What Would Nellis Say?
Trump's Toy Soldiers
Trump's toy soldiers
By Rick Stiller
On the night of November 9th, 1938, thousands of the Nazi Party’s paramilitary Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel (SS) troops, along with members of the Hitler Youth and some civilians, marauded through Germany and Austria in a government-sponsored orgy of racial violence, shattering the windows of Jewish shops, buildings, and synagogues. The shards of broken glass littering the streets spawned the term ‘Crystal Nacht’ or Crystal Night.
Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools were ransacked and looted, and the buildings destroyed. 1,400 synagogues and 7,000 businesses were torched, hundreds were killed, and hundreds more committed suicide. 30,000 men were arrested and shipped off to concentration camps in cattle cars in the first wave of ‘genetic-cleansing’ that resulted in the industrialized murder of 7 million Jews and another five million ‘enemies of the state’.
Trump’s administration has transformed Nazi Germany’s pogrom against its Jewish population into an American persecution of Asians, Hispanics, people with brown skin, and anyone who would dare protest against the state’s brutal and unconstitutional repression.
After fumbling and stumbling around in Los Angeles, Portland, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, Trump’s Gestapo has been unleashed on the citizens of Minneapolis, not to curb crime, which was already under control, but to harass and savage residents, disrupt the normal operations of a city, and impose Trump’s vengeance on a Democratic state that voted against him.
The government’s latest assault on the sovereignty of states and cities is the administration’s attempt to normalize more than 3000 masked, unidentifiable bullies accosting, beating, and killing people in the streets. There are more ICE agents storming through Minneapolis than all other law enforcement personnel in the state combined. They arrested, disappeared, and deported more than 2400 people without warrants or charges in the first month after the operation began in December 2025.
Stephen Miller mandated arresting and removing 3000 immigrants every day to meet a quota of one million per year. ICE’s Gestapo agents in Minneapolis are now averaging 824 per day, enough to fill two airliners heading for privately owned and managed deportation centers in Texas, Louisiana, and other states.
Tom Homan and Kristi Noem claim to be arresting only the “worst of the worst” when, in reality, their goons are going from house to house searching for anyone who might be a refugee and demanding that residents point out neighbors who might be suspect. Only 5% of those detained have been convicted of violent crimes, and 73% have no charges or prior convictions on their records.
Renee Nicole Good, a white mother of three, was executed by Jonathon E. Ross, an ICE agent (who has not been charged with a crime and Noem claims that he has “absolute immunity”), becoming the most tragic example of hundreds of senseless acts of cruelty and brutality in and around the Twin Cities.
As the Jackson family was heading home from a middle school basketball game, with six kids in the car, ICE agents shattered the windows with a flashbang that exploded under the vehicle, setting off the airbags, followed by a teargas cannister, which overwhelmed the family trapped inside a cloud of acrid fumes, resulting in the hospitalization of an infant and three small children.
Another masked bully hauled a Special Ed teacher out of her car in the school parking lot and disappeared her without explanation or charges. Several ICE agents ate a hearty meal at a Mexican restaurant and returned later to arrest the folks who served them. A dad was kidnapped in a grocery store while buying food for his six-year-old daughter, who was left wandering the streets alone searching for her ”Poppy.” The victims of these assaults and so many others were not violent or dangerous criminals. They were normal people going about their everyday lives who happened to run into a goon squad with a quota.
As everyone can see on the news reports, Trump’s toy soldiers rampaging through Minneapolis are not highly trained professionals with years of experience. Ice is offering a $50,000 signing bonus to new recruits, and many are being hired on the spot after a very brief interview, with no background checks, minimal training, and very little knowledge of the laws governing their behavior. Hand each new recruit a gun, a badge, and a mask, and turn them loose in small herds to terrorize innocent people…what could go wrong?
Recent reports indicate that ICE is planning a $100 million one-year “Uncle Sam needs you!” “wartime recruitment” campaign to enlist anti-immigrant, white nationalist, neo-Nazis who support gun rights, listen to radically right-wing talk shows, and are “very patriotic” and committed to “guarding the homeland.”
Their current ads feature titles like, “Want to deport illegals with your absolute boys?” with text reading, “You should be able to kick back with your boys, after a hard day of deporting illegals, and laugh about what you just accomplished.” or a poster with a white father and son dressed in tactical gear with automatic weapons and the caption “We’re taking father/son bonding to a whole new level,” and “No Age Cap, Join Ice Now!”
Trump is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act, which authorizes the President to deploy U.S. active-duty military troops or federalize the National Guard domestically, but it is to be used only to suppress insurrections, enforce federal law, or protect civil rights when courts/local law enforcement can't. None of those qualifications apply on the streets of Minneapolis or any other city in the country. Two brigades of active-duty soldiers in Alaska, who have no training in crowd control or policing citizens of their own country, have been ordered to prepare for deployment…to Minnesota.
“Show me your papers!”, a phrase that became almost a cliché in old movies about Nazi Germany, has become a common demand, which, if not fulfilled instantly, results in your immediate and often brutal disappearance. No charges, no judges, no phone calls, no lawyers, no process, and no chance you will avoid being incarcerated in an overcrowded hellhole in another state, before being deported to a country you’ve never heard of.
Wrapping bigotry and the dehumanization of minorities and refugees in an American flag does not make it acceptable or patriotic. The violent invasion of Minnesota by Trump’s 3000 untrained and unrestricted gangsters, who will soon have 1500 highly-trained combat troops as backup, is the first successful attempt to impose control over the American public. It will not be the last.
Expect a series of invasions of major Democratic cities first, as Homan and Noem perfect the logistics, and others in rapid succession to deport as many refugees as possible to cleanse our society of anyone who isn’t white or doesn’t support Trump’s mandate.
The object of an invasion is to take control of the conquered land and suppress its people, so we might expect the military to dismiss elected officials while they take over running the ‘operations and security of the cities for continuity and efficiency.’ When local elected governments cease to exist, there will be no need for elections.
This insidious creeping coup has to stop in Minnesota, and the only way that will happen is for the American people to stand up and protest all day, every day, until this madness ends. Republicans in Congress and the Senate are finally going to have to stop bending the knee to their fascist tyrant and do their jobs to defend our democracy and the foundational principles of the Constitution before there is no democracy to protect!
Stand Up! Speak Out! Make a Difference!