As I write this, on Sunday morning, Feb. 1, the official Baltimore temperature is 21 degrees Fahrenheit. Let’s face it, it’s winter, and everybody who can possibly stay inside is staying inside.
What’s striking, as I check official weather reports, is that the temperature is precisely the same 21 degrees in Minneapolis, where everybody in the whole world is standing outside.
If not actually, then emotionally.
The days are murderously cold, one after another, but the crowds standing in the Minneapolis streets don’t go anywhere, not since last month’s killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two innocent Americans whose deaths were immediately followed by unconscionable White House lies that the two victims were “urban terrorists.”
The lying alone is enough to make anyone — much less thousands — stand there in anguish no matter the freezing cold.
Now is the winter of our belated disgust in which millions of Americans more fully understand the cruelty of the Trump administration.
You think Good and Pretti are isolated examples from Minneapolis? Try a few paragraphs from the latest New York Review website, by Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein, who’s there on the ground:
“ICE is not in Minnesota primarily to detain and deport people. The agents have come, above all, to terrorize Minnesotans. Why else would they have shown up dressed for war in tactical gear?”
ICE agents, she reports from videos, “participate in broadcasting their own brutality … violently ransacking apartments … a few others dragged a man out of a Target and then dropped him off crying soon after; one video showed a squad of agents ripping a disabled woman from her car as she tried to get to a doctor’s appointment and carrying her by her limbs like an animal.”
No matter the cold, who wouldn’t stand in the streets in the face of such cruelty?
But maybe this is where the White House has finally overplayed its hand. Those crowds in the street are only a reflection of millions of us sitting in the warmth of our homes while our hearts are in the cold of Minneapolis.
Here’s one measure of the huge pressure the Trump administration must now be feeling over Minneapolis. We all know how good they are at throwing distractions our way. We’re ticked off over one outrage, so they offer us another.
And what distraction have they now offered in the midst of national anger over Minneapolis?
The Epstein sex material.
The stuff was overdue by many weeks, and suddenly, in the midst of national outcry over Minneapolis, they finally make millions of pages available.
“Here,” they’re telling us, “stew over this for a while.” The timing’s impeccable. The material’s not as overtly damaging to Donald Trump as they’d feared, and it gets our minds off Minneapolis for a few moments.
At least, that’s their hope.
But that’s the amazing thing. Step outside your home for a few minutes in Baltimore and just take in the awful cold. And realize, it’s generally rougher out in Minneapolis.
And they’re still out there in the streets, still angry, still frightened. And fighting back in the best ways. Here’s another piece of that report from Minneapolis in the New York Review:
“Terrorized and terrified people are still resisting the surge however they can. Seemingly overnight, churches have created warehouse-like operations to deliver food to those who have gone into hiding … food banks have been flooded with both donations and volunteers; Somali women … patrol the streets and take shifts in lobbies of housing complexes informing people of their rights and serving tea; squads of neighbors stand guard outside a Somali mall in Minneapolis and a Mexican market in St. Paul, both of which have been targeted by raids; people linked arms to prevent ICE from entering a grocery store without a warrant.”
And on and on.
In Minneapolis, they’ve learned things not fully understood until now: this White House isn’t on America’s side. They’ve sent out the troops to terrify America. And America is learning to fight back.
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books, including “Journeys to the Heart of Baltimore” (Johns Hopkins University Press) and “Michael Olesker’s Baltimore: If You Live Here, You’re Home” (Johns Hopkins University)
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