From: fedora@fea.st   
      
   David French   
   January 29, 2026   
      
   The Trump administration’s lies have a purpose   
      
   It’s important to know exactly what is happening in our country.   
   President Trump suffered a setback in Minneapolis. His larger project   
   proceeds apace, however, and it’s creating a parallel MAGA reality   
   that is laying the foundation for a further escalation of state   
   violence.   
      
   Here’s how the process works. First, federal officers (mainly from ICE   
   and the Border Patrol) engage in extraordinarily aggressive and   
   lawless conduct, including initiating physical contact with protesters   
   or members of the public.   
      
   And they’re not limiting their aggression to criminal illegal   
   immigrants, the “worst of the worst.” They’re detaining people who   
   have been granted lawful status, they’ve swept up citizens in the   
   dragnet and they’re claiming the authority to enter people’s homes   
   without judicial warrants granting them a right to search.   
      
   Second, as many people (including me) have noted, when a confrontation   
   occurs, the administration and its allies in Congress immediately   
   release statements blaming the victims, often using the strongest   
   possible language — calling them “domestic terrorists” or   
   “seditionists.”   
      
   Think of the dreadful things they’ve said about Renee Good and Alex   
   Pretti, two Minnesota residents who were gunned down by federal agents   
   on the streets of Minneapolis. Kristi Noem accused Good of committing   
   an act of “domestic terrorism.” Vice President JD Vance called her   
   actions “classic terrorism.” President Trump said she “violently,   
   willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer.”   
      
   None of those statements are remotely supported by the available   
   evidence.   
      
   The administration’s slander of Pretti may have been even worse.   
   Gregory Bovino, then still serving in Minnesota in his capacity as   
   Border Patrol commander at large, said Pretti (who had a valid   
   firearms permit and was carrying a gun but did not appear to touch it,   
   much less brandish it) looked like he was attempting “to do maximum   
   damage and massacre law enforcement.” Noem accused him, too, of   
   “domestic terrorism,” and Stephen Miller called him “an assassin” who   
   “tried to murder federal agents.” Vance reposted Miller’s slanderous   
   accusation.   
      
   Again, none of those claims were supported by any meaningful evidence.   
      
   The administration makes these statements before there’s any   
   investigation and sometimes before they’ve even had an opportunity to   
   review all the publicly available evidence, including cellphone   
   videos. If the encounter isn’t fatal, they’ll often file criminal   
   charges and put out news releases trumpeting their prosecution.   
      
   You get the feeling that if they could charge the dead with crimes,   
   they’d do so, with glee.   
      
   Third, when members of the media try to carefully report the facts and   
   call into question the administration’s account, then that’s a fresh   
   outrage. To MAGA, contrary media accounts are yet another example of   
   the activist legacy media lying and spinning.   
      
   Finally, when the criminal cases come before the court, the   
   administration often can’t support its claims, and the cases are   
   dismissed again and again. Adverse legal rulings anger MAGA even more   
   — now the judges are also engaged in a form of “legal insurrection” or   
   nullification of federal law.   
      
   Protests make MAGA mad. Journalism makes MAGA mad. Accountability   
   makes MAGA mad. And the anger keeps building until a single sentence   
   starts to spread across the length and breadth of Trump’s base:   
   “Invoke the Insurrection Act.”   
      
   Viewed through one prism, this pattern is a form of political suicide.   
   As the polling demonstrates, many Americans who thought they were   
   voting for better border controls and tougher immigration restrictions   
   are unhappy with Trump’s aggression.   
      
   Voters don’t like the sight of masked officers dragging people out of   
   homes and stores and cars. They don’t like the hype videos on social   
   media in which ICE and the Border Patrol cosplay as low-rent versions   
   of SEAL Team 6.   
      
   They don’t like it when the administration lies and slanders the very   
   people that it hurts and kills, and they get especially angry when   
   cellphone video immediately debunks the administration’s spin.   
      
   And to the extent that they pay attention to court proceedings, they   
   definitely don’t like it when the administration is caught lying and   
   defies court orders.   
      
   For example, on Wednesday, Patrick Schiltz, the chief judge for the   
   U.S. District Court of Minnesota, issued a remarkable order that   
   cataloged a total of 96 court orders that he said ICE had violated in   
   74 different cases. “ICE has likely violated more court orders in   
   January 2026,” the judge wrote, “than some federal agencies have   
   violated in their entire existence.”   
      
   Schiltz’s order came on the heels of yet another scathing ruling from   
   a federal court. Earlier this month, after the fatal shooting of Renee   
   Good, I wrote about U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis’s 233-page   
   opinion that meticulously and carefully exposed a host of lies from   
   the Trump administration — lies it was using to justify its tactics on   
   the streets of Chicago.   
      
   At each and every step along the way, the administration is   
   squandering whatever good will it had and increasing the chances of a   
   blue wave in the midterms.   
      
   The problem, however, is that the administration is playing a   
   different game. It’s not trying to win hearts and minds, but rather   
   impose its will.   
      
   In September 2020, I published a book that argued that American   
   divisions were growing so profound that we risked our national union.   
   I did not think a national divorce was imminent, nor did I think we   
   were drifting toward a civil war like the one we endured from 1861 to   
   1865, but instead that we were on a dangerous path. There were   
   disturbing parallels between the 1850s and our nation today.   
      
   What made a minority faction of American politics decide to break the   
   Union? Obviously, the defense of slavery was ultimately incompatible   
   with the American creed. The nation was on course for a collision   
   between its rising abolitionism and the tenacious forces of slave   
   power, who saw the South’s “peculiar institution” as central to its   
   prosperity and identity.   
      
   But why were Southerners so eager to secede in 1860 and 1861? Part of   
   the answer lies with the Southern press. After the December 1859   
   execution of John Brown, the violent Northern abolitionist who had   
   raided the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry in an effort to trigger a   
   large-scale slave rebellion, the partisan Southern press amplified the   
   voices of Northerners who admired Brown — even if they admired only   
   his cause, not his tactics — and used those words to intensify latent   
   fear and anger in the white Southern public.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)