People power is real -- Dan Froomkin

[erronis]

https://www.headsupnews.org/p/people-power-is-real

Take a moment to savor that

A good collection of hopeful views.

Minneapolis is still under siege by federal agents, and there is no sign that the Trump administration is repudiating its cruel and barbaric immigration policies. But the Trumpers are on the defensive now. They've defenestrated Border Patrol brute Greg Bovino. They're backing away from (and blaming each other for) the outrageous lies they initially spread about Border Patrol shooting victim Alex Pretti.

The dynamic has shifted, and "Operation Metro Surge" has effectively failed.

It's an extraordinary victory for the residents of the Twin Cities - and for the resistance.

And while it's far from over, it is proof that people power is not theoretical, it is real. It can force change. It can alter the course of history.

It has also inspired some marvelous writing.

If you haven't already, you should read Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer's essay on how "Minnesota proved MAGA wrong." He wrote:

The federal surge into Minneapolis reflects a series of mistaken MAGA assumptions. The first is the belief that diverse communities aren't possible: "Social bonds form among people who have something in common," Vance said in a speech last July. "If you stop importing millions of foreigners into the country, you allow social cohesion to form naturally." Vance's remarks are the antithesis to the neighborism of the Twin Cities, whose people do not share the narcissism of being capable of loving only those who are exactly like them.

A second MAGA assumption is that the left is insincere in its values, and that principles of inclusion and unity are superficial forms of virtue signaling. White liberals might put a sign in their front yard saying IMMIGRANTS WELCOME, but they will abandon those immigrants at the first sensation of sustained pressure.

And in Trump's defense, this has turned out to be true of many liberals in positions of power--university administrators, attorneys at white-shoe law firms, political leaders. But it is not true of millions of ordinary Americans, who have poured into the streets in protest, spoken out against the administration, and, in Minnesota, resisted armed men in masks at the cost of their own life.

"There is no such thing as other people's children", Minneapolis resident Erik Hane wrote for the Hell World newsletter:

They made a mistake in picking Minneapolis. They came here believing that the same old lines of division that animate their entire political project--race, culture, class--would be reason enough to keep people in their homes while they went about their violent work. Instead we are out there in every place they are, showing them that every person in this city is one of our own, that there is no such thing as other people's children, that collectively we are not afraid of staring them in the eye. They can sense this. We can see them re-running calculations in their heads, every time we turn them away by being willing to stand there, get in the way, observe and document their evil. This enrages them. As we saw this morning, they are now killing us for it....

ICE is feverishly looking for some top-down reason this is happening. They are trying to infiltrate, but you cannot infiltrate a city's collective character. They want to find the "orchestrators," the "paid activists," the political professionals scheming up the city's response to their crimes. They won't find any, because there are none. It's parents worried about the safety of their daycare and schools. It's neighbors worried about the family down the street. It's anyone with a conscience--which is to say, it is everyone. And we are going to win.

Writer and activist Rebecca Solnit wrote in her must-read newsletter about how "This Cold Winter, Love Is a Superpower":

One of the striking developments about the extremism of Trumpian violence, lying, and abuse of power is its recruitment power - but for the opposition. A lot of mild-mannered moderates are now ferociously against ICE, the attack on immigrants, and in some cases the whole Trump Administration. Each attack of a constituency is a recruitment drive - against the administration, both by those in the constituency and those who care about its members, be it women serving in the military, or federal workers trying to do their job ethically, or medical professionals, or scientists, or educators....

They have made a massive gamble, and I believe they are losing that gamble. One part of it is as I have written before about the nature of power itself: that they have most or all of it, because they do not understand the powers of civil society and the power of nonviolent resistance and noncooperation. Another part is about human nature; they seem to assume that most of us are selfish and timid and will not resist once we see their capacity to dominate and do violence, that we do not care about anything much beyond our individual selves, or that we will see them as winners and admire winning so much we'll come on over.... [T]hey suffer from failure of imagination. The thing they cannot imagine is us.

. . . (Much more...)

[DemocracyForever]

1. Well said. I totally agree

The grass roots has always been out in front of the politicians leading them by their noses since the beginning of our country. We're now seeing the 21st century version of that. The movements for social justice in our country have always been led by "we the people".