Two U.S. Futures Seen in Minneapolis – Democratic Renewal or National Breakup

The murder of Alex Pretti and the backlash

Events in Minnesota embody two potential pathways for the future of the U.S., democratic renewal or national breakup. The potential for both can be seen in the mass resistance in Minneapolis to a paramilitary-style occupation by around 3,000 federal immigration agents, the reaction by administration officials, and how this all has ramified nationwide.

The clear murder of Alex Pretti by Customs and Border Patrol officers Jan. 25 has enraged millions. A Veterans Administration hospital ICU nurse coming to the aid of a woman knocked down by immigration officers, pepper sprayed, nothing in his hands but a phone recording the event, Pretti was shot multiple times. The pictures depict an execution. Even more than the previous murder of Renee Good, this has crystallized sentiment against Trump Administration immigration actions. Repulsion extends far beyond activists. The event is being characterized as a rubicon, a tipping point.Carrying a holstered gun, Pretti was demonized as a domestic terrorist out to massacre federal agents by administration officials including presidential advisor Stephen Miller, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Vice President J.D. Vance. The depravity of the lies and how they so clearly contrasted with what multiple videos show caused even White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to back down. Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino was sent packing, replaced by border czar Tom Homan in a supposed step to de-escalation. That is doubtful and more likely an attempt to tamp down political pressure caused by public outrage.The flood of immigration agents into Minneapolis and surroundings, now two months old, has spurred a people power uprising that is one of the most hopeful events in an otherwise dark picture. A hyper-local network of neighborhood groups linked by encrypted chats has been coming out to confront ICE and other immigration agents when they show up. It is a self-organizing, bottom-up effort that sets a model for community resistance. It involves around 4% of the Minneapolis population, while an overwhelming majority support their efforts. Those are the critical thresholds for a winning movement identified by civil resistance expert Erica Chenoweth, based on researching uprisings around the world. (She actually puts the crossover point for actively involved at 3.5%.)The Pretti shooting stirred response from a wide array of parties, from the NBA players association to the NRA, questioning how killing a legal gun owner could be justified. The 2nd amendment is as much at issue here as the 1st. Minnesota’s top corporate leaders have called for de-escalation. A few Republican senators are breaking ranks. Even some Fox News hosts are not buying the administration lies. Major media outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and New York Post have exhibited a rare unison criticizing the shooting.

Importantly, the backlash even has caused Democratic Party leaders to grow a semblance of a spine. Party congressional leaders have called for Noem’s resignation or impeachment. Even Washington state Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez, one of 7 Democrats who notoriously voted for Department of Homeland Security funding, called for Noem to step down. (No doubt that vote was arranged by House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries who ostensibly opposed funding. It was just the number needed for passage.) The real test will come in Senate votes on Homeland Security appropriations bills being voted on later this week.

Rebel cities leading to democratic renewal?

Where does it go from here? Those two pathways are in front of us. Let’s look at some scenarios.

First, Minneapolis illustrates what Marxian geographer David Harvey wrote about in his book, Rebel Cities. Cities have historically been the key sites for struggle against entrenched power. They are the centers of resistance to Trump, which is why he and his administration have attacked cities with such determination, making federal deployments to Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, DC among others. The manner in which this has been done clearly goes beyond immigration enforcement to paramilitary intimidation. Even those concerned about the presence of undocumented people should also be concerned about the way these urban invasions are collapsing support for enforcement efforts. Trump’s poll numbers on the issue have gone from positive to deeply negative. People just don’t like the sight of federal agents decked out in military garb breaking down doors, smashing car windows and lobbing tear gas in residential neighborhoods. It offends a certain basic U.S. of American sensibility that extends across the spectrum.

The question is how resistance against these efforts will ramify more broadly. Can one envision local and state resistance to the range of Trump actions linking into a broader movement for democratic renewal in the U.S.? Will the pit into which we have fallen finally cause such revulsion that it stirs us to address the roots of our crisis?

That comes down to basic constitutional issues. A democratic renewal in the U.S. would entail eliminating the anti-democratic structure of the Constitution. The U.S. Senate which gives equal representation to large and small states would somehow have to be made proportional to population. That is if it should even be preserved at all in favor of a much expanded unicameral legislature. The electoral college which reflects that bias would have to be replaced by direct election of the president. Two of the five elections in which the popular vote winner has been the electoral college loser have taken place since 2000. With populations increasingly sorting, this outcome is increasingly likely and politically untenable.

The Supreme Court would have to be term limited and expanded. Its judgements would have to be reversible by a majority vote of Congress rather than a constitutional amendment. Its decisions that have opened the floodgates of campaign spending would have to be reversed, and limits once again put in place, while public campaign spending is restored and upgraded. The decision which gave corporations the status of legal persons would also have to be turned back.

Presidential power would have to be reined in. Once again, going to war would have to be a congressional decision rather than the unilateral decision of one man. The power of executive orders would have to be limited, especially the power to declare emergencies. In every way, the primacy of the legislative over the executive would have to be restored. At the same time, non-partisan legislative redistricting would have to be required at both federal and state levels to end gerrymandering, a tool for minority rule.

Progressive taxation would have to be reinstituted to levels before the Reagan tax cuts, which gave rise to the increasing concentration of wealth and the billionaire class. At the same time, real antitrust enforcement would have to come back, and many of the corporate oligopolies broken up, notably in the tech and financial sectors. Traditional limits on media ownership would have to be restored, breaking up the media monopolies. The rights of the public to ownership of the airwaves would have to be reasserted, and the fairness doctrine put back in place.

With all those changes, real democracy could come to the U.S. in a way it never has existed before. But there are a whole lot of would-have-to-be’s in that mix, a tall order for any movement. Could the current resistance to Trump policies somehow ramify into a broader movement for democracy? Could a rooted democratic movement move the Democratic Party to become what its name says, rather than a body strongly tilted toward its corporate donors and consultant networks? We can see glimmers of hope in resistance now rising, especially in rebel cities.

It is clear we are in the early stages of a national crisis, likely to be fueled by a sharp economic downturn. So what might seem almost beyond the bounds of possibility could become a reality with the coalescence of a new majoritarian movement. The depredations of the Trump Administration along with an economic collapse now predicted by many could make it so.

In this post I am dealing with political realities. A rooted democratic movement can also be the base to build local and bioregional economies that reflect ecological limits. I lay out a scenario in my recent post. Whether local movements can ramify to a national movement that achieves a U.S. democratic renewal, building an ecological economy is a necessity in any case.

Federal-state clashes – civil war scenario?

Then there is the other path, national breakdown. The use of the term “civil war” has spread from the fringes to the mainstream. A recent University of Pennsylvania exercise illustrates how events in Minnesota hold potential for civil war. That study found this in prospective clashes which put federal forces on one side, and state and local forces on the other.

The Minnesota scenario, with prospective introduction of U.S. Army troops under the Insurrection Act, “closely mirrors one explored in an October 2024 tabletop exercise conducted by the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law, which I direct, at the University of Pennsylvania,” Claire Finkelstein wrote in The Guardian. “In that exercise, a president carried out a highly unpopular law-enforcement operation in Philadelphia and attempted to federalize the Pennsylvania’s national guard. When the governor resisted and the guard remained loyal to the state, the president deployed active-duty troops, resulting in an armed conflict between state and federal forces. The core danger we identified is now emerging: a violent confrontation between state and federal military forces in a major American city.

“While our hypothetical scenario picked a different city and a slightly different sequence of events, the conclusions we reached about the possibility of green-on-green violence are directly applicable to the current situation . . . none of the participants – many of them senior former military and government officials – considered the scenario unrealistic, especially after the supreme court’s decision in Trump v United States, which granted the president criminal immunity for official acts.”

A similar scenario might unfold in Washington state. In the wake of the Pretti murder, Gov. Bob Ferguson called a press conference where he stated, “ICE is completely and totally out of control. As angry as we are, Attorney General (Nick) Brown and I are focused on preparing, to the fullest extent possible, for a similar escalation by ICE here — against our will — in Washington state. We are prepared to use every tool at our disposal to mitigate harms inflicted by ICE and protect all Washingtonians.”

Ferguson took aim at a Department of Homeland Security policy asserting that agents can enter a building with only an administrative warrant, a policy already used in Minneapolis. The press release continued: “. . . the Governor stressed that the DHS memo directing ICE agents to forcibly enter homes without judicial warrants is unconstitutional . . . Washington will use every legal option to oppose unconstitutional conduct by ICE in Washington state . . . The Governor met with Adjutant General Gent Welsh to discuss potential scenarios for deploying Washington’s National Guard to keep Washingtonians safe in the event of an ICE escalation (boldface in release).”

Washington, like Minnesota, is one of those blue states that Trump has targeted, and Seattle seems particularly in his crosshairs. It is not hard to envision a clash between immigration agents and Washington Guard troops. Trump has proven he will push the envelope as far as he can. Sometimes it seems he and Stephen Miller, the brains of the operation, want to start a civil war to gain a lock on power. At least it’s looking like they’re seeking to stir violence as a pretext to implement the Insurrection Act, allowing them to federalize National Guard troops.

It is almost impossible to envision there will not be some breach between federal and state governments. How events can keep going in the current direction for another 3 years without some kind of meltdown? If Trump tries to suspend federal funding for sanctuary states such as Washington, Oregon and California as he has threatened, this clearly illegal action could push things over a cliff. A government blatantly violating the Constitution cannot expect to maintain legitimacy. Will blue states band together to outright deny federal authority? Backed by a vociferous resistance movement in the streets, such as we have seen in Minneapolis, and fed by untrammeled Trump Administration power plays, this scenario is more conceivable than could have been imagined possible a few years ago. We are already hearing calls for a national shutdown. A general strike is widely mentioned.

It may be that these two pathways merge, that the outrages perpetuated by a Trump Administration bent on total control cause a national breakdown, even something like a civil war. And the fires of that breakdown spur a movement for democratic renewal that profoundly transforms the U.S. political system. It is hard to imagine the needed deep structural changes coming out of less than a full blown national crisis.

A permanent division is also possible, again in ways that were inconceivable a few years back. Trump still seems to have support of around one-third of the U.S. population. The reaction by much of MAGA to the Pretti murder, downplaying and even justifying it, and the disgust on the other side spurred by those reactions, indicates a certain hardening of the lines. It may be we will not be able to put things back together. Only one thing is sure – If there is a democratic possibility for a future U.S., we see its face in the streets of Minneapolis, growing from the neighborhood streets up. At a minimum, whatever hope we can have is situated there.

In that vein, Bruce Springsteen just dropped this.

This first appeared on Patrick Mazza’s Substack page, The Raven.

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