, authoritarian leaders, mass paranoia, scapegoating of minorities, shocking violence, deflection of responsibility, distrust in institutions and allies…
Trump is as much a sign of the times, as he is an instigator and accelerator of the chaos.
(and yes, this also holds for all the other thugs as mentioned in Scotts post, but they have less world-wide influence)
Comment #41 January 26th, 2026 at 11:18 am
Martin Mertens #24,
You have been seeing some alternate reality video. The videos clearly show that Agent Ross walked to the front of the car, and initiated contact by propping his phone on the car with his left hand. Law enforcement is taught to avoid positioning themselves in front of the car to prevent escalation into using deadly force. But there is a lot of evidence that there has been a deliberate practice for officers to place themselves in front of vehicles with unarmed passengers so as to create justification for using deadly force.
Comment #42 January 26th, 2026 at 11:34 am
Roaming zombie #37: I always think about such questions by asking myself, what other choices did they have?
The Trump administration had a obvious choice: to simply refrain from sending its thugs into Minneapolis, a very nice city whose people were in no way clamoring for a paramilitary to take over its streets, demand to see papers, shoot protesters, etc. There is no crisis; the existence of one was manufactured. Yes, there were problems (when aren’t there?), including certain Somali-American organizations stealing billions of dollars of public funds. The solution to that problem is fraud prosecutions, which are happening, and the resignations or votings-out of public officials. Sending masked agents to patrol the streets does nothing whatsoever to address that problem, except in the minds of idiots.
By contrast, the Allies in WWII had the following choice: either fight, or else let the Nazis, Imperial Japanese, and their allies divide the planet between themselves, and exterminate or enslave everyone they consider inferior. You agree with that, right?
If so, then you’ll understand my view that the Israelis, for generations, have had an even starker choice: either fight, or else literally be annihilated to the last man, woman, and child, by enemies whose openly declared intention is to slaughter every Jew (or failing that, expel every last Jew from the Middle East), and thereby purify Dar al-Islam.
As with the WWII Allies, but even more so, everything Israel does has to be evaluated in light of that existential threat, a continuation of the existential threat that the Jewish people have faced for millennia. So, unless you either start with that reality, or else persuade me that it’s not the reality—that the threat of annihilation is empty, October 7 was just an aberration, etc.—you’re wasting your words.
Comment #43 January 26th, 2026 at 11:36 am
Scott #29:
You are a big fan of rules and orderly liberal society. In this very thread you mention “rules-based process”.
I think the *primary* argument in the direction of reducing immigration is precisely that: we have rules and laws about immigration, and we should enforce those laws for all the very same reasons you like rules and order.
Comment #44 January 26th, 2026 at 11:46 am
Anonymous Coward #43: So that’s fine, enforce the immigration laws. What would make the biggest difference there by far, would actually be hiring more judges, to clear the immense backlog of immigration cases.
It seems obvious to me, as it does to the majority of Americans, that sending masked paramilitary thugs to patrol the streets massively decreases, rather than increases, the total amount of “order” and “lawfulness” in the country.
If Stephen Miller had to decided to enforce cleanliness ordinances by sending masked goons to execute on sight anyone who they even suspected of leaving gum on the sidewalk, and people objected to that, it wouldn’t necessarily mean they were against public cleanliness.
Comment #45 January 26th, 2026 at 12:11 pm
Matthijs #40
Post WW 2 levels of peace and prosperity are the anomaly in human history but still there were less publicized horrors like in Cambodia (financed largely by the Chinese) that involved more than a million deaths. When I see “now” described as the age of monsters I recoil knowing the acts I consider monstrous throughout history. I think then this is a result of the population most protected from monsters in the history of the world not having broad enough experience to reliably place current events on a reasonable (in my view) historical scale.
In my view the well known groups in the world today that are committing monstrous acts are Islamists and the drug cartels. I am not even considering their products in labeling Cartels monstrous but just their manner of doing business. I certainly do not consider Trump nor the US government as monstrous. I don’t know enough about the various conflicts in Africa to make a determination there. Islamists include the African groups that I am aware of that are capable of truly horrific acts.
Comment #46 January 26th, 2026 at 12:23 pm
The strength of Patel, Bondi, and Bovino is that their combined IQ doesn’t even add up to 100, so they can keep a straight face while regurgitating all those stupendous lies, because it takes them full concentration to merely remember and deliver them. A normal human being would realize how crazy they sound, get nervous, break a sweat, and be overwhelmed by nervous ticks.
Comment #47 January 26th, 2026 at 12:26 pm
Ty-ty #46: That’s indeed their superpower; I couldn’t have said it better.
Comment #48 January 26th, 2026 at 12:49 pm
Ty-ty #46
Someone posted Carney’s Davos speech as equivalent to I Have a Dream (Shmi?). My thoughts on Carney is that he is smarter than Trudeau, Biden, and Trump combined but unfortunately I don’t agree with his politics. He seems to me the quintessential EU technocrat. He is pro-China (although swearing no trade deal), anti-Israel, and anti-US. Those are his biases in my estimation.
Comment #49 January 26th, 2026 at 1:01 pm
Scott #44:
Sorry, I was responding to this: > The arguments for reducing immigration seem to me like a combination of forehead-banging economic illiteracy, rank falsehoods (“immigrants commit more crime”), Great Replacement conspiracy theorizing (“more brown people means that white people can’t have lots of kids”), and that old standby, envy and resentment of others’ success even when it’s objectively making you richer.
I thought that your list did not include what-seemed-to-me the primary argument and also a “major order term”, representing over 10^7 people. I also thought that you would support this argument in your words. As such, I felt the list was unfair.
But even though you say “that’s fine /, enforce the immigration laws”, honestly I’d guess you don’t actually support deporting ten million people (or even one million people), regardless of whether there are judges or not. (Do you?)
Here’s my attempt to contribute to the discussion: I think the majority of Americans have consistently believed that they wish to reduce illegal immigration, over a period of decades. (Their desires have been systematically ignored by both major parties.) I also think the majority of Americans can’t stomach deporting ten million people, and what that would involve. One possible result of this logical problem is a fascist leader with an army of thugs.
Comment #50 January 26th, 2026 at 1:03 pm
@OhMyGoodness #45
Fully agree with that. But then, we can always point to something _more horrible_, right?
Killing a cat is not so bad, if you look at how many cows are slaughtered per day.
And no, Trump is not a monster when compared to Khamenei.
But, that’s not what I meant with a time of monsters. I meant the decay of reason, humility, empathy, justice, consensus, agreements – and specifically I meant what seems to come into its place. Violence, disregard, stoicism, victim blaming, racism, blame-shifting, shouting. Those are the metaphorical monsters, together with the people who employ such tactics.
That may have been normal for other parts of the world, it’s new to come to power in _my world_. And leading the chaos in my world is Trump atm.
Comment #51 January 26th, 2026 at 1:05 pm
Pat #34:
The US was 90% white in 1950. Now it is 60% white. How is white replacement a “conspiracy theory?”
Dude. When the original settlers to the US were augmented by waves of Irish and Italian Catholics, was that a “Protestant replacement” conspiracy? Many at the time certainly thought so, but in hindsight that seems laughable. For, crucially, the Protestants were never actually replaced! They got to stay too, and reproduce as much as they wanted. They were fine.
So then, why isn’t it fundamentally similar with the Hispanics, Indians, Chinese, and countless others who’ve arrived since the 1960s? At risk of stating the obvious, none of them “replaced” a single white person.
Yes, the white birthrate has gone down, but the black and Asian and Hispanic birthrates have similarly gone down! And not just in the US, but in China, India, and nearly everywhere else outside sub-Saharan Africa! So the cause of the birthrate collapse, clearly, is something to do with modernity itself, rather than the idiotic fantasy of hordes of brown people “replacing” whites. The serious pronatalist thinkers understand this and take it as their starting point when discussing solutions.
Comment #52 January 26th, 2026 at 2:09 pm
Matthijs #50
May you only have to deal with metaphorical monsters.
As I have stated previously many saw the pre-Trump status quo as sleepwalking into an undesirable future with poor and overly ideological education, declining US life expectancy, disrespect for merit, open contempt for rural populations (undesirables etc), open borders, constant charges of racism, men in women’s sports, and the list goes on. Many people considered that as chaos (pre-Trump) but in your view Trump is the purveyor of chaos so it appears a difference of political opinion that colors how the world is viewed.
Trump routinely seems to overvalue his hand so I don’t know how the mid-terms will turn out. I hope everyone learns from this and political positions on both sides move more to the middle in the interest of really resolving the issues that the US faces but not too optimistic. It’s just blood sport now but best to assume for the sake of improvement that both parties are equally guilty.
Comment #53 January 26th, 2026 at 3:50 pm
On immigration, it doesn’t matter what you think is right path as a progressive.
What matters is right now there is reaction to immigration across the Western countries, from Germany to UK to even Canada. It is not just the US.
The progressive want to bury their heads on the sand about this, cause the progressive base has a different perspective.
If you want to see an example of what Democrats should do to get rid of Trump, look at Canada. Their population is significantly more liberal and progressive than ours. It was pretty settled that the Liberals will lose to Trump-like Conservatives.
What happened? They got rid of their unwilling to go leader earlier, he was a young handsome at your face progressive, they didn’t replace him with another at your face literal like AOC or Bernie Sanders, they got someone who is closer to the middle, they announced they will do many of the things that conservatives had in their plan but in a way that does not violate their values.
They stopped being caged into support Hamas by leftist progressives, they won back Jewish heavy ridings they had lost in mid-terms, they announced they will be rolling back the legal immigration back to pre-Trudeau area, cutting it in half, they announced they will cancel carbon tax (it is the most efficient way to fight climate change but it is too toxic now so not good policy), they announced they will invest heavily in building homes, work to reduce the inflation, they announced that they will support law enforcement particularly in areas that voters are concerned about increased crime, … and they put someone who clearly has economic credibility.
And mind you, they didn’t replace their leader with the deputy leader who was tainted by the same politics. They brought in someone who wouldn’t need to defend the policies of the past government.
Instead of losing the election and being wiped out, they actually won the election, even increasing the number of seats they had on the parliament, after 11 years of Trudeau government.
They have cut on the progressive value signaling and have focused on bread and butter issues.
And that is Canada, a country which has been much more welcoming to immigration, and has generally a much more progressive population.
That is the winning strategy on the US politics as well. We need a democratic candidate that has the economic credibility, who holds progressive values but isn’t at your face, isn’t a populist socialist, who can speak to people outside the base on bread and butter issues.
We can play the game Trump wants here on illegal immigration, or we can focus on winning the election and restoring the republic after a demagogue by listening rather than rejecting what voters actually care about.
Comment #54 January 26th, 2026 at 4:11 pm
To Anon #30: Thank you! My feelings exactly.
To everyone else: Please force yourself to write out the most generous possible account of the other side’s position. Do this if only to give better arguments to persuade those who are on or near the fence (which btw is exactly who you should be trying to persuade). And if you can’t do that, or you refuse to, you’ve implicitly conceded that you have a limited understanding of things. After all the country is roughly split on the issue, and there are many sane and intelligent and good people on the other side.
Comment #55 January 26th, 2026 at 5:00 pm
>the Allies in WWII had the following choice: either fight, or else let the Nazis, Imperial Japanese, and their allies divide the planet between themselves, and exterminate or enslave everyone they consider inferior. You agree with that, right?
Couldn’t they at least postpone this decision for a few years? Oh wait…
More seriously, I follow Asimov on this: the Allies didn’t “have” to resort to violence because violence was inevitable, they had to resort to it because they had been spectacularly incompetent with the Versaille treaty, which was then systematically instrumentalized to cultivate resentment, conspiracy thinking, and the nasty human inclination to elevate strong thugs under duress. The second time the US proposed the Marshal plan, and Germany turned into a peacefull state. Smarter move, better results.
(ok I have to admit the Great depression was even more important, but many economists say that was incompetence too)
> So, unless you either start with that reality, or else persuade me that it’s not the reality—that the threat of annihilation is empty, October 7 was just an aberration, etc.—you’re wasting your words.
Ok, let’s start from “October 7 wasn’t an aberration but a promise: a guarantee that you must fight, or else everyone you love dies”.
Would that premise justify shooting yourself in the foot?
Does it justify fighting in a way that ensures the next generations will inherit nothing but fear and desire for revenge? Does the logic of survival automatically require strategies that risk turning your own state into an international pariah? How do we go from “we must fight” to “we must escalate in ways that increase odds that the conflict metastasizes”? Because if you begin with a premise of existential threat, then you must also confront the equally existential consequences of responses that deepen the cycles of hatred, delegitimize your position, and undermine your own security in the long term. Don’t you see that as a legitimate concern even from your own premisse?
Comment #56 January 26th, 2026 at 8:16 pm
The awful thing here is that both parties have become extremists, like Communists and Nazis in Germany a century ago. One party would murder Jews, impose censorship, and nationalize everything, and the other would murder immigrants and protesters. I didn’t vote for POTUS in the last elections because none of the parties is anywhere close to acceptable.
Comment #57 January 26th, 2026 at 9:05 pm
Michael P #56: I’m as paranoid as the next person, but I think you have to go really far out into the fringes of the DSA before you find Democrats who actively want to murder Jews, rather than merely being too naïve about other people who do. Whereas the Republican Party, as recreated by Trump, is all fringe: that’s the essential difference.
Comment #58 January 27th, 2026 at 12:50 am
Scott #57: We all saw the pro-Hamas protests on basically every university campus. This is not a fringe issue in the Democratic party and even if these people are indeed “naïve,” that does not make the issue go away. Meanwhile, white Christian Republicans, especially older ones, are probably some of the Jews’ best allies on the entire planet. But I think they wonder sometimes why the support doesn’t seem to be as strong in the other direction.
Comment #59 January 27th, 2026 at 2:38 am
Anon #53 — it’s a nice story you can invent for yourself, but it doesn’t ring true to this Canadian. In particular, a story that doesn’t mention Poilievre, public views of/political associations tied to Poilievre, or annexation threats is rather incomplete.
Comment #60 January 27th, 2026 at 3:28 am
Dear Ex-Italian Lurker #38,
At the moment it’s not a choice between order or freedom.
It’s a choice between order and freedom (now on the right side) or anarcho-tyranny (cancel culture and open borders are now on the woke left side).
Comment #61 January 27th, 2026 at 4:43 am
Roaming zombie #42: You talk about the next generations desiring revenge, but that’s not what the empirical evidence shows. It shows that actually they are giving up and realizing that fighting Israel is a bad idea. This is exactly what happened in Germany and Japan too.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1837587397778812944
Comment #62 January 27th, 2026 at 6:17 am
An interesting article, Scott. And some interesting comments. It’s not good to see people get shot by masked men on the streets of America. But I would say this: a hundred years ago the National Socialists caused a whole pile of trouble. Now it’s the International Socialists. You might like to read some of the Fox articles to get a different take on it. See these for example:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/far-left-network-helped-put-alex-pretti-harms-way-made-him-martyr
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/go-big-go-smart-trump-ice-law-how-skip-lefts-pr-trap
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/david-marcus-anti-ice-agitators-adopt-palestinian-tactics-including-martyrdom
I’d also say that what CNN won’t say, is that illegal immigrants are often 50 times more likely to be involved in crime than ordinary citizens. Often violent crime. Antisemitic crime, like in Bondi, where our daughter lives. It’s why Denmark are now so tough on illegal immigrants. They’ve seen the shit show next door which is Sweden. When we were in Copenhagen last year, a report came in of two British nationals over the bridge in Malmo who were found shot dead in a burnt out car. Trump is trying to deport the criminal illegal immigrants. However Tim Walz, Jacob Frey, Peggy Flanagan, and some far-left Democrats are desperate to stop him deporting their imported voters, whom they have been paying handsomely via NGO grants. Hence they whip up a storm with their stochastic terrorism saying things like “put your body on the line”, and deliberately try to make life difficult for ICE. They encourage the activists to organise, and antagonise and goad ICE and border patrol agents every which way they can. They are actively hoping for violence. They want people to die at the hands of ICE. Whilst not caring a flying fig about 35,000 murdered in Iran. They didn’t care about October 7th either. Instead they made up fairy tales about genocide in Gaza, even though Hamas were killing their own people for the publicity value. The point to note, Scott, is that the masked pro-migrant pro-Muslim Marxist mob in Minneapolis want their martyrs. And if that mob wins, one day they’ll be coming for you.
Comment #63 January 27th, 2026 at 7:33 am
Anon #30 #31 #53
That would be the reasonable thing to do, but in my opinion the gene is out of the bottle, and it would not work anymore.
In fact, one of the reason why Harris/Waltz/Biden failed at the last election, was partly because they tried to do that. They tried (and failed) to walk a middle line for Israel/Hamas. They lost both categories. They tried to continue to walk a middle line in the energy policies, as they had done during the administration: strongly supporting renewables while still continue to support pipelines for heavy oil and the like. They lost both categories. You can rightly argue that they tried to do something for immigration and DEI but didn’t do anything — yet Obama did *a lot* for combating illegal immigration (many on the left argued he did *too much*) while still protecting other law-abiding people, but that did not help him (or rather his successor) a bit.
The fact is, that the social media have completely ruined the middle-ground and compromise policies. That possibility has kept the western countries safe and somewhat functional for about 70 years, but now that is impossible to continue. In the name of “stronger engagement”, people are fed extremist content on both sides, and the middle is pushed aside. Objectively, now the right is winning and is behaving very bad. From an electoral perspective they simply rode some discontent, and the left failed the campaign really bad as you say. Discontent was fueled by a few excess in left policies, but now the winners rather than simply give the needed correction of course they are completely destroying everything western societies were based on. After that, I doubt that a potential future left-leaning administration will simply put thing to the previous status: I fear that they will act in the same fashion just in a different direction — and I say that with a cringe, because it pains me to foresees it. The old world order is gone
Comment #64 January 27th, 2026 at 10:25 am
#59 Jon
I mentioned Trump-like Conservative leader.
Weren’t the polls predicting that he would win the election against Trudeau and even get a majority and Liberals getting wiped out and maybe famous Liberals announcing they are leaving federal politics before the change of leadership?
Add far as I see none of what I wrote is fiction.
Canada by the way had an actual progressive socialist party.
Comment #65 January 27th, 2026 at 10:53 am
#58
There are fringe pro Hamas folks on the left wing of Democrats, there are also racists in the right wing of Republicans.
The rhetoric from both finds ways to their main, Democrats are more pro Palestinians, Replications have more anti-semites.
The reason most Jews in the US, even if Zionist, vote for Democrats is because our priority is the US, not Israel, and we generally tend to be more liberal, and not conservative Jews. What we want to see on America is leans more towards what liberal Democrats want.
We respect women’s rights, we don’t want the US turn into a religious autocracy, we want freedoms to be reflected, we don’t like racism which rejects thousands of Jews fleeing Nazi massacre in Europe from entering the US, …
We don’t like radical islamists. But we don’t want to through the baby out with the bathwater.
Many of things MAGA is doing is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
In addition to that, we have experience with this kind of right wing populism. Disagree as you please but there are a lot of racist and fascist ideas in MAGA.
I agree with many core issues that MAGA supports call out as problems, wether economic or cultural, that our government has not been taking a good care of particularly uneducated young white men, and that many of them are really patriotic good people who want the best for not just themselves but for America. However I disagree with fake populist solutions that MAGA provides.
Look at the economy. Do you really feel better economically now after what Trump has done? How many manufacturing jobs has he created by his trade policies? How many factories have been opened? These are low wage jobs now and will not be well paying, no one is going to make shoes in the US and have a middle class life.
The economy is now K-shaped under Trump. The top percentile continue to spend more and more, while the rest of population are struggling.
Trump plays on nostalgia of old good times that is not coming back. We need to forge the future, not kid ourselves that we can go back.
There is going to be mass layoffs over the next few years as a result of AI. Millions of people will lose their jobs to AI. 5 million folks drive trucks, in 5 years ago those are gone. Not losing jobs to immigrants or China but to AI and robots. What is MAGA’s plan for that? What is Trump’s plan for that?
Grocery store check out jobs are getting eliminated, Uber drivers will lose their jobs, even white collar workers will lose their jobs. We will see even more concentration of wealth in the hands of fewer people. What is he exactly doing on these?
His policies on what matters are over taken by rich tech bros, life long liberals pretending to be conservative.
The US Federal government budget, we pay more on interest to debt we have than we spend on our military. That is crazy. 2 third of the budgets are entitlements he would not touch, despite having majority in both houses and a friendly supreme court. Everyone knows this cannot continue. What is he doing about that exactly?
Venezuelan oil he talks about so much, do you know that it will take years before any significant increase in production? Do you see actually any of the big US oil companies moving into extracting oil on Venezuela?
He has started to dictate to markets now, trying to change Fed’s instead rate, dictate to companies what they can and cannot do, all free market economics is out the window, we are moving to a statist economy where government dictates the prices like Communist governments, which never ends well.
What you need to understand about Trump is that he is not a successful businessman. He is a showman.
Comment #66 January 27th, 2026 at 11:50 am
@Scott 57:
Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tliab are elected congresswomen, and they are pretty much advocating for violence against “zionists”. Hundreds of New York lawyers signed a letter condemning NYPD chief protecting Jews against pro-palestinian rioters who chanted “worldwide jihad”, which is pretty much call for murdering Jews worldwide. Thousands chanted “from the river to the sea”, which advocates for genocide of Israelis, and the former Harvard presidents said that was not against Harvard policies. Harvard students praised the October 7 massacre as early as October 8. This is not a fringe; this is already substantial and increasing “progressive” part of the Democratic party.
As for Communist leaning, under a different name, look at the new NYC mayor and his housing czar. And AOC and many others. This is not a fringe either.
And censorship under the previous administration was smothering any hint of independent thought, and it was driven by the governing body of the Democratic party, straight from the administration. Was this fringe too?
And Republicans are not the same. We support some of the things Trump is doing, such as fighting institutionalized antisemitism on campuses, hypocrisy of DEI, and censorship. However, many other things he’s doing are just as bewildering to us as they are to you. Many Republicans refrained from voting in the last elections because of that, including me. We see that the evils of fascism and the evils of communism are pretty much the same. Choosing a lesser evil leads to hell. You don’t seem to appreciate that.
Comment #67 January 27th, 2026 at 12:47 pm
Michael P #56, #66: The part you leave out is that the current wave of anti-Israel protests started during the Biden administration, and was directed against Democrats—both the national ones and the ones who run universities. If those mainstream Democrats were more solicitous of protesters than they should’ve been, they were also the targets of the rage.
The Democratic Party includes Tlaib and Mamdani and the DSA, yes, but it also includes Shapiro and Fetterman and Ritchie Torres and Daniel Lurie (the mayor of SF) and up-and-comers like Alex Bores, who seem admirable to me in just about every way. If there was anyone similarly admirable in Republican leadership, they were probably forced out at some point in the last decade and are now dealing with MAGA death threats.
Comment #68 January 27th, 2026 at 1:10 pm
Anon #64,
You said ‘Trump-like conservatives’, which isn’t particularly accurate, and Poilievre himself is not very Trump-like.
The predictions you write about are correct, but your analysis really is a fiction. To go after just one egregious example, there are no mid-term elections in Canada, nor is there a comparable process to US mid-term elections.
The change of leader from Trudeau is relevant, but I haven’t come across anything that suggests the change to Carney was relevant (what was relevant is that Carney is not in the set {Trudeau,Poilievre}).
Comment #69 January 27th, 2026 at 3:49 pm
Israel is winning #61
>You talk about the next generations desiring revenge, but that’s not what the empirical evidence shows. It shows that actually they are giving up and realizing that fighting Israel is a bad idea.
Here’s one thing we can read from your link: “…no moral reckoning took place in the population. 89% still believe that Hamas member didn’t commit atrocities against Israeli civilians.”
In my book that’s empirical evidence that the next generations are more likely to grow up with a desire for revenge — just as we should expect more atrocities if 89% of the Israeli were convinced that their own side had done nothing utterly and fundamentally wrong.
@Scott, thanks for hosting my point of view. I’ve said what I felt the urge to say and will now go back to better pseudos.
Comment #70 January 27th, 2026 at 3:53 pm
#68
As far as I have read, the Conservative leader was trying to act like Trump and sound like Trump, and he was very likely to become the next Prime Minister of Canada.
Regarding mid-terms, sure, I don’t know the exact system there. What I read was that the Liberals lost some riding they had hold by a Jewish Canadian Women in Toronto for many years when she decided to leave politics to a Conservative, a very liberal neighborhood, which sounded like a disaster is on the way, and then the change in leadership to Carney and they won back that seat easily, and that neighborhood has many Jewish voters.
I have seen many who say that if instead of Carney they had some leftist or the deputy prime minister, they would lose the election. The Carney effect is real, and him moving the Library party back to the middle is real.
Canada has a major socialist party, and most Canadians are progressive as far as I understand, but the Conservatives would have won the election, not the socialists, if Trudeau stayed. That is a signal that population doesn’t want the kind of art your face progressive attitude of Trudeau rather than focus on bread and butter issues, and nor the socialist populists (who sound good on paper but lead to economic disaster).
Comment #71 January 27th, 2026 at 5:42 pm
There are by now several videos consisting of analysis of the killing of Alex Pretti. I think the best so far is by Paul Leandowski, a former junior army officer who served in various military roles, including in the military police in Afghanistan. His videos are on YouTube. His conclusion is that the killing of Pretti was murder. Two law professors, Barry Friedman and Stephen Vladeck, write in the New York Times that the path to accountability for the shooters in Minneapolis is narrow. After reading the article, you might conclude the path to justice is non-existent. Which leads me to propose a long-term solution, the “plural executive.” Many state government employ the plural executive, where the attorney general is not appointed by the governor, but is directly elected, and the corresponding justice department is independent of the governor. Consequently, the resulting justice department is independent of the political machinations of the chief executive. On the federal level, the justice department has always been politicized, sometimes extremely so, as under Nixon, and now under Trump. The solution is to remove the federal justice department from the purview of the president and make that department wholly independent. If this happened, then an investigation of an incident such as the Pretti shooting, would be wholly insulated from the politics of the president.
Comment #72 January 27th, 2026 at 6:56 pm
Mayer A Landau #71: I’d be surprised if you can find anything in the US at this point that’s “wholly insulated from the politics of the president,” let alone someone investigating something like this.
Comment #73 January 27th, 2026 at 10:38 pm
Ryan Landay #71. Perhaps. But, the plural executive offers hope. The position of American president is extremely powerful, as Trump, and other presidents before him, have shown. How powerful? Trump has shown that he can order the justice department to initiate politically motivated prosecutions. I believe that that kind of power is inimical to democracy. How did we come to this point? As originally conceived, the attorney general was essentially the president’s lawyer. Then, in 1870, the justice department was created. Over time, the justice department became a powerful legal tool, and powerful tools can be abused. However, this growing power happened slowly over time, so like the boiling frog, Congress was never spooked enough to take a serious look at the justice department and how a president could exploit its power in undemocratic ways. Previous presidents have tried to finesse this contradiction in democratic government by taking a self-imposed hands-off approach to the justice department. But, that’s a personal choice. As Nixon and Trump have shown, there is nothing legally that compels a president to do so. During Nixon’s time, the Republicans joined the Democrats in putting on the brakes, and Nixon resigned. There is no such unified Congress today. The solution is the plural executive, where one part of the executive checks the other.
Comment #74 January 28th, 2026 at 3:05 am
Alessandro #60,
Of course, when we suspend civil rights it is always for the greater good, saving our order and freedom from the barbarians at the gate. That ‘s exactly how democracy dies.
Or perhaps you think that would be dictators and their supporters think: “Ok, now let’s do something really really evil…”.
Comment #75 January 28th, 2026 at 8:09 am
Hardly anyone is pointing out that, after Pretti is shot 10 times, one of the agents is clapping
Comment #76 January 28th, 2026 at 11:33 am
I’m sure you’ve studied the history of the Holocaust in depth, yes? And what led up to it?
Now, when I see university classes describe my people/race as a “pandemic,” “infestation,” and “disease” that must be “dealt with,” that reminds me of what led to the Holocaust.
Speaking of Minnesota: there’s a course at University of Minnesota about the “pandemic of whiteness” and its official materials describe “whiteness” as a disease and say it must be defeated and deconstructed.
This is of course one example among countless, which you should know if you haven’t been living under a rock for 10-15 years.
So: Why again is “whiteness genocide” just a conspiracy theory?
Comment #77 January 28th, 2026 at 1:13 pm
Streets of Minneapolis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWKSoxG1K7w
Enough said.
Comment #78 January 28th, 2026 at 1:14 pm
Pat #76: The “deconstructing whiteness” people are idiots, with both a wrong factual understanding of the world and a bad morality. But I don’t think they mean, even euphemistically, that white people should be mass-murdered, in the way that the Islamists and many of their allies literally want to mass-murder the Jews.
What they mean is that the “patterns of whiteness” (like, uhh, punctuality? scented candles? wearing slacks?) need to be systematically disrupted, so that whites are no longer the world’s oppressor class. Whatever might have been said for this frame of analysis during the heyday of slavery and colonialism, I think it’s definitely not a useful frame today, and my ideal would be for that argument to be made openly within the relevant academic fields.
Comment #79 January 28th, 2026 at 3:23 pm
There are less than 1 billion whites in the world, but there are 1.5 billion Chinese, 1.5 billion Indians, 1.5 billion black Africans, etc.
Therefore, all things equal (i.e. it’s only a matter of time before everyone catches up technologically, economically, and socially), it’s expected that the world will eventually be “dominated” by non-whites.
If you believe that who you are, at birth, is the result of some kind of random draw, being “white” is a lucky fluke, think of it as winning the lottery.
Of course being born a human (of any color) is in itself even more of an incredible fluke considering that there are about 10 quintillion insects in the world.
So, let’s be happy we’re not bugs and let’s all try to get along.
Every human having a decent life is in everyone’s interest.
Comment #80 January 28th, 2026 at 6:06 pm
If Minneapolis police had maintained order in the streets and assisted in the transfer of criminals aliens to federal immigration agents, and had been permitted to do so by officials of the state and city governments playing at “ defiance”, all of this unpleasantness might have been avoided.
Comment #81 January 28th, 2026 at 8:06 pm
Jmg
For anyone normal, murder is not some unpleasantness, but at least you’re being clear about the type of person you are.
3,000 federal agents (ICE and CBP) have been “deployed” to Minneapolis, and there are 600 police officers in Minneapolis…
and your amazing insight is that it’s the cops’ fault for not helping an unwanted “force” that’s 5 times their size, by preventing US citizens from doing things within their constitutional rights, while at the same time keep doing all the things cops do.
Comment #82 January 28th, 2026 at 9:02 pm
Scott #67,
Ben Shapiro is a Republican, not a Democrat. If you find him a decent person then you see that not all Republicans are MAGA.
As for “MAGA death threats”, the only American politician who was recently shot to death was Charlie Kirk, and the bullet didn’t come from MAGA, despite early media lies.
Comment #83 January 28th, 2026 at 9:51 pm
Michael P #82
Kirk wasn’t “an American politician”, but Melissa Hortman was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_shootings_of_Minnesota_legislators
“After it became known that the suspect was a Trump voter, unsubstantiated claims that the killings were a “false flag” by the “deep state” and a “psyop” spread on social media. Alex Jones claimed Boelter was a “patsy” who was “being framed”. Loomer also suggested that Boelter was not the actual perpetrator.”
Comment #84 January 28th, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Michael P #82: I was referring to elected officials.
Ben Shapiro certainly seems like a decent and even courageous person by the standards of right-wing influencers. But he created the monster that is Candace Owens (and otherwise kept company with vipers), which besides doing enormous damage to the world, also showed terrible judgment on his part.
Comment #85 January 28th, 2026 at 10:29 pm
Regarding this murder, the videos are pretty clear. They had taken his gun already, he was on the ground restrained by multiple officers, he had absolutely no way of harming anyone, and they shot him repeatedly.
The facts of the case are pretty clear, this is not even negligence, this is pretty clear execution of an unarmed restrained American citizen (mind you, a white one if you cannot emphasize with non-white murders). Any jury would find these ICE officers guilty of murder.
Scott G. said in his Prof G podcast that there is no statue of limitations on murder. So even if this DoJ does not persecute them, these folks can still be held responsible once Trump is out of office.
Comment #86 January 29th, 2026 at 4:42 am
An old video shows the “victim” attacking the ICE “thugs”, vandalising their car:
https://x.com/mazemoore/status/2016676363277664512
Do you see a lesson?
Comment #87 January 29th, 2026 at 6:43 am
Alessandro,
you are right! The lesson is that if you spit at ICE agents and kick their car you better be careful. They will remember it and the next time you cross paths with them they will execute you and clap about it.
Thanks for point that out.
Comment #88 January 29th, 2026 at 7:15 am
Alessandro #86
I am speechless, what lesson? If your idea of law and order is the cold blooded execution of protesters breaking car lights we are sadly far, far away from any possible exchange of ideas.
Comment #89 January 29th, 2026 at 7:20 am
Alessandro
yes, the lesson is that the thugs will add you in their AWS/Palantir powered “domestic terrorist” database, then track you, execute you, and cheer once they get their revenge.
Comment #90 January 29th, 2026 at 9:38 am
Alessandro Strumia #86
Yes and also carrying a loaded weapon while engaging in felonious acts under the general heading of obstruction of justice. In the video with the gunfire there is a single shot report first and then likely the shots from the agents. The analysis of Pretti’s gun will be interesting. It is a Sig Sauer P320. This pistol is notorious for uncommanded fires (discharges with no trigger pull) when handled roughly. If you Google it you will find hundreds of cases and law suits and bans by law enforcement agencies and some military groups of this weapon. It is a poorly designed weapon that is manufactured modularly so larger tolerances than usual in order that the separate modules fit together at final assembly.
I make no claim that was what happened but it may have. Rather than waiting and hearing all the evidence the rage machine is out with pitchforks. The video you reference clearly shows that Pretti’s actions were routinely not those of a peaceful protestor exercising his constitutional rights but essentially a felony machine intentionally obstructing justice . And then additionally a felony machine who is armed.
The test will be if the agent had reasonable belief that lives were in danger when he fired his weapon. The first shot report it seems to me will be central to that. If the firing agent heard a gunshot after being informed that a gun was involved and responded by shooting Pretti than considerably different than just deciding unilaterally to shoot him.
Comment #91 January 29th, 2026 at 10:01 am
#90
They had already taken his gun, he clearly did NOT have a gun when they shot him repeatedly.
He was on the ground, face down, restrained by multiple ICE officers, when they shot him.
You cannot shoot someone when there is absolutely no sign they pose a danger to anyone.
This is Mafia and narco-terrorist behavior, not law enforcement.
This is violence intended to create terror in civilian American population for political reasons, hence it is what can call an example of state sponsored terrorism.
Comment #92 January 29th, 2026 at 10:20 am
I do agree that these agents are likely ill equipped with respect to training for operating in a hostile urban environment. The local police are trained for just that and would usually assist but in this case no assistance. That is another complication. I looked at the crime data and Minneapolis dos have relatively high crime. In 2024 in city rankings they were 19th in murder rate, 18th in rape, 5th in robbery, 4th in auto theft, etc. I am not sure how defunding the police affected them but as Ty-Ty points out it seems they do have a substantial case load without more issues.
Comment #93 January 29th, 2026 at 12:39 pm
Anon #91
My bet is that the agents didn’t jointly decide to casually murder someone with scores of videos being shot. My bet is that they heard-he has a gun-and when Pretti was disarmed his gun fired whether due to a defect in the gun or mishandling by the agent who disarmed him. They reacted to the gun shot. That makes most sense to me at this point in time.
Sorry but I can’t assume they were psychopathic goons who were overcome with blood lust and shot him damn the consequences. The probability of this being true is very low in my estimation.
Comment #94 January 29th, 2026 at 12:44 pm
OMG #90
The Sig Sauer P320 is in fact an enthusiast gun that is also used by law enforcement. Users have in fact described that disclosure of this gun has significantly contributed to why the 2A crowd did not believe the government’s story.
Comment #95 January 29th, 2026 at 12:56 pm
Besides, there are no identifiable felonies. Recording agents is not impeding justice, if that’s what you mean by felony. Carrying a gun was also not illegal. https://x.com/StephenGutowski/status/2016234093168525686
Comment #96 January 29th, 2026 at 1:00 pm
OhMyGoodness #93: However low my prior was on federal agents wanting to murder Alex Pretti because they’re psychopathic goons filled with bloodlust, I need to condition on the observation that they did, in fact, shoot him ten times after he was already on the ground and disarmed. And I can find no report, anywhere, saying that Pretti’s gun fired at any point — something that, if confirmed by forensics, would refute your alternative explanation.
Comment #97 January 29th, 2026 at 1:14 pm
What a spectacle in some of these comments: ICE’s willing apologists, bending themselves into pretzels to find excuses for murder. Most of it is victim-blaming of the most primitive sort. I imagine that this kind of people was also around when the brownshirts started rounding up jews in the 1930s. They coudn’t wait to make excuses…for the brownshirts.
Comment #98 January 29th, 2026 at 1:25 pm
Scott #94
Absolutely agree that forensics will determine if Pretti’s gun fired and if not then this scenario isn’t possible. That was why I stated the evaluation of Pretti’s gun will be interesting. Sorry but I don’t believe that he was killed just because and without reason.
Comment #99 January 29th, 2026 at 2:04 pm
RB #94
“In August 2024, the FBI’s Ballistic Research Facility concluded that an internal safety on a Michigan State Police P320 pistol could be rendered inoperable “with movements representing those common to a law enforcement officer.” The gun had discharged while holstered on an officer’s hip, according to the report. “
“ Most of the roughly 1,450 Chicago police officers who carried Sig Sauer P320 handguns have replaced them following safety concerns raised this year about the weapon, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara wrote to police Supt. Larry Snelling in April and urged him to ban the model, claiming the gun can accidentally fire without a trigger pull, which could lead to an officer or member of the public being wounded or killed.
“Current recruits at the Chicago Police Academy already have been advised that the Sig Sauer P320 is no longer a prescribed weapon for them to purchase or utilize,” Catanzara wrote”
“ On Thursday, the International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA), one of the largest sport shooting governing bodies in the nation, barred the P320 from any of its shooting competitions.
“IDPA is committed to maintaining a fair, competitive, and inclusive environment for all shooters,’ Joyce Wilson, the organization’s president, said in a statement. ‘Banning a particular firearm is the last thing we ever want to do as an organization, but the safety of our members and potential spectators has to come first.””
“ In June 2024, a federal jury in Georgia awarded Robert Lang $2.3 million in a lawsuit against Sig Sauer for his P320 shooting him in the thigh as he removed it from its holster. Five months later, a Philadelphia jury awarded an Army veteran $11 million after his personal P320 shot him in the thigh while it was holstered.”
In 2017, after discharge issues with the P320 first surfaced, the Dallas Police Department suspended use of the P320 as a safety precaution. While the standard-issue sidearm for the Dallas PD is the Sig Sauer P226, other handguns, including various models of Glock pistols, are approved for use. The department has not reversed its suspension of the P320 since.”
“ In 2022, the Milwaukee Police Department announced that it would replace the P320 with the Glock 45 as the department-issued duty weapon. The decision was made following multiple unintended discharges within the department, which prompted the Milwaukee Police Association to file a lawsuit against the city. MPD reported that three officers had been injured since 2020.”
“ In April 2025, the Denver Police Department notified officers who qualified with the P320 that the weapon is “No longer considered safe for duty or backup carry.””
I could go on but no point. Poor design with wide tolerances.
Comment #100 January 29th, 2026 at 2:30 pm
JanSteen #97:
Sadly, it is the fear. Or the rage. Or maybe both, fear and rage.
Comment #101 January 29th, 2026 at 2:56 pm
RB #95
I agree that filming is not a crime if it is reasonably conducted but not in obstructively and antagonistically in an agents face. That is interference with law enforcement a felony. After that the scrum which is assaulting an officer and resisting arrest-felonies.
Here is an excerpt from a recent Supreme Court ruling in a case involving an officer shooting an unarmed man-
“While the situation at the precise time of the shooting will often matter most, earlier facts and circumstances may bear on how a reasonable officer would have understood and responded to later ones. Prior events may show why a reasonable officer would perceive other-
wise ambiguous conduct as threatening, or instead as innocuous.”
It’s the totality of circumstances that establishes the basis of reasonable actions by the agent. If there was no shot from Pretti’s Sig but the agent heard he has a gun and sees his hand come up with something in it (later determined to be his IPhone) and fires thinking it is a gun then the entire sequence must be considered to determine if reasonable or not.
Sadly the agent does not have multiple video replays to make his decision. He has only an instant to respond and he will explain why he made the decision and a court will presumably determine if reasonable.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-1239_onjq.pdf
Comment #102 January 29th, 2026 at 3:03 pm
Sad state of affairs here and now the clueless/valueless ad hominem Nazi attacks for having a different opinion and reasonably explaining your position. But hey, that’s the world of the Left.
Comment #103 January 29th, 2026 at 3:07 pm
OhMyGoodness-
If Pretti’s gun accidentally discharged why didn’t the internal DHS report just released state that? It strongly suggests the officers involved did not state that, nor is there audio or video evidence of this being the case.
Comment #104 January 29th, 2026 at 3:16 pm
Except all of these did not occur. What did occur is that the officers escalated force in a pattern of lack of accountability, likely based on how this has been sanctified by the administration, with the theater being an explicit component. Plus there is a demand to have 3000 arrests per day regardless of how many people are eventually released after booking. While these deaths are the ones permeating our consciousness, such deaths were inevitable given that these shootings are not ‘one-offs’.
Comment #105 January 29th, 2026 at 3:34 pm
This incident where Pretti got his rib broken for kicking a tail light was at the height of the national outrage over the execution of Renee Good.
Those things don’t happen in a vacuum.
Comment #106 January 29th, 2026 at 4:45 pm
Dave #103
I was speculating because I believe he did have a reason. I even stated I didn’t know if true or untrue,If not that then when his hand came up he thought it was a gun. My point was (is) that he didn’t do it for no reason at all because he has an evil soul. Whatever his reason was he will explain it and it will be determined as reasonable or unreasonable. These guys can’t call up a closed time loop and carefully evaluate the circumstances. They make a decision in an instant and sometimes right and sometimes wrong but the test is in the totality of the circumstances was it a reasonable decision whether right or wrong.
Because of this not at all a good idea to wear a gun while scrumming with law enforcement officers.
Comment #107 January 29th, 2026 at 4:50 pm
RB #104
I simply disagree. He was filming in an aggressive manner, in the street (not sidewalk), in close proximity to the officers face.
You could do an experiment and duplicate his actions as closely as possible with your local law enforcement and report back the result.
Comment #108 January 29th, 2026 at 4:59 pm
#93
among the videos that explain what happened this video is very clear.
https://youtu.be/RNiIou22ywg
Have a look at it.
The guy is on the ground, ABSOLUTELY no danger to anyone, multiple offices are restraining him, his hands are visible, protecting his head, unarmed.
Then an ICE officer calmly takes his gun out and shoots him.
Then another ICE officer calmly claps.
This has nothing to do with law enforcement. This is plain execution.
And the fact that we keep seeing these events and supported by their superiors means that this is not just accidents, this is systemic violence to terrorize civilian political opponents. Whether you like the protestors or not, this is NOT OK.
These are masked armed men from federal government interested to terrorize states and cities and their population who do not agree with the administration’s policies.
Trump’s DoJ may not persecute them, but there is no limitation of statue on murder. So hopefully we will see these people in court for murder trial and in front of jury once the Trump’s term ends.
Also keep in mind, if you break the norms like this, once Democrats are back in power, they will have a justification to create an armed federal force and go into red states and do what red states do not like, claiming it is federal jurisdiction. So think about the long term consequences of what you are defending.
Comment #109 January 29th, 2026 at 5:07 pm
OMG #106
You can check out this video analysis
https://x.com/StephenGutowski/status/2016615542925226203
At the time the agent made the decision to shoot, Pretti was not doing anything that could be construed as dangerous. It was the officer who instigated the whole issue by pushing the woman next to Pretti. Pretti had been incapacitated by the OC spray after trying to help her.
“not a good idea to wear a gun” – well, conservatives have been telling us all along that the 2A is a constitutional right. It appears that was a fake conservative position and is only true if it is their side that is doing the gun carry as in J6.
Comment #110 January 29th, 2026 at 6:04 pm
RB #109
Jeez RB. No one claims it’s all right to wear a gun while committing felonies. Actually his actions 11 days earlier were enough to invalidate his license.
Comment #111 January 29th, 2026 at 6:29 pm
Anon #108
Sorry but to me it seems he is struggling until he is shot. Norms were already broken before this Trump term and agree that it’s all escalation from here. Years ago I lived in a place that had a strong political split of around 50/50 and politicians spent much of their time trying to put their opponents in prison. I used to think-wow what a mess never dreaming the same would be true in the US.
Have you seen the Obama speech talking about needing strong borders and deporting illegals but now his message is RESIST because it’s a problem for the other side. Oh well, it’s just politics but yeah what a mess.
RB #109
I am not registered with Twitter and to view this video it asks for log-in so can’t watch it.
Comment #112 January 29th, 2026 at 6:46 pm
OMG #110
– he was ready with multiple magazines for a massacre
– he wasn’t, but he was holding a gun
– he wasn’t, but he held his phone and assaulted the officers
– he didn’t assault the officers, but a gun accidentally discharged
– a gun didn’t discharge, but it happened too fast
– it didn’t happen that fast, but he did some things a week before
We get the point.
Comment #113 January 30th, 2026 at 3:45 am
RB #112
When everyone holds intransigently to their mutually exclusive positions, and explains the actions of their opponents as due to evil souls, it gets much worse from here.
It may ultimately be that the best explanation for this shooting is evil souls but I believe other potential explanations are more likely at this point in time.
If impossible to reach consensus then all that remains are the laws of the US to guide behavior. If even that is swept away then nothing left but a decaying husk with nothing potentially as good to replace it. Some will mourn immediately but mourners will increase through time as reality takes hold.
Comment #114 January 30th, 2026 at 4:23 am
Why do Nazi sympathisers always act offended when they are compared to Nazis?
Comment #115 January 30th, 2026 at 5:47 am
Anon #30
I agree about the shift of power and it leads to four year yo-yoing. Biden signs presidental decrees then Trump nullifies them easily and issues his decrees then…. Congress has become virtually useless but fastidiously approves name changes for US Postal Stations.
Anon #108
“ armed federal force and go into red states”
I think the red state/blue state model mis-states the situation. Please look at the Minnesota voting by county at this link.
https://www.politico.com/2024-election/results/minnesota/
This same distribution is found nationally as shown at this link.
https://vividmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Election-map-2024.jpg
There are exceptions but all in all the political split is blue cities and otherwise red.
The percentage voting for Kamala in a few cities
DC-90.28%
NYC-68%
San Fran-80.3%
LA-64.8%
The urban rural divide is stark. The way a state becomes red or blue depends largely on if the urban vote can overcome the rest of the state. I believe the divide blue cities and otherwise red is closer to the fact.
Comment #116 January 30th, 2026 at 8:04 am
OMG-I find it fascinating to read your posts because they illustrate how the right, even intelligent people on the right, insulates itself from truth and good faith arguments in our current environment-likely because if you spend all of your time getting information from sources that have the same agenda, this will happen. Then they justify even really bad things with whataboutisms, false comparisons and equivalences, etc. A lot of what you say seems tinged by this-but let me give just one example:
“Have you seen the Obama speech talking about needing strong borders and deporting illegals but now his message is RESIST because it’s a problem for the other side.”
Think about this for a second. There is a major difference between having a strong border and deportations and doing what Trump is doing-and that is the entire crux of the matter. It is why opinion polling shows a huge gap (and this was true even before the Good shooting:
“On Immigration and Customs Enforcement in general, a new Fox News survey this week found 59% of voters now say immigration enforcement has been “too aggressive,” similar to YouGov’s 60%. But Americans haven’t turned against the idea of immigration enforcement. YouGov found 87% still support deporting immigrants who committed violent crimes. The problem is everything else: only 22% support deporting long-term residents with no criminal record, only 21% for parents of U.S. citizen children, only 17% for people who came as children. (Here’s a piece from me on similar numbers from last April.)”
The difference between Obama and Trump is that Obama didn’t have masked goons unprofessionally running up to subdued protesters and pepper spraying them in the face for no good reason, entering people’s homes without judicial warrants, detaining American citizens, breaking into schools to grab children, brazenly violating court orders, violating the rights of protesters even when they are exercising Constitutional rights and not breaking laws (e.g. filming from the side), deporting people to countries they have never lived in, and killing people angrily (“fucking bitch”) and then lying about it and calling the deceased “terrorists.” Obama also had a pathway to citizenship that said if you were a law-abiding member of society, you could become a citizen without first leaving the country.
For Trump the whole point is the build a Gestapo and have them terrorize people into submission. If you think this is hyperbole, then ask yourself why DHS uses white nationalist propaganda to recruit ICE officers:
-DHS posted a meme with the phrase “We’ll have our home again,” a phrase from a white supremacist song. When asked about it by the NYT, Tricia McLaughlin denied that the phrase was related to the song: “There are plenty of references to those words in books and poems.” A NYT reporter pointed out that when you open the post on Instagram, the white supremacist song itself starts playing. McLaughlin denied this is true and accused the reporter of spreading a left-wing conspiracy theory, claiming he is the one “mainstreaming racism.” DHS deleted the post 40 minutes after the interview. This, by the way, has been a common strategy by DHS who have used many white nationalist recruiting posts.
Overall, the idea that MAGA is anything like previous governments is risible. Past administrations, both Republican and Democratic, have been filled with institutionalists, people who consider expertise important, the concept of (mostly) neutral civil servants important, and following the constitution important. Trump and his minions hate this concept-they have replaced experts with nutcases like RFKjr and sycophants to carry out an agenda which aims to rip this all down.
Comment #117 January 30th, 2026 at 12:59 pm
Dave #116
“ likely because if you spend all of your time getting information from sources that have the same agenda, this will happen”
If you look at my support links you will find no conservative references. All of my links provide factual data and I make conclusions based on my personal experience and the data. I concluded myself based on the data, and have never seen reference to the fact, that Minneapolis normally has a high crime rate. I personally have heard the mayor state no assistance for ICE. I personally know that local police have the training for hostile urban environments and stated that ICE does not. I stated that given the support of local police has been denied to assist in the enforcement of federal law that ICE is ill trained. I have seen no references to my claim that the red state/blue state model mis-states the current situation. That was my conclusion based on the data.
I do support that federal law should be enforced or the laws changed by Congress.
The above discussion was based solely on the videos of the Pretti encounters. I made no statement supporting warrantless entries and have no hard information about this to even form an opinion. I don’t know anything about what immigration law provides for in this situation nor the particulars of how and when it was used in Minneapolis.
I do believe ICE should follow the law and violations should be prosecuted. I don’t believe they should be prosecuted in the streets by ad hoc left wing vigilantes.
As for masked goons my thoughts are as follows- Of course I would prefer this not being the case. Considering the real circumstances however who in the right mind would do this job with the dox happy radicals and crazies opposed to these actions and put their families at risk. In principle it is terrible but in fact it appears to me as reasonable precaution. The ones opposed include hard core radicals that pose a threat not only to enforcement personnel but also their families. I don’t believe I am overstating this.
Of course I am opposed to white nationalism and I saw an interview with Bovino and thought the guy was an absolute raving idiot. I still believe however the law should be enforced (or changed by Congress) and considering the mass entries under Biden and the lack of support from local authorities it is a very difficult task.
I support ICE following the law in enforcing the law but masks seem reasonably prudent to me and understand this is an incredibly difficult task considering the numbers from open borders and operating in a hostile urban environment without local support.
I believe my position is consistent with the principles stated by Obama (I admit I likely saw this reference on a Conservative website but took his current statements not as a rebuke of enforcement methods but rather enforcement itself).
I think we agree on nearly everything excepting masks and possibly on the need to enforce federal law. I strongly believe either enforce it or change it.
Comment #118 January 30th, 2026 at 1:17 pm
Dave #116
Oops..also…thanks for your sincere comments.
Comment #119 January 30th, 2026 at 1:57 pm
Dave #116
About government pre and post Trump. I have posted many times that the pre Trump status quo was seen by many as a slow walk into an undesirable future. Some of the reasons for this (alll my personal observations) included very poor educational system that is overly ideological, declining life expectancy, disrespect for merit, DEI, constant accusations of racism and sexism, depiction of sex differences as mythical and so men in women’s sports etc, contempt for rural populations, abandoning billions in military equipment to the Taliban, etc. Maybe you see these as the output from qualified experts but for many it was new highs in absurdity. It depends on your political perspective I guess. I count myself among those that saw it as exercises in absurdity.
Comment #120 January 30th, 2026 at 3:44 pm
#111
We can agree that we need to stop illegal immigration and the legal immigration should be such that the vast majority of Americans would be comfortable with it, not the way it is. That is the statement of the problem.
We can agree that Biden-Harris immigration policy was a total fiasco. That DNC politicians should ditch the activist base and take the mainstream poison on overall immigration policy. We can agree that Obama did a relatively good job on deporting illegal immigration without causing a lot of noise.
We can also agree that Trump’s way of dealing with immigration is a fiasco as well. He is a showman. He wants drama.
Obama deported close to 3 million illegal immigrants. Trump with all this noise has reported deported around half a million.
You have to understand that the show and drama are not effective policy. They are to satisfy the base.
The way Trump plays it is to signal to people who are unhappy with the immigration that I am with you, but it’s he really solving the problem effectively? Absolutely not.
And he is using it to dismantle the US institutions, some going back to founding fathers. He wants to be a king, a dictator, he is a demagogue. Go read on how demagogues. The pattern is very clear.
Comment #121 January 30th, 2026 at 4:16 pm
OMG-
as someone who is faculty at one of the elite universities attacked by Trump-I can assure you that some/many of the things you mentioned I also saw/see as absurdities. However, I don’t see “cure” as better-in fact I see it as worse than the disease itself. I also don’t think trading in lack of meritocracy as fostered by DEI as worse than defining merit based on fealty to MAGA (which is how we have the most unqualified people in history running our agencies). I too would like to see people follow the constitution and our laws on all sides-but I see the lawlessness of the current administration (and indeed J6) as something almost unprecedented in the last 100 years of US history.
Comment #122 January 30th, 2026 at 5:47 pm
Anon #120
I agree with nearly everything you state. We have someone outside the status quo (which I consider good) but if he was Caesar I would be much happier with his aspirations but alas he is just Trump (which I consider not so good).
Dave #121
I agree except in my view no matter how bad Trump is still better than just meekly following the pre Trump business as usual path. It established that a majority of voters are sick of the BS and should be dealt with reasonably. It remains to be seen if the political parties are in fact capable dealing with them reasonably. Pluses for Trump in my view is that he is a strong supporter of Israel and has taken action against the Cartels. The Cartels conduct business in a truly monstrous manner. At the bottom of it all he is what he is.
I have a new truly moronic politician statement to add to the AOC, Hank Johnson, Dan Quayle, etc quotations. Trump said that he would be involved with design of the new battleships because he is a very aesthetic person. WTF.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments and I understand your position.
Comment #123 January 31st, 2026 at 5:48 pm
There is a – worldwide – political dichotomy (if there is anything to choose at all):
Socialism+Islam/ism, trying to destroy the judeo-christian-enlightenment culture and civilization (THE c&c, they is no other on the horizon at this time, maybe India, China later), goes with US-DEMs eg Obama/Biden, with UN, Maduro, Starmer, Kh[a/o]menei etc.. Includes illegal immigration, censorship.
Libertarianism, trying to survive the onslaught on c&c, goes with MAGA, ie Trump, Orbán, Fico, Meloni, RN, ReformUK, AfD, Milei. Includes de(re-!)portation of illegals, strong hand against crime, free speech.
Choose 1 PACKAGE!
Jews are under heavy attack by Islam/-ists. Jews generally tend to prefer Socialism.
Given the overall contents of the 1st package, I see a mental problem here for some …
Of course, we all are more averse against “the other” than fond of “our” package (valid for both sides), but packages they are, no bazaar option.
PS: I am outright *relieved and glad* Trump made it, and JD Vance is a future option.
(I am not a US citizen but a German, now living in South America).
On the 2 killings in MN: Deplorable & Avoidable – by both(!) sides.
PPS: On Scott#26. In MN it is illegal to carry weapons to public demonstrations, open or concealed. Pretti “had it come”. On the “10” shots, like overkilling him: A single one, and the shooter goes to jail. 10 and everybody safe (except, of course …). Legal system being as it is, after the first maybe even “warning” shot, the victim has no more chance.
PPPS: On Scott#27. The main problem with the Allies’ stance is their insistence (ever since 1940, way before the Holocaust etc.) to bring down and totally defeat Germany as a whole, not just the Nazis (Hitler obtained 37% in 1932, never more). That Nagasaki was (and is) the center of catholicism in Japon will have been known to Truman, a masonic Grand Master.
P^4S: I am 100% with Israel & 0 with Hamas, of course. At it’s again a “package” thing on the ISR side. For the other, 0 throughout.
Comment #124 February 1st, 2026 at 4:33 am
Dave,
Interesting comment about whataboutism. Since you specifically mentioned my citation of Obama I was interested if this could reasonably be claimed as an instance of whataboutism (this word reportedly arose in op-eds in Ireland in discussions of the IRA and British troops).
I found this interesting from Wiki-
“The tu quoque defense (Latin for ‘you too’) asserts that the authority trying a defendant has committed the same crimes of which they are accused.[1][2] It is related to the legal principle of clean hands,[3] reprisal,[4] and “an eye for an eye”.[5] The tu quoque defense does not exist in international criminal law and has never been accepted by an international court.[6][7]
Tu quoque was invoked during the Nuremberg trials, in 1945.[8]
In 1987, during the trial of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, the controversial lawyer Jacques Vergès argued that during the Algerian War, French officers such as General Jacques Massu had committed war crimes similar to those with which Barbie was being charged, and therefore the French state had no moral right to try Barbie. This defence was rejected by the court, which convicted Barbie.[9]”
Applying this standard to my citation of Obama’s statements and actions to provide a criminal defense of current activities would qualify as whataboutism in an international criminal court.
In my defense however pointing out the similarities between the politics and actions of a decade back and now seems to provide relevant information.
But finally, I made no claim that Obama’s actions and statements should provide a criminal defense for criminal activity today.
I have no desire to provide logically spurious arguments and so thank you for your statement but don’t believe I was guilty in this case.
Analogies and whataboutisms have similarities, and well formed analogies are helpful, but agree whataboutisms in an effort to avoid responsibility for illegal conduct should not be a valid defense.
Michael #123
Vance seems the smartest out of the Trump group. I likely have some deep bias because his background seems closest to my own. :). This bias would be (and has been) equally applicable in support of earlier more centrist Democratic politicians.
Comment #125 February 1st, 2026 at 6:32 pm
Michael #123
What an absurdly simplistic world view some people have! You create a false dilemma where the only choice is between two evils. As if the choice is between Khamenei and Orbán. Besides, why not replace Orbán or Trump with their (and I suspect your) idol Putin, whom you, probably deliberately, don’t mention. Normal people would say: a pox on both their houses.
The Enlightenment, which you rather deviously call the “judeo-christian enlightenment”, even though religion has arguably held back the Enlightenment for centuries, is obviously not in good hands with the far-right likes of you. Your kind is its enemy as much as islamists and stalinists are.
As an aside, I learned today that one of the ICE murderers in Minneapolis is called Jesus. You couldn’t make it up. Perhaps he’s an exponent of this oxymoron called the “judeo-christian enlightenment”?
Comment #126 February 1st, 2026 at 6:56 pm
The trigger man for Petri has been identified as Jesus Ochoa , an 8 year veteran of the border patrol.
Comment #127 February 1st, 2026 at 7:38 pm
I don’t know where Michael #123 gets his information from. “Pretti had it come” – thanks we don’t need your opinion.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-fbi-director-patels-claim-that-guns-are-barred-at-protests
Comment #128 February 2nd, 2026 at 1:16 pm
JanSteen#125:
Enlightenment happened (only) in the European, judeo-chr., part of the planet, and scholasticism, the thorough thinking-through of a question, its pro-and-con arguments, and forming the conclusion (not necessarily in a Hegelian way) permeates through all of Aquin’s work – the precursor to true science.
I guess, it is not too much exaggeration to state: “No Bible (both parts), no Standard Model”
As to where Putin is located, I do not know, taking into account that horrible war and that lucid Valdai lectures.
As least in the US there IS a dichotomy since “ever”, similarly UK (at this moment Tories seem to be replaced by Reform, but that’s it) and the (current!) US-DEMs are at the center of the Socialism-Islamism team.
RB#127
On carrying firearms in MN, I was wrong, as is the FBI Dir I presume.
If Pretti had a permit, he could carry open or concealed.
On “He had it come”: 1. Apparently. Attacking armed LEOs armed usually ends bad, especially in the US.
2. See “Can open carry lead to a gun or weapons charge in Minnesota? It can—especially if law enforcement believes you don’t have a valid permit, you’re carrying in a restricted place, or your conduct is interpreted as threatening. These cases are fact-specific and move quickly.” in: https://arechigo-stokka.com/blog/open-carry-vs-concealed-carry/
…P42A: Progressives for 2nd Amendment!1!
On “We do not need …” We (all) are more in need of contrarian than confirming opinions. Burst the bubbles!
Comment #129 February 3rd, 2026 at 3:29 am
I am not trying to trivialize the discussion but had a realization that is important for me. My daughters often use the tu quoque defense against me. I say-You didn’t do X and they respond Yeah but you didn’t do Y. Now that I better understand the dynamics I can develop a more effective response to their defense.
Comment #130 February 3rd, 2026 at 3:59 pm
https://youtu.be/PKBMWwPps2M
This is what will help us get rid of Trump, if we don’t let him create false wedges and distractions: economics and the cost of living for ordinary Americans