Dildos Optional

I guess Bruce Springsteen’s song worked. ICE is retreating from Minnesota. Why, I’m not sure. They invaded without cause and now they’re exiting without explanation. What facts on the ground precipitated their withdrawal?

The easily bribable Tom Homan explains: “This surge operation and our work here with state and local officials to improve coordination and achieve mutual goals, as well as our efforts to address issues of concern here on the ground, have yielded the successful results we have came here for.”

What were the issues of concern on the ground that necessitated a massive federal invasion of an American city in the first place? We were given various and sundry excuses for the assault. Somali Medicare fraud! Dangerous criminal illegal aliens! Sanctuary cities!

Then, after federal agents murdered Renee Good in January, we were told more shock troops were needed to combat “domestic terrorists.” Two more ICE shootings followed. More kidnappings. More crashed and abandoned cars. More protests. Dildos were thrown. And now, for some reason, it’s over. Should we expect to see a “Mission Accomplished” banner flying atop the Target Center?

If the entire exercise feels as pointless as Sean Spicer’s appearance on Dancing With the Stars, that’s because it was. Or rather, the point was to flex federal muscle on behalf of the whims of Mt. Tushmore or, more likely, his white nationalist Mephistopheles Stephen Miller. They wanted terror. They wanted abuse. I’m not sure if they wanted actual murders, but they certainly didn’t shy away from celebrating them when they occurred.

And for what?

The Somali community is still there, now more fully supported by their fellow Minnesotans than ever. Same with the Hmong community. The Central and South American communities. The only thing Bovino managed to accomplish was lose his job and get tossed out of a Las Vegas bar for being his regular bitch self.

Purple was a nice choice. Prince would approve.

More than 6 in 10 Americans now believe ICE “has gone too far.” Trump’s approval ratings have tanked. With Epstein not going anywhere and the midterms approaching, the administration is now scrambling to apply a tourniquet to the foot they shot themselves in. They now retreat from Minnesota, along with the National Guard’s quiet egress from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, OR. Some Guardsmen do remain in DC, but they’re only there to protect Lauren Boebert from Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Which raises the question: what’s next? After all, DHS has gone on a warehouse shopping spree for the purpose of housing massive numbers of detainees. How will they overfill their beds if ICE draws down? What’s the point of building concentration camps if you don’t have minorities to fill them with? After all, typhus isn’t going to catch itself!

So now they’ve got a problem. They campaigned on tossing millions of brown people out of the country. “Mass deportations now!” read the cheerful placards at the Republican National Convention. But it’s one thing to promise The Purge, still another to deliver it. MAGA loves the idea of a ruckus until it shows up on their doorstep. “I didn’t think he meant ME” is a common refrain we’re now hearing from the various factions of idiots who, again, installed this malevolent creep and are now feeling his fat fingers around their throats.

Leopards and faces, blah blah blah.

I don’t know what happens next. I don’t see how ICE stands down. Nor do I see how they invade another city. Americans have learned from Minneapolis; I expect whistle sales to remain strong. I also expect the administration to change tactics. But how?

There’s no gentle way to round up millions of people. No compassionate way to toss people out of their homes, destroy families, ransack communities. Which presents a quandary. If they step back from their campaign promises, they’ll infuriate their base. If they follow-through, they will destroy whatever tepid support they still enjoy from independents and fans of child rape.

I mean, this is what he ran on. More than bringing down grocery prices (which he hasn’t done) and ending the war in Ukraine on Day 1 (it is currently Day 389, with no end to the war in sight). Last year, his vaunted tariffs cost Americans an average of $1,000. None of that will matter to his base if he accomplishes Job 1: Trump ran on an explicitly white nationalist message. Now he has to deliver.

To his credit, he’s done a great job attacking all kinds of minorities but, with ICE’s Minnesota fiasco, his words aren’t matching his deeds. Americans are dead, children are imprisoned, and we don’t even have Greenland to show for it. All of which makes me think things are likely to either settle down on the domestic side until the midterms or they’ll get much worse. A rational politician would bide his time until he recovers some of his approval rating ahead of a critical election, and it may be Trump’s intention to do just that. The problem, though, is that he’s incapable of keeping the peace. If there’s shit to be stirred, he and his cabal of attention whores will whip out their spoons.

Minnesota showed America how to take down a fascist. It was bloody and it was brutal, but it was also joyous and funny and inspiring. Today is a good day. Let’s enjoy it while we gird for the next battle. Whistles mandatory. Dildos optional.