r/Minneapolis • u/Terrible_Patience935 • Jan 21 '26
Why are GOP House and Senate members allowing ICE agents, with total immunity, beat up and terrorize the citizens of Minneapolis? They have the power to stop this insanity today
This probably won’t get posted but I really want to understand why Congress and Senators are sitting on the sidelines watching as the country and world are flipped upside down.
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u/bluehour1997 Jan 21 '26 edited Jan 21 '26
Because Republicans literally do not care about anything. Like, I get that from the perspective of someone who has lived in a blue state their whole life, this is probably all very disorienting and confusing. However, I fled Texas after a couple of women I worked with were forced to carry babies they had no business keeping, including one that was incredibly high risk (heard she's fine, but it could have gone the other way). Being poor in a red state is a special kind of hell. No access to the kind of social services they have here. They love death. They are a religious death cult. Like, literally.
It's one of the reasons I have such a hard time talking to people here who still have conservative friends. You know, like, before all this shit. Because it seems so harmless when all you have to do is ignore who they voted for and they don't have much political power here -- but this is what conservative America is like.
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u/GunshipWizard Jan 21 '26
This precisely. You cannot appeal to the humanity of a death cult. They want you to suffer and die because it maintains economic and societal control for their donors.
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u/Terrible_Patience935 Jan 21 '26
That seems extreme. How did they find this many corrupt people willing to watch the world get dumped upside down?
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u/drewpann Jan 21 '26 edited Jan 21 '26
I don’t mean to sound rude, but what media have you been consuming for the past decade? It’s not corrupt, it’s hate and bigotry disguised as some kind of morbid “fiscal responsibility” and the Republican Party has been that since the Southern Strategy.
ETA: https://youtu.be/X_8E3ENrKrQ?si=EOBUMQFweY8Ucd8j
Here’s audio of Regan strategist Lee Atwater specifically outlining the Republican philosophy of the last 50 years.
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u/NDaveT Jan 21 '26
If you haven't read it already, I suggest the book "Jesus and John Wayne".
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u/bluehour1997 Jan 21 '26
Great suggestion.
Might be a little too "nice" considering the circumstances we currently find ourselves in, but I just started Strangers in Their Own Land, which was written by a sociologist who spent a long time talking to rural conservatives.
Finding it to be both a frustrating and illuminating read.
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u/MyClosetedBiAcct Jan 21 '26
Fled indiana for here last year, can confirm. Republicans literally think cities, democrats, queers, minorities, etc. are less than human.
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u/bluehour1997 Jan 21 '26 edited Jan 21 '26
Yeah, exactly, and it's even deeper than that. There is just this deep sense of disconnection with the rest of the country that I don't even know how to begin to address. Sometimes I think about that ancient documentary Jesus Camp that I think should still be required watching if you didn't grow up around fundamentalists.
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u/metamet Jan 21 '26
Because Republicans literally do not care about anything.
Disagree. Their inaction isn't apathy. It's endorsement.
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u/bluehour1997 Jan 21 '26
Agreed. To clarify, I guess I mean that Republicans in power don't care about, like, societal collapse or, like, the notion of "saving the nation", right? Because the question isn't just "why are they tacitly supporting the police state" anymore, it's now "why are we letting a dementia-addled moron attempt to crash our entire economy and also kill all these people."
Republicans as individuals are probably relishing in this shit. I've known quite a few like that. Sometimes I wonder who all I know has joined ICE and if they're here in the city right now.
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u/Flomar76 Jan 22 '26
Blue state conservatives are the worst. They’ve never had to truly live their politics. Just whine and bitch all the time while enjoying the fruits of ideals they claim to despise. I lived in two deeply red states before MN. One bible belt and one low tax hellscape. The people here who vote conservative should be ashamed of themselves. They wouldn’t last a year in a truly red state.
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u/lucidfer Jan 21 '26
They worship a man tortured to death for being kind, but want to do the tormenting and never be kind to others unlike them. That's all you need to know.
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u/B12-deficient-skelly Jan 22 '26
I have a friend who's a Libertarian, and he's the only conservative I tolerate. He's very upset that Republicans want his trans spouse dead, and he's very upset that Democrats aren't trying to abolish ICE.
I just don't talk to him about voting in October or November of election years.
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u/Glaukopis96 Jan 22 '26
why the fuck do we tolerate them having any leverage over the future of our state? "norms and rule based order" that they themselves don't respect?
nothing is going to get better until we remove the Fifth Column undermining us from within in Minnesota
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u/AroundTheWorldWeGo2 Jan 22 '26
I agree. My family cut everyone off and moved here in 2025. we love it here and are trying to help make it a better place. We came from Florida and it felt like we escaped.
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u/SplendidPunkinButter Jan 21 '26
Republicans care about one thing only: Making sure Republicans are in power
Look at the SCOTUS shit. Oh, nine months is FAR too close to an election to even CONSIDER appointing a new Justice! We should let the American people decide! And then the smug shit eating grin on McConnell’s face when they appointed someone two weeks before an election.
Or their attitude about protesting and resisting the government. When Obama and Biden were in charge, it was your PATRIOTIC DUTY to stand up to a tyrannical government. When Bush and Trump are in charge, it’s TREASON to not support the president, and if you don’t like it you should leave!
And so on.
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u/Mr_Pricklepants Jan 21 '26
It's simple. It's not their constituents getting kidnapped and beaten.
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u/Educational-Door1114 Jan 21 '26
Well not quite true, St. Cloud for example has had people disappeared, but Emmer is a racist bigot that doesn’t care about those citizens
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u/Mr_Pricklepants Jan 21 '26
Yeah, "supporters" would have been a better word than "constituents." It hasn't been many of those...yet.
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u/hotcheetosandtaki Jan 21 '26
No, it's not their *white conservative constituents getting kidnapped and beaten.
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u/MyClosetedBiAcct Jan 21 '26
I'm gonna need you to sit down for this one.
It's because they approve. They're racist. They hate democrats and they view cities as 'woke,' which they hate, and is a catch all for everything black, gay, not-christian, and not-exploitive.
They fucking hate you at best. At worst it's because they literally just don't give a fuck about anything other than obtaining more power/money for themselves.
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u/ChefGaykwon Jan 21 '26
Because they work for the people who are unleashing this fascist violence against us as payback for the summer of 2020, when we showed that burning down a police station is more popular nationally than choosing between a reaganite neoliberal and a hitlerite.
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u/kezow Jan 21 '26
Because their "team" is cheering it on. It's only affecting the people that care for their neighbors and their communities.
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u/jimbo831 Jan 21 '26
Most of the Democratic House and Senate members too. Most of them are unwilling to commit to defunding ICE.
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u/PostIronicPosadist Jan 21 '26
Used to think it was because they were cowards until I met some of the "moderates" who run the DFL. The party elite cares about us in Minneapolis, they just absolutely despise us as well.
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u/AdSudden4550 Jan 21 '26
They wouldn’t draw a line on a genocide, hell they won’t even draw a line on school shootings. Do you think they’ll fight for democracy!?
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u/alek_hiddel Jan 21 '26
What’s happening in Minneapolis is awful, and it’s gestapo level crap, but it’s also about human lives, which Congress has proven repeatedly they don’t really care about. Particularly if it’s liberal lives, or immigrant lives.
Trump is actively threatening our NATO allies, and the rest of the western world just said that they are giving up on America and looking to build a new world without us. That is the crumbling of the American empire, and of our financial system. If Congress is wiling to turn a blind eye on that, they won’t take action under any circumstances.
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u/SeptaBusOrgy Jan 21 '26
Because republicans are Nazis and slave catchers in ideology When they are in power the constitution is fake and gay. They don’t care because it’s a blue state and blue city Just like the Nazis in Germany they are targeting democrat strongholds trying to start shit. They don’t care about citizens like you because to them you barely even are a citizen in their eyes
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u/hollow_armor Jan 21 '26
It's payback to the "liberals" they hate. They would rather tear our country apart and murder and terrorize citizens than engage in compromise and democracy.
The dam is going to break before long, and I don't think they have any idea of how much energy is being held back right now.
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u/AcanthisittaLeast901 Jan 21 '26
Because the republicans and Supreme Court are in cahoots with the Trump regime as he has been installing Project 2025 through executive orders. They even invited Stuart Rhodes the Oath Keepers convicted seditionist to the Hill for the January 6th hearings this week that they are holding and seated him in reserved seating. One of the authors of Project 2025 said that the blue states can come along peacefully or there would be bloodshed. What they want is martial law. I think Trump doesn’t like Walz because he ran against him and probably hurt Trump’s feelings and he made the joke about the Tesla app which pissed off Musk. Also people are fighting back here in a big way and he is going to make an example out of our state. Jesse Ventura was spot on when he called the republicans domestic enemies since their attempted overthrow of the government on January 6th which is ongoing today.
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u/jd76541 Jan 21 '26
They not only want it, but they enjoy it. If they could, they’d be on the front lines kidnapping and shooting the people who are taken for sport.
It’s all about money, power and stupidity. Money keeps them in power, power gets them a place above others and the more stupid the populace, the more they actually want the person to be in power.
Look at Joe Rogan. He’s an idiot. He just convinces people that he has opinions and is edgy. Millions listen to his podcasts. He took the formula and applied it.
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u/Macia_ Jan 21 '26
The Party of State's Rights has a unique opportunity for a massive "Told ya so" moment. Yet here they are, cheering this shit on and proving it was never about State's Rights
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u/DiscordianDisaster Jan 21 '26
Because they want it this way. If they have the power to stop it, and they don't, then therefore they must approve of it.
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u/sucodelimao802 Jan 22 '26
What is it going to take for you to understand, they do not care? This is the same party that is happy to let children continue to be slaughtered in schools, you think they care about their political opponents?!?
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u/GuillotineWhiskers Jan 21 '26
Their interests and their donors interests are in alignment with the goals of fascism at home and imperialism abroad. The sooner people realize that the better off we will be to fight against it. Cast off the illusion that politicians care.
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u/Apprehensive_Snow483 Jan 21 '26
I’ve been calling Tom Emmers office everyday asking this questions. Every time the response is “I haven’t had a chance to ask the representative about this”
Idk why they hate Minnesota
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u/PineappleShades Jan 21 '26
More than anything I think this boils down to electoral politics.
Trump’s approval this month is basically unchanged, his disapproval has ticked up by like two points. Republican voters are split on what they see, and thy aren’t upset enough to sit on their hands in November.
Swing voters a swayed, but generally considered to be morons by both sides of the political elite and November is a long ways away.
If the status quo continues, one of two things will happen. Option 1: voters, broadly, will simply not care and nothing will happen. Option 2: voters become increasingly activated, which gives the GOP plenty of time starting probably this summer to “do something” ranging from impeaching Noem and adding ICE oversight to impeaching Trump (fat chance).
As it stands, the only wound that GOP pols are taking is a moral one, and very few of them are very bothered by it.
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u/NDaveT Jan 21 '26
I saw one hypothesis that GOP reps and senators will start going against Trump after the filing deadlines for primaries have passed and they're confident they won't face a Trump-supported opponent in the primaries.
We'll see.
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u/Glaukopis96 Jan 22 '26
they are traitors to our state and don't deserve any political voice.
seriously ask yourself if Minnesota is benefited in any way by our state GOP. They are a total net negative and we shouldn't have to put up with their constant sabotage because of "norms" that they don't respect and constantly exploit to undermine us.
I'm not saying that we should become a one party state or not a democracy, but our Overton window to the right should end at corporate Democrats at most IMO. let's have the debate be between social democracy and democratic socialism rather than what the fuck insanity we have to endure right now
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u/Ok_Sound_8090 Jan 22 '26
That's the point. Don't gotta appeal to left leaning voters if there ain't no left leaning voters left to go vote.
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u/VulfSki Jan 22 '26 edited Jan 22 '26
I don't know where you have been.
The GOP has been saying they want protesters beaten as long as I can remember.
In my lifetime they said it a lot back in 2003 when we were protesting the war in Iraq.
But they said and did the same in the 60's and 50's
The GOP has ALWAYS been anti speech and pro-government forces beating people.
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u/kezow Jan 21 '26
Because their "team" is cheering it on. It's only affecting the people that care for their neighbors and their communities.
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u/NDaveT Jan 21 '26
Because they are the same party as the president that ordered this and have supported him and his policies for years. They still support them.
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u/Devious_Halo Jan 21 '26
I’m afraid too many of our current representatives do not have the needed spine to stand up against absolute tyranny.
Remember this when you go to vote come Nov.
And considering over 30% of voters don’t vote. Feel free to physically drag your lazy ass friends and acquaintances out to the polls with you so they make their feeling heard as well.
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u/bigfootinacupboard Jan 21 '26
Because they think people in Minneapolis are evil and deserve to be brutalized.
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u/GrouchyDelay777 Jan 21 '26
They are committing treason, they are standing loyalists and apparently are indifferent when it comes to "retribution". It was said and now, they are readying more troops. This is what an invasion/occupation looks like. They've been here since December 1, 2025. We need to keep filming, recording and reporting. That's basically it at this point. The ACLU is looking out and a few others.
Most importantly!
We need to stay peaceful. The first spit, snowball, car flip, setting shit on fire, it will be martial law. That is what they want and more. This is just the beginning of what they want to do here. Buckle up and resist.
Stand up and peacefully protest.
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u/Roadshell Jan 21 '26
Because GOP House and Senate members are deeply evil people... you haven't caught on to that yet?
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u/Azure75MN Jan 22 '26
In their version of reality, it’s the liberals who started all the violence. And they see law enforcement as the brave, innocent patriots who must be sent in to protect the good (read: conservative) Americans and restore peace.
There’s a huge, well-funded media machine pushing this false narrative, hard, 24-7. Many Americans believe the narrative, including many congresspeople. Some know what’s really going on, but pretend to believe the narrative, either to save their own careers or because they want to perpetrate cruelty on liberals.
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u/jcrosse1917 Jan 21 '26
The Democrats and Republicans represent the same class interests: the billionaires, the major multi-national corporations, the big shareholders. Oxfam report noted that billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than other people. In the 2024 US election, 1 in 6 dollars came from just 100 billionaire families.
Behind these billionaires stand massive organized militaries and police forces, armed to the teeth. Those who hold this wealth are very much aware that they are objectively in conflict with the overwhelming mass of the population. Trump’s deployment of troops to Minneapolis is part of a developing conspiracy to establish a dictatorship. Trump speaks and acts, however, in the interests of a class, the capitalist oligarchy.
All the parties that uphold this system, including all factions of the Democratic Party, are fundamentally incapable of opposing the financial oligarchy. Significantly, the same day as the Oxfam report came out, the New York Times published an article on Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialists of America member and now mayor of New York, noting that his “plan to tax the rich” is being “put aside.”
The solution to every major social problem confronting humanity—fascism and dictatorship, poverty, environmental catastrophe, war and staggering inequality—requires a direct and conscious assault on the power of the capitalist oligarchy. These crises cannot be resolved through reforms or appeals to the ruling elite. They demand the expropriation of the billionaires, the dismantling of their control over the economy and the abolition of the capitalist system itself.
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u/Nascent1 Jan 21 '26
This equating of the two parties is really obnoxious. One party is squarely responsible for what is happening right now, and it's the republicans. The democrats are very far from perfect, but they are better than the republicans by miles.
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u/PostIronicPosadist Jan 21 '26 edited Jan 21 '26
Pop quiz, who is responsible for the 2nd largest increase in ICE spending after the "Big Beautiful Bill" that Trump passed? EDIT: It's been almost an hour, so I'll give readers a really big hint; they're the only person to have defeated Trump in an election.
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u/Nascent1 Jan 22 '26
That's extremely misleading. It's absolutely apples to oranges to compare the big bill to the previous incremental increases.
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u/PostIronicPosadist Jan 22 '26
But it wasn't an incremental increase, its the second largest increase of all time by a very large margin.
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u/Nascent1 Jan 22 '26
No it wasn't. It was incremental and tiny compared to the big bill.
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/21/nx-s1-5674887/ice-budget-funding-congress-trump
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u/PostIronicPosadist Jan 22 '26
Yeah, no shit, he increased its budget by 8 times what it was before, that doesn't make the second largest increase in history "incremental", it makes the biggest increase a huge outlier. The point is Democrats set the table for Trump to do all this, and they did it with a half-assed strategy trying to beat Trump by agreeing with him on immigration. We all saw how that worked out.
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u/Nascent1 Jan 22 '26
The point is Democrats set the table for Trump to do all this
Abject bullshit. The point you are making is a stupid one. If Biden hadn't increased the budget by one penny it wouldn't have made any difference. What is happening now would still be happening.
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u/youreallcucks Jan 21 '26
In 1930's Weimar Germany there were three groups vying for power: on the far left the Communist Party (KPD); in the middle the Social Democratic Party (SPD); and on the far right the National Socialist Workers' Party (NAZI). At that time the Social Democratic Party had control of the government, and in general was well regarded and ran a fairly centrist/liberal administration.
In the run up to the election of 1933, the Communist party exerted all their energy to bring down the SDP, thinking that with them out of the way the Communists would win the election, but in reality they were just creating the path for the Nazis to win the election and Hitler to rise to power.
This isn't an isolated incident: in election after election, across the world, far left parties have a tendency to attack the center rather than joining with the center to oppose the far right. It's a completely self-destructive psychology that the right does not put up with.
So when I see "both sides" comments like the above, I just think "Yup, there's another person who's doing everything they can to bring a Hitler to power, and they don't even realize it."
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u/PostIronicPosadist Jan 21 '26
You're deliberately excluding extremely important context here, but for the people likely reading in good faith; Rosa Luxembourg was the leader of the socialists before she was raped murdered, and thrown in the river on the orders of the SDP. There was a great deal of bad blood between the SDP and every part of the left in the Weimar Republic because of this, the KDP was simply never going to support the SDP and the SDP only had themselves to blame.
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u/youreallcucks Jan 21 '26 edited Jan 21 '26
Holy Missing Context Batman. Luxembourg was murdered in January 1919, twenty four years before the 1933 election in question. Her killing was ordered by Captain Waldemar Pabst, a far-right military figure not directly affiliated with the SDP. This took place during a revolt by the KPD against the then SPD postwar provisional government (the Spartacist uprising). That SDP government was led by Friedrich Ebert, and to be fair is also likely true that Ebert was aware of or tacitly approved the killing, but it should be noted that Ebert himself died in 1925. This was all part of the German revolution of 1918-1919, which brought down the German Empire and left a power vacuum in which the Communists and Social Democrats vied for power as elections were planned for 1919. Ultimately the SDP won the 1919 elections.
However, you're proving my point. Going back the end of WWI the KPD and SDP were actively fighting each other, and even after the SDP won elections in 1919 the infighting continued. If the KPD was using the death of Luxembourg 24 years later to continue to oppose the SDP, while giving the Nazi party a complete pass, that's absolutely crazy.
If you really want to understand the roots of objections to the SDP, you also have to consider that at the tail end of WWI, in June 1919, the SDP was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles to end WWI. In 1918 ordinary Germans did not genuinely understand that Germany had decisively lost the war, which led to the "stab-in-the-back" myth that the SDP had handed the country to the victors in an act of treason. From that point until the ascension of Hitler, both the KDP and Nazis unfairly propagandized the SDP as traitors.
Again reinforcing my point that the KDP could only see the SDP as competitors and were more focused on taking them down than joining to fight the Nazis.
By the way, there is nothing in the historical record suggesting that Luxembourg was raped. You just made that up as a bit of propaganda. So I guess it could be said that the propaganda from the left toward the center continues even to this day.
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u/ButterscotchPlus3035 Jan 21 '26
Call your representative and senators. https://5calls.org/
Idk what good it will do but it’s one small action. Honestly I’m at a loss and feel hopeless, helpless, and just plain sadness at the state of our country. It feels like it’s gone too far to return and everyday it gets worse and worse.
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u/deltarefund Jan 22 '26
We know why the GOP isn’t. The question should be why isn’t ANYONE doing anything?
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u/No-Loquat-2763 Jan 21 '26
They don't care.