Yes, I’m Going To Use the F-Word Now

Republicans say “fascism” is just what Democrats call policies they don’t like—and they’re often right. I’ve pushed back on that overuse myself. But when does the word start actually matching what it was literally invented to describe?

Let’s look at what’s actually happening in Minnesota.

Start with the courts. A Bush-appointed judge who clerked for Antonin Scalia found that ICE violated at least 96 court orders in 74 cases in January 2026 alone.¹ Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz wrote: “ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.” When DHS responded by calling him “just another activist judge,” they revealed their position: no judicial oversight is legitimate. Not even from judges with impeccable conservative credentials applying standard constitutional analysis.

So “activist judge” is out. What’s next—this is just immigration enforcement?

U.S. citizens are being detained simply based on skin color, and people of color are now carrying their papers and passports, afraid of being stopped and questioned by ICE agents. Over 170 Americans have already been detained in raids (including nearly 20 children), and held for 24 hours without being able to call a lawyer or a loved one. ChongLy Thao, a U.S. citizen, was dragged from his home in his underwear through the snow after ICE broke down his door with guns drawn and refused to look at his identification.

One ICE agent explained an arrest this way: “I can hear you don’t have the same accent as me.”

ICE operations have already killed U.S. citizens. Renée Good, a 37-year-old poet and mother of three, was shot while her vehicle appeared to be turning away from the officer who fired. Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA with no criminal record and a legal permit to carry, was pepper-sprayed, pulled into the street, pinned, beaten, and shot ten times.² He was holding his phone, not his gun—video shows an agent emerging from the scrum with Pretti’s weapon before the shooting. The administration immediately labeled him a “would-be assassin” and “domestic terrorist.”³ Their own preliminary review makes no mention of him attacking officers or brandishing a weapon.

So “immigration enforcement” is out. Maybe this is aggressive but legal?

An internal ICE memo authorizes officers to enter homes without judicial warrants using only administrative warrants—a position multiple legal scholars say is a clear Fourth Amendment violation. A federal judge halted ICE’s practice of arresting lawfully resettled refugees and sending them to detention camps in Texas. According to attorneys representing detained refugees, some “remained imprisoned for over a week, many shuffled between facilities in shackles.”⁴ The judge wrote: “Refugees have a legal right to be in the United States… At its best, America serves as a haven of individual liberties in a world too often full of tyranny and cruelty. We abandon that ideal when we subject our neighbors to fear and chaos.”

So “legal” is out. Perhaps the system is working—investigations are happening, accountability will follow?

At least six career prosecutors in the Minneapolis U.S. Attorney’s Office resigned as the office faced pressure to treat the investigation of Good’s shooting as assault on a federal officer rather than a civil rights case. An FBI supervisor also resigned partly over pressure to “discontinue” the investigation. The prosecutors who might hold agents accountable are being pushed out. The investigations that might establish facts are being shut down.

So “the system will handle it” is out. What’s left? The argument that this is regional law enforcement, not federal force projection against a state?

Retribution means punishment for a wrong suffered. What wrong did Minneapolis commit against Donald Trump that requires retribution? They voted against him by the largest margin since 1904. They were where George Floyd died—the spark for protests Trump ran against and lost.

State attorneys characterized a letter from AG Pam Bondi as a “ransom note” offering to end the surge in exchange for voter registration records and the end of sanctuary policies.⁵ The Pentagon gave 1,500 paratroopers from the 11th Airborne Division—the Army’s premier Arctic warfare unit—prepare-to-deploy orders, ready to go to Minnesota if Trump invokes the Insurrection Act.

Trump threatened to invoke it “if the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E.” He later walked it back, telling reporters there wasn’t a reason to use it “right now.” “If I needed it, I’d use it,” he said. “It’s very powerful.”

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So here’s where we are. The executive branch is systematically ignoring court orders. Armed federal agents have been deployed against a state as explicit “retribution.” U.S. citizens have been killed, hundreds of others detained based on ethnicity. Prosecutors investigating civil rights violations are resigning under pressure. The military is on standby. The President is publicly threatening to invoke wartime powers against American civilians.

You can argue about whether “fascism” is the technically precise term. But you can’t argue this is normal immigration enforcement. You can’t argue the courts are functioning as a check. You can’t argue U.S. citizens aren’t being targeted. You can’t argue the system is holding.

If this isn’t fascism, what else should we call it?

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¹ Judge Schiltz was nominated by George W. Bush in 2005 and clerked for Scalia on both the D.C. Circuit and Supreme Court. Federal Judicial Center biography. The 96 orders / 74 cases figure comes from an appendix to the court order. Reason.

² Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara confirmed Pretti was a legal gun owner with no criminal record. ABC News.

³ White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller called Pretti “a would-be assassin” and “domestic terrorist.” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem also labeled him a “domestic terrorist.” PBS, CBS News.

⁴ Detention conditions described by International Refugee Assistance Project attorneys representing refugees in court filings. IRAP Press Release.

⁵ Bondi’s letter demanded voter registration records, Medicaid/SNAP data, and an end to sanctuary policies. Secretary of State Steve Simon called it “an apparent ransom.” Fox News confirmed the same characterization was made in federal court by Minnesota attorney Lindsey Middlecamp. CBS News, Fox News.