Canada

Canadians are looking on aghast at the events unfolding in Minneapolis, Minnesota—a northern city of bridges and rivers that loves hockey, values higher education, upholds diversity, and as home to the Mayo Clinic, is globally recognized for its excellence in health care research. It’s a place not unlike Edmonton or Winnipeg, which isn’t much more than a five-hour drive away.

But unlike Edmonton or Winnipeg, Minneapolis is under siege, its people targeted because they are Democrats. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs Border Protection (CBP) have become the president’s private militia, which he is using to send a message to a blue state that has refused to vote for him. Under the guise of what the Trump administration is calling “law enforcement,” a radical movement toward totalitarianism in America is playing out before our eyes.

The descent of Trump’s troops upon the city—Operation Metro Surge, as the White House calls it—began on December 1, 2025. As of Saturday, after fifty-five days of occupation and the execution of another civilian at the hands of ICE, on January 24, in that city, tensions have boiled over. There are over 3,000 ICE and CBP masked and heavily armed agents terrorizing the citizens of Minneapolis. They are led by the ghoulish Greg Bovino, who relishes being the visual representation of a totalitarian federal occupation of Minneapolis. His press conference following his men’s execution of another Minnesotan was designed to further psychologically assault the population by, once again, painting the victim as a terrorist wanting to inflict maximum harm to “Federal Law Enforcement”—a phrase he repeats with perverse pleasure.

America is tracking toward a version of mass civil unrest, which won’t look like the Civil War of 1861 (which killed 600,000 Americans) but will nevertheless bring widespread instability to that country. They are already there. The people have begun to wake up to the reality that the Trump administration has no interest in leaving them alone. If they want their freedom back, they are going to have to fight for it.

“This is tyranny,” Minnesota’s attorney general told New York Times reporter Lydia Polgreen. “There’s no other way to put it. We’re all shocked by it. Nobody ever thought America would look like this. We now don’t have to speculate as to what American fascism looks like. It’s right outside our door.”