Tony Jones on “Neighborism” in Minnesota (#378)

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Tony Jones on Neighborism in Minnesota"

Podcast: Religion on the Mind
Host: Dr. Dan Koch
Guest: Rev. Dr. Tony Jones
Episode: #378
Date: February 9, 2026
Theme: Exploring the recent ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids and community response in Minnesota, and the emerging ethic of “neighborism” at the intersection of religion, psychology, and politics.

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on recent dramatic events in Minnesota, especially the controversial ICE raids that resulted in the deaths of community members Renee Good and Alex Preddy. Dr. Dan Koch interviews Rev. Dr. Tony Jones, a lifelong Minnesotan, writer, and theologian. They discuss the unique regional identity of Minnesota, the motivations and miscalculations of the federal government’s actions, and the powerful, disciplined, and peaceful community response—which commentators are calling “neighborism.” The episode is rich with personal stories, existential and psychological insights, and reflections on masculinity, religion, and protest in contemporary America.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Identity, Loyalty, and "Minnesota-ness"

• Tony Jones reflects on a deep, almost unique sense of regional loyalty among Minnesotans, describing the state’s history of good governance, communal spirit, and resilience in harsh conditions ([08:40]–[17:00]).
  • “There is something special about Minnesota. And I’ve just felt that in my bones since I was young... a great loyalty to this place that not everybody has.” — Tony Jones ([11:15])
• Sociocultural touchstones like Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion and the Scandinavian heritage are contrasted with the state's increasing diversity and tradition of openness to refugees and immigrants.

2. The ICE Raids: Political Context & Calculated Provocation

• The hosts discuss the context and apparent motivations behind the sudden influx of 3,000 ICE agents—despite Minnesota’s smaller undocumented population compared to states like California or Texas ([26:16]–[30:00]).
  • “This was not an attempt to significantly combat illegal immigration... This was a political attack on a state that Trump doesn’t like.” — Tony ([26:31])
• They highlight possible aims: to incite chaos, punish political opponents (e.g., Gov. Tim Walz, Rep. Ilhan Omar), and potentially instigate divisive, violent reactions—a strategy attributed to Stephen Miller.
  • “I think maybe he thought that all the whites or the critical mass of whites were going to be on his side... And I think maybe he thought it might provoke some kind of a race riot... that would play right into their hands.” — Tony ([29:13])

3. Community Response: Discipline, Organization, Weather, and “Neighborism”

• Rather than devolving into widespread violence as with the 2020 George Floyd protests, the recent response was characterized by disciplined nonviolence, attributed partly to freezing temperatures and partly to increased organization and learned tactical restraint ([17:29]–[23:13]).
  • “50,000 people marched through downtown Minneapolis... and, you know, riots don’t tend to happen when it’s 15 below zero, frankly.” — Tony ([20:17])
• The hosts dig into the Atlantic’s "neighborism" article by Adam Serwer, emphasizing the ethic of standing with "neighbors—whether they were born in Minneapolis or Mogadishu" ([34:03]).
  • “Minnesotans are insisting that their neighbors are their neighbors, whether they were born in Minneapolis or Mogadishu; that is arguably a deeply Christian philosophy, one apparently loathed by some of the most powerful Christians in America.” — Adam Serwer, quoted by Dan ([34:03])
• The existential-psychological dimension: In the face of destabilizing “boundary situations”, Minnesotans narrowed their focus to immediate, local action and mutual care, reinforcing identity and values ([43:06]–[45:33]).
  • “The response by and large has been to actually tighten attention to the concrete neighbor in front of you... this is who we are.” — Dan ([45:01])

4. Religion, Spirituality, and Civil Protest

• Exploration of "civil religion" at the spontaneous shrines to Alex Preddy, and the blending of religious and civic practices in the Minnesota response.
  • “There’s a kind of German Catholic, Scandinavian Lutheran civility... baked in the DNA of this place.” — Tony ([62:58])
• Notable moments include 100 liberal Protestant clergy arrested for peaceful civil disobedience at the Minneapolis airport and “singing protests” outside ICE hotels, contrasting sharply with violent images of federal agents ([67:20]–[68:43]).
• The role of liberal Protestantism, while fading nationally, remains a living and significant force in shaping protest and solidarity in Minnesota.

5. Masculinity and Leadership: Unlikely Symbols

• Discussion of Minneapolis Chief of Police Brian O’Hara as an example of healthy, visible masculinity, breaking stereotypes of progressive “softness.” Commentary on other “normie” men and their outspokenness as key to shifting public perception, even among previous MAGA voters ([69:30]–[73:41]).
  • “There is something about the men who are in the spotlight in this moment that is peeling off some MAGA dudes to be like, okay... These are normies.” — Tony ([72:13])

6. Realism and Self-Critique: Hard Problems, Real Consequences

• Confronts uncomfortable realities, such as major Medicaid fraud perpetrated by Somali immigrants ([50:03]), and local pressures against whistleblowers in progressive circles ([51:00]–[51:46]).
  • “That kind of stuff is fixable. It’s not fixable when someone’s dead on the goddamn sidewalk.” — Tony ([50:23])
• Reflections on gun ownership and the meaning of the Second Amendment in the context of actual government overreach ([54:10]–[61:31]).
  • “For the first time... I thought, okay, the reason we have a Second Amendment is to have a voluntary militia to overthrow a tyrannical federal government. That is the reason...” — Tony ([54:32])
  • Dan admits to shifting his view on citizens being armed as a check on tyranny ([56:31]–[59:39])

7. Political Shifts and Red Lines

• Signs of shifting public mood and MAGA voters being alienated by the recent federal intervention and violence ([51:49]–[53:59]).
  • “If your red line has not been crossed now, you are, I don’t know, beyond hope, beyond reason... you are blindly following a cult leader.” — Tony ([52:58])

8. Ongoing Questions and Hopes for the Future

• Both hosts express cautious hope and pride in Minnesota’s response, while acknowledging economic aftershocks, the fragility of institutional protections, and national implications ([75:51]–[78:10]).
  • “We are under assault by a federal force. And it’s very weird to also be kind of going about business as usual.” — Tony ([48:54])
  • “Just remember your friends in Minnesota, because... restaurants are going to close... tax revenue is going to go way down. They’re going to pin that on their Democratic governor.” — Tony ([75:51])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Melania documentary (Comic Relief / Opening)

  • “The full film title is Melania: 20 Days to History.” — Dan
  • “What the fuck? Who approved this subtitle?” — Dan ([02:38])

• On “neighborism” and faith:

  • “Minnesotans are insisting that their neighbors are their neighbors, whether they were born in Minneapolis or Mogadishu; that is arguably a deeply Christian philosophy...” — Adam Serwer, quoted by Dan ([34:03])

• On assimilation and multicultural Minnesota:

  • “It’s weird for me to even refer to our neighbors as immigrants, because they’re just our neighbors... they’re incredible neighbors, they’re so generous.” — Tony ([36:41])

• On the peacefulness of protests:

  • “I think to your MLK vs Malcolm X point earlier, I think the peacefulness of these protests has been far more powerful.” — Tony ([61:22])

• On political and psychological transformation:

  • “I will remember where I was when I saw on my phone the video of Alex Preddy being shot... It happened again. What are we doing here?” — Tony ([48:18])

• Closing thoughts:

  • “We both came in kind of lower energy... but I also feel like this was encouraging. Orienting is maybe... the word, I think, for me.” — Dan ([79:17])

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Important Timestamps

• 00:22–04:26 – Casual banter, the tone of the discussion, intro to Minnesota and current mood
• 06:27–10:58 – Tony’s perspective as a “moderate uncle,” state loyalty, state identity, and regional pride
• 13:19–20:17 – Reflections on changing demographics, local immigration, and riot/protest responses influenced by weather and organization
• 22:53–29:13 – Political aftermath of “defund the police,” Minneapolis political context, reasons for ICE incursion, and the Stephen Miller theory
• 34:03–45:33 – Neighborism, existential challenges, local organization and psychology, identity formation during crisis
• 50:03–53:59 – Facing ugly realities: Medicaid fraud, whistleblowing consequences, red lines for MAGA voters
• 54:32–61:31 – The Second Amendment, changing perspectives on guns and protest
• 62:12–67:22 – Religion/spirituality at ground zero, the DNA of Minnesota’s religious culture
• 75:51–78:26 – Economic impacts, lasting effects, political consequences, national implications

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Final Thoughts

The conversation offers a nuanced, personal, and political portrait of Minnesota as a case study in how local identity, values, history, and religious culture can shape national narratives and grassroots resistance. The ethic of “neighborism” provides a hopeful counterpoint to attempts at sowing discord, and the episode balances realism, cautious hope, and humor in a time of crisis.

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Contact: Religion on the Mind – [e-mail]
If you enjoyed this episode, check out prior shows on regional identity, existential psychology, and community organizing.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. Welcome back everybody to Religion on the Mind. I AM your host, Dr. Dan Koch, licensed therapist. And joining me today on the other line, the one and only inimitable Tony Jones. Hi, Tony Dan.

[B]

It's Reverend Doctor. I mean, if you're gonna be dropping doctor all the time, bro.

[A]

Hey, you know what? Fair play come. Fair play. I gotta give you your full title. The Reverend Dr. Tony Jones. I'm gonna ask you about being a Reverend Doctor even. So I really fucked up there. We were just chatting beforehand about how both of us are lower energy. I'm feeling a bit of depression today. Mild depression. Sort of just got back from two days just with Jaffrey and I, which was really nice. It was like a Christmas gift from my brother and sister in law to watch the boys for a weekend. And it was like so peaceful. And then like as soon as we got back into the Whole Foods parking lot shopping center, like life sort of hit me like a ton of bricks.

[B]

And I was like, oh, Courtney texted me a couple weeks ago or last week, she texted me, she said, do we still shop at Whole Foods? How do we feel about Whole Foods and Amazon?

[A]

Because of Amazon?

[B]

I'm like, oh my gosh.

[A]

I mean, I know it's. I mean, it's a legitimate question. It just was. It actually just happened to be the grocery store on our route home.

[B]

Oh, yeah, I'm sure. Otherwise.

[A]

Otherwise, yeah, it was a staycation. But. Well, we do, I mean, we do a little bit.

[B]

We avoid them a little bit.

[A]

We have our own overpriced local supermarket called Hagan that we mostly go to.

[B]

Yeah, but maybe the owner of that grocery store isn't making $80 million documentaries about Melania Trump. Possibly.

[A]

Okay, can we, let's just do a. Let's just do a couple minutes on the Melania doc because I don't know when else this is going to come up.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

First of all, the subtitle which I've noticed is on the poster.

[B]

What is the subtitle?

[A]

This is what I'm going to say. I've noticed it's on the poster at our local Cineplex, but I have not seen it on any of the recent ad blitz stuff and I don't see it on any of the like billboards or anything I see on Instagram or TV ads or whatever. I mean, you can't make this shit up. The subtitle of a documentary about an immigrant woman to America for whom English is not her first language. The full film title is Melania 20 Days to History.

[B]

Oh my God.

[A]

To history.

[B]

What?

[A]

What the fuck? Who approved this subtitle?

[B]

Until history. 20 days to.

[A]

Or like, of.

[B]

You know, history or.

[A]

20 days in history or.

[B]

But isn't it like the 20 days before the inauguration or something that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

20 days until history. To history. Right. It's like the wrong preposition.

[A]

20 days to history.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

It's like poor English and it's like they're just asking for it. Well, I mean, anyway, that whole thing, it's just a big racket.

[B]

That thing is like part and parcel of, I think, of all the stuff we're gonna talk about today. It's not at the top of the list, but it's probably in the top 10 for me, of how pathetically corporate America has cowed to Trump and tried to curry his favor. How Tim Cook is at the premiere of that movie, how Jeff Bezos is getting the movie made that clearly to curry favor with Trump.

[A]

You know, it's just a big bribe, basically.

[B]

It took here in the Twin Cities. You know, we have got a lot of big businesses and it took like a week. Let's see. They came out with a statement. Alex Preddy was killed on a Saturday. I think it was the following.

[A]

Yeah, Saturday. It was Saturday.

[B]

Saturday. Saturday. He. It was like the following Friday that there was a statement by all these big companies. Target and Cargill and the Minnesota Twins and the Vikings and da, da, da, da. And it was so tepid. It was so tepid. It was like, we just need to de. Escalate and both sides need to come together. There's no fucking coming together. Okay. You know what this reminds me of, Dan? I'm just gonna go right into it. Is that all right with you?

[A]

I mean, I gotta do it. I have to do a little bit of setup is the problem. I need to explain a couple things.

[B]

Okay. Set it up at the top.

[A]

Hold that thought. Really quick. Just say. Okay, here's the quick. Housekeeping. Most of you know Tony from our Generation Gap Culture Hour episodes, which. The full version are for patrons, but the. The 25, 30 minutes is usually on the feed. We are not going to do one until March because our third counterpart, Josh, is on paternity leave enjoying his first child right now. We wish them. We wish him and Emily the best. So if you're like, why do I know Tony? That's why. Two weeks ago, I had an episode, also about Minnesota, with Mason, who we've been doing some news stuff, and he's also from Minneapolis and lives there. I wanted to get your take on Minnesota, Tony. And we weren't going to be recording this month because of the paternity leave thing. But also it's because you're a lifelong Minnesotan, which we'll talk about. It's also something that I know that you've been thinking about. You've been writing about it for a few weeks now on your sub stack, Tony's field notes. But also, like the Mason episode, we are recording this because of schedules one week before it's going to come out. So last time we recorded on Monday, and then the following Saturday was the. The Killing of Alex Preddy, which we did not talk about. And now, who knows, Something else could happen. It does seem to be a little bit deescalated, but just fair warning, something else could happen that. That you will think should change the tenor of this conversation or whatever. And we would probably agree, but we're recording it on February 2nd, so that's the main stuff here. Except I did just want to say the role that you play, because I think this might be interesting to keep in mind. I think the role that you often play in this show's ecosphere is sort of like the older male conservative is too strong. But let's just say, you know, older male perspective, kind of like your moderate uncle or something like that. I'm kind of excited to see what Tony comes out here because I think it might surprise some people a little bit who may have certain expectations around that. That's it. That's all I wanted to say to start up.

[B]

I mean, you know, it is insane that I would be considered conservative, but it does show that, like, in this ecosphere of this show, I'm sure a lot of your listeners think that of me, but, like, in the grand scheme of, like, American politics and theology, I'm definitely left of center.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So, I mean, if anything, that just goes to the fact that we all have these silos that we live in. And, yeah, that's a big part of my diagnosis of, I think, what's happening right now or. Or how Trump misjudged. But here's what I was leading off with about, you know, all these CEOs, all these Minnesota CEOs, were like, everybody needs to just come together and de escalate. And, you know, de escalate. They love that fucking word.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So like, Tim Walls, he had a nice phone call with Trump on Friday, and then Fry had a briefer phone call with trump. And yet 10 minutes after the call, Trump is like, oh, no, we're not de escalating in Minnesota. We're not drawing down troops, even though he just said to Wallace that they would. You cannot reason with a crazy person. And we are, like, in the clutches of not just one crazy person, but I think, you know, multiple crazy people. Sorry if that's. You know, maybe we don't say crazy anymore on Dan's podcast, and I don't.

[A]

Think that's the thing.

[B]

Oh, my gosh. You can't diagnose people.

[A]

I've not diagnosed anybody.

[B]

Okay. I am.

[A]

Yeah, well, you're not a therapist. You can do whatever the hell you want.

[B]

No, they told us in pastoral counseling class. I'm sure I've said this on GGCH before, but they're like, maximum two meetings, and then you shuffle that person off to an actual therapist because you're not one.

[A]

Yeah, that's right. As long as you follow that rule, you don't need to follow the rule of not diagnosing people publicly. Okay. I'd like to start with your connection to Minnesota. I'm interested in how this is changing your relationship to your home state. But, you know, just briefly, you know, you start your recent essay, you know, sort of talking about how you spent most of your life there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Other than a little bit of school, essentially. You've been in Minnesota your whole life.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And Courtney, your wife, your second wife, your current wife. Wonderful, wonderful woman, you know, moved there to be with you because you had custody of your children and they had grown up in Minnesota, and you weren't gonna move them out of Minnesota. So just talk to us a little bit about, like, I don't know, the Minnesota of it, of what's going on right now, like, for those of us not from there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, this could have gone down in any number of blue states or blue cities or whatever. But the fact that it's going down in Minnesota, tell us what's true about that.

[B]

Well, we can talk about the reasons why it's happening in Minnesota, which I think we probably should, in case some of your listeners don't know what those reasons are. We can get to that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But I'll just say that when I got to college, I felt an extraordinary loyalty to Minnesota, and I realized that other people had loyalties to, like. Some people were, like, really big Red Sox fans, like, really crazy about the Red Sox or the Yankees, you know, And. Yeah, I didn't really know anything about college football, Southern college football. And there was a kid on my freshman dorm hall who was, like, super into Auburn and would find a place to watch every Auburn football game and I was just like, oh, that's weird. There were people who are loyal to different things, but I simply did not find anyone else who was so extraordinarily loyal to their state. And I felt like, oh, this is something interesting about Minnesota, I thought, because I felt a great deal of affection and affinity for Minnesota. I was just actually at my alma mater last week giving a talk, and I took a walk with a buddy of mine I'd known in college I had not seen since 1989 or 1990. And he was from Wisconsin, and he was like, remember how everybody used to call it flyover country where we came from? And truly, like, there wasn't east coast elitism at this Ivy League school I went to that. They really looked. People would be like, do you have cows in your backyard? Ha, ha, ha. You know. But they, like, literally couldn't pick Minnesota out on a map. People who grew up in, like, Connecticut or.

[A]

I did make the M State.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, you mentioned the Michigan, whatever. M State thing.

[B]

Minnesota, Montana, Missouri.

[A]

Yeah, I literally did that in the Mason episode, you know, just insofar as I had misremembered that the Gretchen Whitmer attempted kidnapping was Michigan, not Minnesota. I think the other thing I was remembering, which was the state representatives. That was Minnesota, right? That were killed.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Or was that also Michigan? That was Minnesota, correct?

[B]

No, that was Minnesota. She was a state senator and her husband were killed.

[A]

I got that one right, but I got Whitmer wrong.

[B]

Another guy who's still a state senator was shot nine times, I think, and somehow recovered.

[A]

And they lived.

[B]

Oh, yeah, it lived. He's. He's back in. In the legislature. It's. It's incredible.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

There was a very famous Time magazine cover in the 1970s, around maybe 1978 or something, of our governor in a plaid shirt in a canoe, holding up a walleye. And the title was the Good Life in Minnesota. That was a big thing. Obviously, the Vikings were real good back in the Purple People Eater days and made the super bowl four times. We're kind of like a nationally known team. And then in so many ways, for a lot of us, particularly, you know, more progressive NPR listeners, Garrison Keiller had an extraordinary run and became very much, in a lot of people's minds married to the idea of Minnesota. Like, Wisconsin didn't have a Prairie Home Companion. Iowa didn't have A Prairie Home Companion. You know, people think about Iowa and they think about, oh, the first primary in the country, you know, or whatever, or they. Yeah, I mean, every state has a thing But I always felt, and I may be wrong about this, but I think the last two weeks have shown that I'm not wrong, that there is something special about Minnesota. And I've just felt that in my bones since I was young and particularly since I went to college and then seminary. And I mean, I bet if you asked anybody who knew me at Fuller Seminary between 1990 and 1993, they'd be like, I don't know. I don't know much about that kid, but I remember he was from Minnesota. You know, it was like a really big deal. So, yeah, I have a great loyalty to this place that not everybody has. But, you know, I met a guy last week. I was, as Minnesotans do, I was ice fishing and it was 25 below zero. And that was not wind chill. That was just straight up 25.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I met a guy there and he's like, oh, yeah, I'm from Indiana. I met my wife at college. You know, I didn't realize that everyone moves back to Minnesota. So that's why I live here now, because my wife was like, oh, yeah, we're moving back to Minnesota. So, like, that's a thing. And then the last thing I'd say is on this question is, like, you mentioned, Courtney moved here in 2011 and we got married. And she loves it. She loves Minnesota. Totally. Totally and completely in love with it. I mean, she loves Texas in different ways, but she doesn't miss Texas. She would never move back to Texas. And Texas is another state that's like, definitely got like a personality.

[A]

Oh, it's got its boosters.

[B]

Absolutely. And there's a whole Texana culture of, you know, only in Texas and whatever.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But she loves Minnesota, which. For which in a lot of ways has been validating of my love of Minnesota, you know.

[A]

Yeah, I bet there's something interesting going on here, which is, you know, what's happening in Minneapolis and the Twin Cities in general is it's actually a marrying of, you know, there's the, like, Trump should have learned the lesson. Hitler learned don't invade a winter, people in winter, you know, kind of a thing. There's that sort of frozen chosen where, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We're used to dealing with harsh conditions. We have like this built in grit that is required to survive here. There's also probably self selection around that. And then those people have children. Right. And all that stuff. But what's interesting to me is that that specific geographic grit and character is being used in service of an extremely universal set of values. So it's like there's something interesting about that. You can imagine people who are like, hey, we love our home state, we love our culture. And if you want to move here, you got to join that culture. That is sort of the deal.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you don't get that. What you're getting is like, this is like a live and let live kind of a state. This is a. We can band together, we can include people. There's a long history of voting blue. Yeah. The sort of sanctuary city, higher refugee and immigration population stuff. Obviously there are. That sometimes leads to headlines and various things, but you don't get a sense that there's like a real concerted discomfort with that. You know, it's like Jaffrey, my wife was telling me about, you know, when I was there for Theology Beer Camp, you drove me to this Scandinavian shop called Ingebritzens, which is probably the most popular Scandinavian specific storefront in America. I mean, it's certainly top three. So we were talking about this morning, she and I, like, there is a specificity to Scandinavian culture. My Norwegian heritage, my Swedish heritage. But even during the George Floyd protests and their building sustained some damage because they are in the neighborhood where a lot of the rioting took place. And they were like, they chose not to take that as an opportunity to sort of condemn the people, but just say, like, hey, we're, you know, we'll rebuild. We have insurance. Like, we're here. And there's something cool about that because. Because that's very specific. That's not just Minnesotan. That's like Minnesotan Scandinavian. And yet there's an open armedness and open heartedness to it. You know, sort of like we're all Americans to it. And that's. Yeah, that's unique.

[B]

Yes, I think it's unique. And I've had several friends and I mean, I'd be interested on your thoughts on this. Like, what would have happened if they would have sent ICE in to do this in Des Moines or Seattle or Bozeman or. You know, they're doing it in smaller ways, but the way they did it in Minneapolis, obviously was extraordinary.

[A]

Calculated to be so right.

[B]

So, I mean, in some ways it's apples and oranges to compare it with George Floyd, because George Floyd was racial. It had a racial component. George Floyd had a component of. I mean, he had committed a crime and he was altered by chemicals at the time. It was done by a Minneapolis cop who, it turned out was a bad cop, like, movie bad, you know, like a rogue cop.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And you Referred to it as protests. But, Dan, it was riots.

[A]

I think I said riots, too, didn't I?

[B]

Did you? You said protests.

[A]

But I think I said both. I think I said both. Yeah.

[B]

I mean, they burned down a police precinct. They did a lot of property damage. They overwhelmed the Minneapolis police in the rioting that followed George Floyd's death.

[A]

I don't know if you recall, when I was living in Seattle, we had our own autonomous zone. Tony.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[A]

In Capitol Hill. The Capitol Hill neighborhood. The Chaz, or Chop, as it was known.

[B]

Yeah. So I wondered when. When ICE killed Renee. Good. And then Alex Preddy. I thought, probably. Here we go again, Courtney and I, and we had a friend in town. The three of us went to the. All three memorials, actually, on the day after Alex Preddy was murdered, we went to his memorial, which was packed, hundreds of people. I mean, we were there just over 24 hours after he'd been killed. And I'm gonna ask you about that.

[A]

Later, by the way.

[B]

Yeah. There were tons of people there standing in silent vigil, I'll tell you. Yeah, we can talk about it. There was one kind of kooky guy pretending to be a clergy person. But, you know, kooks are gonna come out at moments like this.

[A]

Kook's gonna kook.

[B]

Kook's gonna kook. And I remember looking. I looked up and down the block. We walked both sides of the block, all around it. Not a single broken window. And I remarked to Courtney and our friend Hal, I was like, you guys, not a single broken window. And Courtney's kind of like, of course, Tony. Of course there weren't any broken windows.

[A]

But I'm like, well, last time.

[B]

Yeah, there are a hell of a lot of broken windows after George Floyd. And there are a hell lot of broken windows. When the G7 met in Seattle and all the guys in the Guy Fawkes masks were anarchists or. You know, I thought there was definitely a potential for that kind of protest that devolves into a riot and devolves into violence. Because we've seen it many times in America, including here, but it happened differently. One of my friends attributes it to something you already mentioned, and that's the cold. You know, like the big march the following Friday. It was 15 below zero.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I don't know, 50,000 people marched through downtown Minneapolis.

[A]

Massive.

[B]

Yeah. And, you know, riots don't tend to happen when it's 15 below zero, frankly.

[A]

I'm sure there is some sort of, like, temperature. Heat map.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Like, you know, about like, there's got to be global rioting, and it probably more often happens in temperate weather and stuff like that.

[B]

Yeah, Yeah, I was. So that's part of it.

[A]

And. Well, I had an idea here, too, so.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I'm really interested in the way that it's gone down because, you know, one of the ways that I upset or let down, you know, more leftist friends of mine is in my moderation and my commitment to, like, I will go to my grave, even if it's still cooler, to prefer Malcolm X over mlk, I will go to my grave preferring mlk. I don't care. I'm going to die on that hill.

[B]

You're making the right choice there, buddy.

[A]

I think so, and I think that this proves it.

[B]

But objectively so.

[A]

Okay. Anyway, I think it's certainly more authentic to my own values.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And one way to think about it is, you know, there's a lot of different ways that you could analyze the differences between George Floyd and Renee Good. Alex Preddy situations. I think weather and time of year is one, I think. Is this about racial tensions that have been simmering in America since 1619, or is it about the second, the fifth year of a particular administration? Right, that's. Those are very different. But one thing that seems undeniable is that during COVID and in the wake of George Floyd's death, organization increased amongst Minnesotans. I've seen some news stories about this. Like, certain nonprofits sort of became more community hubs, community organizing hubs. And like, for instance, the watchers, the ice watchers, of which Renee Good and her wife were a part, and Alex Preddy, too, it looks like, were sort of specifically trained in these tactics. Like, here's what you're allowed to do, here's what you're not allowed to do. These. This is best practices, like. And there's been quite a bit of discipline around that. So there's like, organization, discipline, structure. And so one thing you could say is that that emerged after the George Floyd riots as like, a corrective to be like, hey, we actually probably could have got more done if we had gone about this differently, you know, which is not to minimize the natural pain and suffering and grief and anger, but just, you know, that can be true alongside. What's the most effective way to get legislation passed? And answering that question. Right.

[B]

Yeah. And to the politicos in Minnesota, they obviously made an extraordinarily damaging and costly blunder when they said defund the police. And several of those people were voted off the Minneapolis City Council because of that.

[A]

It's happened in Seattle too, by the way, in the last six years.

[B]

Oh, yeah, Yeah. I mean, it was a way for the national narrative to say those liberals in Minnesota are fricking crazy and that's why there's rioting in the streets. One of their own cops had gone bad because liberals don't know how to run a law and order city. You know, and in addition to what you're saying at the kind of grassroots organization level, which I'm sure is true, personally, I think more significantly, the politicians in Minnesota learned that saying stupidly leftist ideological stuff that will never actually happen in real life was terribly costly to our cause as Minnesotans. And that instead, how about we bring in a good police chief like Brian o' Hara who literally just has cleaned up the Minneapolis Police Department. And not that there aren't still. I'm sure they're bad cops. They have over 600 cops in that force. But he has done an extraordinary job, and he's been out front on tv and they've been very disciplined with their message. And Jacob Fry, you know who everyone was like, he's the crazy liberal mayor of Minnesota. Well, he'd never said defund the police. He did not join the city council. He was like me on. On Religion on the Mind. I mean, he's. He's actually progressive. But compared to the people he was hanging around with on the Minneapolis City Council, he looked downright conservative because he's like, no, how about we reform the police instead of defund the police? Yeah, so there's been that, too. And then, of course, Minnesotans were very shaken by the fact that we had a political assassination by a. What seems to be. Although he's, you know, that it'll come out in court, I hope, but seems to be a pro life activist who murdered a state senator and her husband and tried to kill another one. That's an act of political violence and an assassination that really shook Minnesotans. It did not get much national headlines, but. But it was a really big deal here. And it like, she was dear friends with Tim Walls, and it sombered Tim Walls in a way. And, you know, Walls listeners will remember, you know, he was. Kamala now says in her memoir that he wasn't her first choice, but maybe that was Shapiro, but he was the VP nominee for the Democrats. And, you know, his whole thing was, they're weird. He was the attack dog on Trump. Which gets us to why they would send people here. And there are obviously competing theories about why 3,000 ICE officers would come. I mean, let's just put it in context. According to Pew, Pew Research Center, Minnesota had, at the end of last year, about 120,000 undocumented immigrants in the state of Minnesota. 120,000. The state of California has 2.3 million. Million.

[A]

Well, there's a whole agriculture industry and all kinds of industries that rely on that. Labor.

[B]

Well, we have an agriculture industry, too, and that's where most of them work. Yeah, Mostly undocumented work here, too. Texas, 1.3 million. Florida, same kind of numbers.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

This was not an attempt to significantly combat illegal immigration in the United States. This was a political attack on a state that Trump doesn't like. And he. I mean, you could argue that Ilhan Omar may be his most hated political opponent. He may hate her more than any other politician in America right now. He also hates Tim Walls. He said it repeatedly. He has attacked these people repeatedly.

[A]

Just one other thing to throw in there. It's also, as I understand it, Stephen Miller, okay, His thing is, like, create, you know, chaos and make a disincentive for people who are coming here. So he. We want it bloody, we want it big. We want it like that. Serves this sort of psychological warfare right kind of aim of his, as I understand it.

[B]

I think that that's the next thing I was gonna say.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Dan is, I think, even more than Trump, frankly. I think this was. Stephen Miller.

[A]

Was a Stephen Miller joint.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Was the mastermind behind this, the mini mind behind this. I don't think it was Kristi Noem. I think she's frankly too stupid to come up with something like this.

[A]

I don't think Kristi Noem chose what she had for breakfast this morning.

[B]

Yeah, she's come on dumb as a box of rocks. And I've known that for a long time, since she was.

[A]

She did choose to shoot her own dog instead of letting it die peacefully. So there's that.

[B]

Well, I mean, I have friends who do that, too, around here, but you should.

[A]

Okay, that's not. There's a reason that we put them down peacefully. It is less suffering for the dog.

[B]

One of my dearest friends put his dog down about a month ago after that dog bit his wife in the face. And.

[A]

Well, putting the dog down is fine. I'm saying to shoot it in the head instead of.

[B]

Oh, that's what he did. He shot it in the head in the woods.

[A]

I would. I would not.

[B]

I know you would not do that.

[A]

But I don't think it makes you a better pet owner to say that is what I'm saying.

[B]

Like, I. I'm not saying he's a better pet owner. I'm just saying people do that. That's not, not that whole thing. That was another example of like liberal media not really understanding people in the Midwest.

[A]

Well, I think she was just trying to say, like, I'm tough. You know, I'm tough.

[B]

She shouldn't have bragged about it. Right. Look, she's. I will, I will repeat, she's dumb as a box of rocks. She wasn't behind this. I think the major miscalculation for Miller is maybe he thought that all the white people in Minnesota, which, you know, is a pretty white state, it's not nearly as homogeneous as it was when I was growing up, but it's still, you know, one of the whiter states in the country. I think maybe he thought that all the whites or the critical mass of whites were gonna be on his side. Yeah, and this goes back to my comment right when we started about the media silo. I sometimes wonder if these guys like Bannon and Trump and Miller and these guys that they live in and Tucker Carlson, that they live in their own media silos, that they're literally not hearing any reasonable responses or comments. They never watch even cnn, much less listen to Pod Save America or something like that. Yeah, they just think everybody who doesn't agree with them is some libtard or whatever and there's very few and they're really loud. So if we do this, all the whites of Minnesota are going to be behind this because they don't want their children being eaten by immigrants or some crazy shit. And I think maybe he thought it might provoke some kind of a race riot or some kind of a race war, not unlike what happened after George Floyd. And that would play right into their hands that Minneapolis is a blue state that is lawless. They can't even keep their own citizens under control. And we need to federalize Minnesota and come in and move and I don't know, we'll probably never know. And this is all speculation. And it's nothing that hasn't been. You know, you can't read the New York Times opinion page without one of their columnists saying, like, I think I know why Stephen Miller sent 3,000 ICE agents to Minnesota. Like, everybody thinks they have a take on why. And who knows if mine is right or yeah or not. I just think like, whatever the reason, it completely backfired. And it has been so extremely gratifying as a Minnesotan, as somebody who confessed my love For Minnesota to you a few minutes ago to see how Minnesota has responded to this incursion by ice. And it was not a given, Dan. It could have gone the George Floyd way. All the white people could have stayed home. It could have left with some very angry. And there have been missteps. You know, I. I am not a fan of the Minnesota woman who led the protest into the evangelical church in St. Paul.

[A]

Into the church. Yeah, we talked about that with Mason a couple of weeks ago.

[B]

I've never liked her tactics. I've never liked her. And I know, but saying that, it's like, oh, you know, straight white guy criticizing a black woman activist, it didn't help.

[A]

It's not. If you're trying to. It turned a lot of potential people away.

[B]

It's been shocking to me in that one sliver of the panoply of responses to the ICE incursion. How many of my liberal clergy friends on Facebook and stuff have been supporting that protest?

[A]

I know, I've seen that, too.

[B]

A lot of them. And I'm like, you people, this is such bullshit. You would not want pro lifers interrupting your church service and, you know, holding up pictures of aborted fetuses or something. Come on. This is. Yeah, no, you know, this is wrong. You don't. Like. You can break with your side once in a while. You can say that was not okay. And. Yeah, and there was one or two, maybe two times where hotels where ICE agents were staying were damaged. Like windows were broken on the ground floor. But it's been compared to the number of people who've been in the streets. It's just like, I mean, I know Twitter's a cesspool and they're all bots, you know, or whatever, but it's shocking to me how many people are still like, well, those are paid protesters in Minnesota. I mean, if you're still saying that these are paid protesters in Minnesota, you're just. You're beyond reason.

[A]

You're not a serious person.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You may have an intellectual disability or be a non serious person.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not a serious person. So.

[A]

Well, so what? They did find. What they did find. So what Stephen Miller and all them found. You and I both shared, like, you quoted this Atlantic piece that I also shared something about in my stories. We both really enjoyed this piece by Adam Serwer where he's calling it neighborism. Yeah, right. And here's a quote that you quoted in your piece. Minnesotans are insisting that their neighbors are their neighbors, whether they were born in Minneapolis or Mogadishu that is arguably a deeply Christian philosophy, one apparently loathed by some of the most powerful Christians in America. And I feel like I've been burned before when I have felt a twinge of hope that a form of Christianity resembling my own kind of liberal Protestantism might have some sort of flourishing moment in the United States. I feel like, I feel like I have been burned enough times not to expect too much from this, but I'm just savoring this moment. Yeah, I'm savoring this one of like. Yeah, yeah, this is sort of what we're talking about. And it really seems to have won the day here in, you know, this battle or whatever. Yeah. Talk about this idea of neighborism and.

[B]

Yeah. You know, when I graduated from high school there were 635 kids in my class. Big high school class.

[A]

Yeah, it's big.

[B]

I think we had three black people. Three black kids in the class. Yeah, we had some Asians but they were all had been adopted. You know, it was in 1986. Minnesota was white, especially the suburb I lived in was white. Really white.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now when a house goes for sale on our street here, you've been on my block. When a house goes for sale here, it's a 50, 50 chance that it's going to be someone white or a person of color. Now I will say that there are Somalis who live in our town but they're usually not homeowners. They're more recent immigrants and they live in apartments. The people who tend to buy homes, you know, are frankly Indians and Chinese people who are coming to work in the med tech industry. There's big med tech here in Minnesota and in healthcare and stuff like that. Our neighbors right next door about whom I wrote and I, I put a picture of Dorji in my.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In my post. What's today? Today's Monday on, on Saturday my mother in law died unexpectedly and Courtney flew to Texas. And you know, I started to inform people over the. So the wife next door who is from India, immigrant from India, naturalized US citizen, speaks with an accent, has browner skin than mine. She's a cardiac nurse at our hospital here and they're practicing Tibetan Buddhists. She wrote this is one of the most difficult times of our life. Today I'm lighting candle and offering prayers for your mother's soul. She texts this to Courtney and me and for comfort to surround her and she sent a picture which I'm just going to show you on the. Yeah, so that's a picture of Their shrine. They have one bedroom in their house that's a shrine. And she was basically saying, I'm lighting candles and praying for your mother and her journey. Yeah, she lost her mother last year and then God. I can't remember how long they're in mourning for, like, six weeks. They don't eat meat. And they're, you know, they.

[A]

Smart, by the way. Psychologically sound practice.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

We avoid death like. Like the plague.

[B]

Right. Hey, so, you know, I wrote in that substack essay you're referring to that it's weird for me to even refer to our neighbors as immigrants because they're just our neighbors. I don't think of them as immigrants. Like, we do stuff with them all the time, and it's been super fun. They're incredible neighbors. They're so generous. And so I think that's been the experience of a lot of urban Minnesotans. Now, you look at an electoral map of Minnesota and you will see there's blue in the Twin Cities. There's blue in St. Cloud, Duluth and Grand Marais. Maybe Rochester. Probably Rochester, because the Mayo Clinic's there. But, yeah, the rest of the state is red. You know. Now, that's counties, of course, and they're sparsely populated, a lot of them. But I think, you know, the majority of the immigration, of course, it takes place in urban areas. And I think that a lot of Minnesotans like me, I mean, I grew up a block from here, right? And we have people of color, immigrants, who now live on our block and. And are fully a part of our lives. I don't know. Are they assimilated? I mean, they still have accents. They don't worship Jesus. You know what I'm saying? They're clearly Tibetan Buddhists, our next door neighbors, for example, but they send their kids to swim lessons, and when Dorji needs to borrow gas for his lawnmower, he comes over and asks me to borrow gas. You know, this kind of thing, it.

[A]

Raises an interesting question about what assimilation is in the United States, like, or Canada or Australia. Right. Like these sort of colonist countries. It's different. Like, if I move to Sweden and, you know, I'm trying to assimilate, that would mean fucking learning Swedish, obviously. So you're talking. You know, these people have learned English, generally speaking. I would say that's. That's probably, I think, people who are concerned about cultural assimilation. I think there are some legitimate concerns. There's concerns around, you know, making sure that children get educated well and not left behind. You know, there's job and career prospects. And there's some amount of like, yeah, shared cultural heritage that is probably necessary for a nation, a state, whatever. Learning the language is probably, you know, one A, B, C and D. You know, like, that's the main one. And then, but like, I might get into sauna culture if I was moving to Sweden or, you know, certain things would be expected of me about like Swedish culture, which is much more specific than American culture. I think America, like, I mean, it literally is a nation of immigrants. Like, just mathematically.

[B]

That's why I wouldn't even say, like, they assimilated to America. That's not even my marker for it. My marker is, are they assimilating to Minnesota? Yeah.

[A]

That's interesting.

[B]

You know what's happened in Minnesota since the ICE surge? Well, let me just say I don't want to underplay this by calling this a surge or whatever. This is a goddamn occupation by uninvited federal forces.

[A]

Masked.

[B]

They are a paramilitary force. They have military grade weapons and munitions and crowd dispersal techniques beyond what cops use. And they seem to be very poorly trained. They were not invited and they're consistently lying. It is constant assault of lies to the, like, Steve Bannon, flood the zone. Cause like, okay, you'll catch us on lie number one, but while you're jumping up and down on POD Save America about catching us in a lie, we're going to do four more lies that are going to go right past you. I mean, this thing of like, Minnesota doesn't turn undocumented criminals over to the federal government. That's not true. Like, that's been proven time and time again. As soon as there's an undocumented person in a jail or a prison, they notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Border Patrol.

[A]

They just do well. And they made a good point on. I don't remember if it was the dispatch podcast or advisory opinions, the legal one, I think it was on the main dispatch pod. One of the panelists said, look, the easiest way to get criminals who are undocumented is to wait until they are caught for crimes because you simply transfer custody from the jail or prison to the immigration officers. You don't need to knock on a door. You don't need to maybe harm a child who's in the house or neighbors. You don't need to involve the neighbors. Like, if the goal of ICE was to remove as many criminals, you know, convicted criminal undocumented individuals as possible in as quickly a time as possible, the way they've gone about it is extremely ineffective. They have made it much harder to do their job.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's what makes me think that was not their intention.

[B]

No.

[A]

Either they are stupid, which they don't seem to be. Well, so I think it's the Stephen Miller like this is a part of the plan. You make a big stink and that's supposed to disincentivize and make people self deport and, and all this kind of a thing. Yeah.

[B]

I think you're giving Stephen Miller way too much credit. Frankly. I think he was hoping there would be a race war or race riots in Minneapolis.

[A]

Maybe those could be both true. Though those aren't mutually incompatible.

[B]

They could both be true. But I mean my. I think he's far more nefarious and that's why he. They sent Greg Bevino here who's like not even hiding the fact that he wants to be a Nazi. I mean it's just incomprehensible.

[C]

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[A]

I had some more stuff to say about the neighborism, please. Yeah, so it's linking up in an interesting way with some of the existential psychology stuff that I've been digging into. That listeners are maybe getting tired of hearing about the way that you and your neighbors have gone about things strikes me as a very healthy way of dealing with a very natural anxiety that's coming up around, you know, the ice raids.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Basically situations like your city, like a group of 6x, the total police force descending upon your city in unmarked vans, wearing masks with military grade weapons for whatever purposes like that is what existential psychologists would call a boundary situation. This is something where all kinds of things are happening that are reducing that sort of bedrock clarity about what life is like. There's gonna be some episodes coming with Kristen Tiedman and I where we talk about this in more detail. But basically these are naturally destabilizing experiences for the people of Minnesota. And the response by and large has been to actually tighten attention to the concrete neighbor in front of you. Right. Your Literal neighbors, as opposed to trying to solve the world, like solve the problem at a national or global level. It's like, well, we're here now and these guys are here now, so what can we do right now that is within our agency? And that is kind of a model. Right. Because it sort of keeps things practical. It keeps them within your actual sphere of influence and agency, your locus of control. Right. It. It encourages your own agency because you're limiting agency to things that are accomplishable by you and your friends and your local. Your neighbors.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it also plays into identity and values and it allows you and your neighbors to say, this is who we are. This is what we're about. When shit hits the fan in our backyard and reveals who we really are, this is what you're going to see. And honestly, I don't think it's an overstatement to say that there are probably a million people or more in Twin Cities and around who will remember these few weeks for the rest of their lives.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

As turning points, as clarifying moments of who they were in the world. Like they will talk about it on their deathbed. And that gets me fucking fired up. It gets me pumped.

[B]

It should. It should. I agree with everything you've said. I did not know which way it was going to go.

[A]

Yeah, that's interesting.

[B]

Yeah, I didn't know. And I was, I was. Funny, I was at this John Templeton meeting in Cancun when Renee Goode was shot.

[A]

That is just insane. That's not your fault, obviously, but it is just insane.

[B]

Not my fault. Not my fault.

[A]

To have been on the white sand.

[B]

Beaches of Cancun at the same time talking about. And I, you know, by the way, I'll send you what I wrote to Sarah afterward. But I wrote almost in a panic, like, we don't have time anymore to sit around and do six year longitudinal studies on. I wonder how people feel about this or that. You know, it's like the time for action is now. Especially for organizations and companies that have massive sums of money that could literally move the needle on how we are as Americans. I mean, I think the challenge is before some of these big organizations like that. I mean, it's one thing to support a professor doing a study or, you know, the blah blah blah program is brought to you on NPR by the blah blah blah Family Foundation. But it's like, oh, we need that. But we might need something a little more radical than that. But I will say that when I came back, I didn't know I had the same experience, Dan, during George Floyd, I left for a pre scheduled Boundary Waters canoe trip and I was gone for five or six days with my son and a couple other guys. And I remember sitting at our campsite the first night and talking with Bob while our two sons were fishing. And Bob works for the Minneapolis paper and saying, like, will there even be a Minneapolis when we come out of the Boundary Waters? We don't know what it'll be like. And sure enough, when we got out, you know, the National Guard had been called in and it was. Buildings had burned and it wasn't anything like. I was also. I was in. I lived in LA during the Rodney King riots.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

So then, I mean, I really did. Like, there was smoke in the air and ashes falling and that was crazy. But I didn't know when I was coming back from Mexico, like, what would happen. And then I was up north at this 25 Below event that I was helping run with the ice fishing, whatever. And there's like, oh, shit, there's been another one. And that was on Saturday, you know, Saturday morning.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And again, even being up there, like, you're exactly right. I will remember where I was when I saw on my phone the video of Alex Brady being shot. And just saying to people like, oh, my God, it happened again. What. What are we doing here? What are we doing? Ice fishing and pretend. And this is. I will just say I want to. This may be off topic of neighbourism, but I just want to confess or say it, you know, articulate this. It is really freaking weird to be living in what is like, in some ways kind of a war zone.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And also, like going to the gym and, you know, like meeting a buddy for a beer. I mean, it's all we talk about, but, you know, it's the same. You know, there are people in Ukraine who are still like going to work every day. You know, their countries involved are being attacked. Yeah. So that's just a weird. I'm not saying we're at war, but we're being. We're under assault by a federal force. And it's very weird to also be kind of going about business as usual.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But I, again, I just didn't know. I don't disagree with this neighbourism phrase. I think that's a nice way to say it. I mean, I. I know that for me, having spent my whole 57 years here, you know, except for leaving to go to school, Minnesota has changed. Like, a lot of places have changed. And the way Minnesota has changed has not always been Smooth. Like obviously what this overshadowed was the massive Covid and Medicaid fraud that was perpetrated on our state primarily by Somalis.

[A]

Yeah, that's a re, that's like, that's a real story. Like that's a massive case that does.

[B]

Need to be real story. Maybe $9 billion of fraud and those.

[A]

People need to go to prison. I mean, let's just be clear.

[B]

I think there's like 90, 92 of them are already been convicted.

[A]

Have already been convicted. It's a big scheme and that's bad.

[B]

And we caught them. But probably liberal politicians were a little too. I mean there's, it's now coming up.

[A]

I think it's very plausible to say that if you're someone for whom you could bring something up, you could flag an ongoing potential, you know, scam. But you're left leaning in a left leaning city with very justice minded co workers and stuff like, yeah, you're, you're gonna feel some pressure to maybe like pump the brakes on that. You're not gonna wanna be the one to sort of lay your career on the line. Especially if you don't know for sure is this fishy or is this not fishy?

[B]

And you know, especially when it's people of color and it's immigrants and we're. Yeah. And. And now stories are coming out that multiple whistleblowers going back years were raising red flags. They could tell that fraud was going on. They were ignored, they were fired, they were, you know, demoted. So it, look, this is all going to come out in the wash. Real problems. Yeah, it's all going to come out in the wash. And I think that stuff. But see, that kind of stuff is fixable. Yeah, it's not fixable when someone's dead on the goddamn sidewalk. Yeah, you can't fix that. You know, if you have not crossed your red line yet, if you're a conservative, you're a maga. You know, SNL had this sketch last week that was like the mom confessing. Did you see that sketch?

[A]

Oh yeah, we, Jeffrey and I watched it last night. It was very funny.

[B]

It's funny. It's funny. And it's funny because of how many people and I've had friends. I had a conservative family member text me, I'll be voting for Klobuchar for governor. You know, this is probably a guy who has never voted for a Democrat, but he's like the Mypillow guy. Not a chance. You know, and I've had other friends who voted for Trump and were like, this isn't what we signed up for, you know, And I'm kind of like, were you paying attention? But you don't want to be, like, I told you so, like those kids on the couch in that sketch. You know, you just try.

[A]

Perfectly dramatized.

[B]

You try to, like, bite your tongue. You try to bite your tongue.

[A]

Yeah, you want to take the W.

[B]

Because we're the, you know, us progressives, we're the one who's supposed to be like, I honor your journey.

[A]

But I mean, just really briefly, also, for reasons of existential psychology, I find myself returning to Jesus's parable of the field workers, where the people who come at the very end are paid the same wages as the people who were there all day. Right. That's feeling alive to me.

[B]

Yeah, no, that's good, Dan. That's good.

[A]

You know, the sort of. All the ins and outs of that, psychologically, anyway.

[B]

Keep going. Yeah, that's good. So. But I'm also a little bit like, okay, if you're still MAGA after they sent this paramilitarized force to our streets and have killed two white Americans, if your red line has not been crossed now, you are, I don't know, beyond hope, beyond reason, you'll never be convinced you are blindly following, I don't know, a cult leader. I mean, I don't know what language to use for it, but it's just absolute madness. And look, I think, you know, Trump's way underwater in the polls, the midterm elections. Unless something totally unforeseen happens, Democrats are gonna take the House. The math is too hard on the Senate. I mean, that it's less likely.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's just too hard. But at least in the House, then they can slow stuff down. There will be hearings, you know, there might be another impeachment vote. You know, stuff like this.

[A]

But by the way, impeaching so we can have President J.D. vance is not a very good prospect, so. I don't know about that.

[B]

I know, but I just wanna say this as a liberal gun owner, too.

[A]

Hmm.

[B]

Let me just admit to you. And this. This is like. It, like, peaked a week ago. And it is.

[A]

I have something to admit to around guns. Go ahead.

[B]

It peaked a week ago, but it has since receded in my imagination.

[A]

By the time this comes out, you will have totally disowned what you're about to say.

[B]

Well, but I'm just saying, for the first time, when it was, like, hottest. When it was the hottest, it could be here.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I thought, okay, the reason we Have a second amendment is to have a voluntary militia to overthrow a tyrannical federal government. That is the reason for the Second Amendment.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

As a check on tyranny.

[A]

That's the stated reason for it. Yeah.

[B]

And I'm like, what's not tyranny other than sending federal forces uninvited into a city and not just harassing, but murdering US Citizens? This is fricking tyranny. Like, there. There's no other. What do they have to kill 10 for it to be tyranny or 20? How many do you have to. How many like US citizens do you have to kill for it to be tyranny? And I'm like, well, I have guns and I'm liberal. I mean, what would it take? Like, you know, Alex Preddy could have. When these federal officers were going after that woman, he could have taken out his firearm and said, like, I am using my second amendment right to protect a fellow citizen. He would have been killed, you know, obviously. And he would have been. The narrative would have been, oh, guy draws his gun on federal officers. Nobody would have been like, arguing second Amendment. But this has been crazy. Obviously. The fact that, like the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, which is the most conservative group of Minnesotans, is like, he had every right to have a firearm there. I mean, the pictures of Kyle Rittenhouse with an AR at a protest in Wisconsin who killed a guy, I mean, you can go on and on the hypocrisy now. Again, it's like they've done this to themselves. This was the point of Ezra Klein's column a couple days ago, was like, Trump did this to himself. These are all self inflicted wounds. He took his number one issue, which was immigration, and turned it upside down on him.

[A]

You know, yeah, here's my gun. Here's my gun.

[B]

Admission your gun thing. Let's hear about guns.

[A]

And just to be clear, I'm still not like a 2A guy. I'm not a gun owner. I have no plans to be.

[B]

What do you mean you're not a 2A guy?

[A]

I'm not like a. I don't.

[B]

Would you like to have it rescinded?

[A]

It's not a part of my personality.

[B]

But would you like to have that amendment overturned?

[A]

No, no, no, no. I don't want to remove the amendment, but I want. I want quite a bit more gun control than most of my. Let's just call them my 2A friends want. Let's put it that way. I have a difference of opinion on some of this stuff, but I have to Admit that I had labeled a particular argument as silly, as unserious. And I was wrong about that argument. And the argument was, is basically what you're saying, that an armed citizenry will stop a tyrannical government. And the reason that I thought that that was a stupid argument is because I made an assumption that, well, it aligned with some of the persecution fantasies that I also heard from some of those people, like, you know, Apache helicopters coming in and you know, like, basically the Army. Right. Like this is not going to stop the Army. That would have been my rejoinder. So this is a stupid argument. And what I failed to foresee was that first of all, that a right wing government might be the one to be tyrannical. I didn't think about that.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But also, but maybe more important here, I didn't think that maybe the battleground could be small with sort of nationwide psychological consequences. Yeah, right. So I was thinking in terms of firepower. And it is true that a local militia is not going to stand a chance at an open battle against the fucking United States military, obviously.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

But that assumes that the reason they would, quote, come for your guns would be like, the, the military is turning on all its citizens or something. It doesn't take that we've got just like some bad actors in the White House making rash, stupid decisions designed to infuriate people and inflict and like make chaos. And the fact that citizens can be armed, and in the case of Alex Preddy, it has added a different dimension to this conversation. And I realize I was wrong to discount that argument there. Now maybe in some cases that was still a good counter argument, but I now understand that there are instances where an armed citizenry can present a real challenge. Like now I'm thinking, I don't think ICE or these agents or anybody. I mean, maybe Stephen Miller wants and Steve Bannon want like a gun battle, but basically, if I'm an ICE agent and let's just say a few armed citizens start shooting ICE officers, you know, like in self defense or something, like, it's gonna. I'm gonna rethink my job. Like, there are instances where it does have value. And I just, I'd like to admit that I was wrong about that. And I just took the kind of.

[B]

No, I appreciate you saying that.

[A]

The liberal party line in my 20s on this.

[B]

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. And what even got me thinking, like, oh, I wonder if this is the moment when we have to form a militia. Like, do I form a militia on my street? You Know, or whatever was when a buddy of mine on that Saturday after Alex Preddy and we were watching the videos on our phones at this ice fishing thing, you know, and somebody said, like, look at that crowd. They could have overpowered those ICE agents. Like, what if that group of Minnesotans had stormed the ice agents as they were trying to tackle Alex Preddy either before or after they shot him? What if they would have made a citizen's arrest? What if they would have taken the zip ties off those guys belts and the two guys who shot. Like, why didn't people do that? Well, because the officers were armed and they weren't armed. That was one of the reasons why, I mean, most people just don't want to get themselves killed.

[A]

Yeah, more people would have been killed.

[B]

And more people would have been killed for sure. But we also know of other scenarios in other countries where the citizenry has done just that. They have stormed the country's capital. They have, you know, hanged the president or whatever. They fought through the military to get there.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Hell, that's what they did on January 6th. Like, they fought through many unarmed people, fought through the armed Capitol police force to get into the Capitol. So people do that. We haven't done it. And I'm glad we haven't because I think to your MLK vs Malcolm X point earlier, I think the peacefulness of these protests has been far more powerful than if, hypothetically, a bunch of Minnesotans would have rushed those ICE agents.

[A]

Agreed.

[B]

And beat them bloody and made citizens arrest because they just killed a fellow Minnesotan in cold blood on the street.

[A]

Yeah. Okay. I want to turn to religion. Put on your Reverend doctor Tony Jones hat here. Okay. And let's start with. I mentioned this earlier. You were at the Alex Preddy site of his death, which has become a kind of a public shrine.

[B]

Shrine.

[A]

You were there for like a little service. Obviously it was not a church service. Right. So there's a kind of an interfaith element to this. There's a kind of a civil religion or even what?

[B]

I mean, it wasn't even a service there. It was actually just hundreds of people standing in silence, standing vigil the next day.

[A]

So there's a religious or a spiritual. There is, you know, an element to it.

[B]

There is a spiritual aspect and there's a lot of notes that are like.

[A]

Talk about that, speak to that, sending.

[B]

Up prayers and things like that.

[A]

What did you notice as a reverend doctor, like, along those lines?

[B]

Well, one thing I noticed is that there was a guy there, it dressed up Like a Catholic priest who was not a Catholic priest. I mean, he might have been 25.

[A]

Do you think he might have been a Catholic priest stripper?

[B]

I mean, I don't know if he. Where he bought his costume.

[A]

Yeah, maybe that's.

[B]

But he started singing God Bless America.

[A]

Weird.

[B]

It was so wildly inappropriate. And I think he thought people were going to join in and nobody did. And he sang the whole fricking thing. And a guy right between Courtney and me was like, fuck off. Because.

[A]

Yeah, because it was like a silent vigil.

[B]

Yeah. It was so inappropriate to sing God Bless America. And he had, like, a full cassock on. He was posing. He was posing. And I'm just like, this guy's mentally ill pretending to be a Catholic priest or whatever. Otherwise, this is what I'd say about, you know, I mentioned. And people might not like this part of it because people want to think everybody's the same and everything's the same, but there is in the DNA of Minnesota, and this is what Garrison Keillor used to make fun of in his, you know, News from Lake Wobegon Monologues. There's this kind of, like, German Catholic, Scandinavian Lutheran civility that's just baked in the DNA of this place, because that's who settled it now. Not my. I mean, some of my ancestors were Scandinavian and German, but most of them were, I mean, Welsh and British.

[A]

I am literally the product of German, Scandinavian, Minnesotan immigrants. Like my. My. Both.

[B]

My.

[A]

My mom was born there. There's family on both my mom and my dad's side that currently live in the Twin Cities. Like, that is my. That.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I am Californian via Minnesota, from Germany on my dad's side and Scandinavia on my mom's side. So I do have a personal connection, but I've never spent a ton of time there.

[B]

Yeah. And I mean, if you know anything about those countries, you know that in general, they are places that value civility, you know, civic planning. People are nice to each other. You know, fairly stoic.

[A]

You know, they're less emotionally.

[B]

Look, yeah, you go spend a day in Copenhagen and then fly to Sicily for a day. And I mean, this is different. People are different. And people who live in the Southern Mediterranean are, you know, it's where the Mafia was born. But it's. People talk with their hands and they're shouting at each other and it's, you know, they have their blood boils and whatever. And us Scandinavian Germans are more of a stoic kind of people. This is not just stereotyping. Like, they're the stereotypes are rooted in some kind of reality. And so even as Minnesota has diversified, I do believe that's a part of it, that a part of our response to these murders and this occupation has been rooted in that kind of stoicism. I mean, that at the popular level, not, like, stoic philosophy, but just kind of, like, even keeled, you know, Minnesota. Nice. Ha ha. You know, there's this kind of. There's this kind of thing. But I'll say this about the religion, Dan, that's been interesting is, like, Minnesota has more progressive Protestants per capita than most places. We don't have the Bible church culture. We don't have the Southern Baptist culture. Like, a lot of parts of the country, we don't have, like, maybe in Seattle, where most people are atheists, but then you also have Mars Hill. Like, you have this version of very conservative event. We have that. Of course, we have big evangelical churches, but they're not a cultural force. They're simply not a cultural force in our state. Okay. Yeah, there are. I mean, even though a lot of them are on fumes, there are a lot of liberal pcusa, Episcopal, United Methodist, United Church of Christ. Like, even I remember even going south to give a talk at a United Methodist church years ago in Birmingham, Alabama. And I'm like, are you guys the same United Methodist church as the churches in Minnesota? Because every Minnesota Methodist church has rainbow flags and, like, queer pastors and very liberal. And you go down south, and the Methodist Church is not. Well, now they're part of the Global Methodist Church. Probably most of them left the umc, but. So you may remember a week ago when a hundred clergy got arrested at Minneapolis airport because they were protesting Delta Airlines being the airline that was used to fly detainees to Texas. So a hundred. And they were all liberal Protestants. They went to Minneapolis airport and they kneeled down, and they were arrested for civil disobedience. You know, arrested by Minneapolis police. And it was all very cordial. And.

[A]

Yeah, I saw videos of that.

[B]

Yeah, they were like, help helping them up. It was the exact opposite of the way ICE goes about stuff. But a lot of what you're seeing going on yesterday, there was a. There was a singing protest where there were a bunch of people. I think they were at central Lutheran, and 1600 people got, like. They learned some songs, and then they went out and they sang in front of each of the downtown hotels where ICE officers are staying. And this is not like the earlier protest, which was like, let's keep them up all night by banging pots and Pans outside their windows. They were singing songs and saying, to your point, of the parable of the field workers, they were saying, it's not too late. Just quit your job, do the right thing, quit your job. You know, you're on the wrong side of history. They were, you know, these were their messages outside the hotels yesterday coming out of a worship service. So I will say that for all the sadness. And we talk about this on GGCH a lot, and I talk with Ryan Burge a lot about it with our Templeton funded study and stuff like, obviously liberal Protestantism in America is a fading force, but there's still, at least in the Twin Cities, there's still enough gas in the tanks that that group of people has been a force in the last couple weeks.

[A]

Yeah, Mason talked about that a little bit two weeks ago because he's a bit more connected to some of those networks of clergy, and that's his world. One thing we also sometimes talk about on ggch, not as much recently, is men's masculinity issues. And I just like, we gotta do a couple minutes on Brian o' Hara here, right? Like the Minneapolis chief of police. I could not help but put on those lenses of like, you know, where are the sort of traditionally masculine role models these days? And there's the first thing that I noticed. And then there's other things, like having looked into him a little bit, but the first thing I noticed, I'm just. This is purely aesthetic, but I don't think I've ever seen a dude with his physique pull off round eyeglasses as if he were a Heidegger scholar at fucking Princeton. Like he. No, dudes. Dudes do not wear round glasses. That is like a feat. It is academic. It is coded as NPR contributor. And this dude is not only the chief of police, he's fucking jacked.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And pull up. So just to start there, I mean.

[B]

He'S even got the name Chief o'. Hara. I mean, it's. Yeah, he's like the Irish cop. He's.

[A]

Yeah, the Irish Catholic or raised Catholic, I believe, married to a black Muslim who is also a police officer in Jersey. I don't know what their commute life is like, they've got a couple kids. But I just thought, like, you know, I don't know, maybe this is like just the most eye rolly thing about me to some listeners, but, like, as the father of two boys, like, it makes me heartened to see a fucking beefcake like him. By which I mean, I guess there's different terms for beefcake. I use this on my story. I just meant, like, he's ripped. Maybe there's also, like a romantic. Whatever.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if he's ripped, so ripped means. I don't think you're using ripped. Right?

[A]

Ripped. He's got muscles, Jack. What's the difference?

[B]

Not ripped.

[A]

I'm sorry, I thought those were fucking synonyms.

[B]

No, no, no. Ripped would be like. You could see his six pack.

[A]

Okay, he's jacked.

[B]

Ripped his very low body fat. Jacked. He's jacked. Yeah.

[A]

Okay, so he's jacked and he's got, you know, like a military haircut.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

You know, and he's wearing his, you know, his chief of police outfit. Is his outfit. Oh, my gosh. His uniform. I am just. I'm botching this.

[B]

His costume. He's cosplaying a cop.

[A]

I just like, he also, in the way he speaks, he's like, look, I'm the chief of fucking police. I care about safety.

[B]

Dan, it's not just him, okay?

[A]

Yes, okay.

[B]

That's been super important. And frankly, like, you don't really see the sheriff of Hennepin county who's an African American woman getting all this media coverage. You see Brian o'? Hara.

[A]

Sure. Okay. Yeah.

[B]

That shaved head dad who came out and was like, did that interview. That was like, what the fuck is happening? Who the fuck do these people. That guy. Remember this guy?

[A]

Yeah, I think I saw that clip. Yeah.

[B]

The suburban dad who came out early on in the protest, and then the guy who. He owns a comic book store. The guy with the white hair and the beard who, like, walks through the.

[A]

Yeah, the 70 year old guy. Yeah, yeah, the tear gas.

[B]

Yeah, that guy, the tear gas. And he's like, get the fuck out of my town.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

And frankly, Alex Preddy. And this is a part. There was an op ed in the. In the New York Times about this too. Like, what was it about? Why didn't everything turn when Renee Good got shot? In the way it turned when Alex Pretty got shot? There is something about the men who are in the spotlight in this moment that is peeling off some MAGA dudes to be like, okay. Like, even my sons, whom we've talked about on this.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

On this podcast before, even my sons are like, okay, I think I'm getting out of the boat. This is too much. And, you know, Renee Goode had her own narrative that kind of fed into some of the MAGA narratives. Right. But you can't say that about Alex Preddy. You cannot. And you can't say that about this suburban dad who's like I gotta get off the couch and go downtown. And you can't say this about this 70 year old guy who owns a comic book shop. You know, these are not libtards with purple hair and, and are transitioning or whatever. These are, these are breaking the stereotype. These are normies. Right. Who are. That's what I think is incredible. I mean look, I'm pretty much of a normie compared to.

[A]

Yeah, same.

[B]

I'm a normie. Right. And, and it's gotten me off to go down like in.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In March and you know, stand vigil at Alex Pretty's murder site and you know, write about it and try to, you know, have conversations one on one with friends of mine who voted for Trump and say okay, now like, like the mom and snl, like now's a good time, now is a good time for you to move. And, and you know, I've been a.

[A]

Little saddened to realize that I'm still in touch with so few people that I could even have that conversation with. And part of that might be that I am public and so there could be a sort of a self selection away from staying in touch with me. You know, just because it's a little different than just a friend that's offline or whatever. But it's been, I'm like, who would I even like, who's left? It's like two buddies, kind of some family members. But like I, I don't love it. There's something about it that I think is not good that I am interested in bridge building and talking across difference and I really just have, I'm not in any regular touch with conservatives, at least not MAGA conservatives, like some center right moderates. Of course I have no problem with those buds. But yeah, it's been, it's been a little bit like. I don't know, I'm uncomfortable with that fact. I'm not, not totally sure what to do with it.

[B]

Yeah, I mean it's, it's.

[A]

You are, you are differently situated, you know, because of your various roles and geography and job and all that stuff.

[B]

But, and the stuff, the, the stuff I like to do tends to be.

[A]

Yeah. Hunting and things like that. Yeah.

[B]

Probably more attractive to conservos, but. Yeah. Well, once your kids are conservative, then you'll be right in touch with.

[A]

Yeah, we'll see then. I will be. Yeah.

[B]

Can I say one thing before we go?

[A]

Yeah. I was just Gonna give you that opportunity.

[B]

I want to thank you for spending some money in Minneapolis while you were here at the Ingebretzen's.

[A]

It was all Christmas gifts.

[B]

Yeah, it's good for the economy.

[A]

And some sausage. Yep.

[B]

Many restaurants are going to close in the coming months in Minnesota. No one's going downtown. People are afraid. You know, nobody wants to. Plus, they can't find workers. In spite of our standing up to them, the one thing that Stephen Miller will successfully do is devastate the Minnesota economy, which surely is part of what he wants to do. So we are. I mean, not only are small businesses going to close and restaurants gonna close because of the lack of commercial activity, tax revenue is gonna go way down. They're gonna pin that on their Democratic governor. Look, you're over budget. Well, we're gonna be over budget because there's just no commercial activity going on. It's gonna be very hard for big companies like Target and Cargill and 3M to recruit people to move to the Twin Cities because what they see on CNN is tear gas and pepper spray and people getting killed. So take your next vacation to Minnesota or whatever. Like when.

[A]

Okay, at least tell us when are the best times of the year for that?

[B]

Not January.

[A]

I don't really want to be there in August or. January is a spring and fall. Is this the.

[B]

This is what Stephen Miller. This is his huge mistake. Not. Not January.

[A]

Don't do it in January, Stephen.

[B]

It's like 15 today. It's nice. Today is 15.

[A]

Okay. Spring, fall. Spring, fall, Spring, fall.

[B]

Summer's great, too. Yeah.

[A]

Come to the early, early summer.

[B]

Come to the Boundary Waters. Go on a canoe trip. You know, come to the Twin Cities, Watch a Twins game. Yeah. I don't know. It. It just. And. And just remember your friends in Minnesota, because, I mean, it was hard coming back from the George Floyd thing because everyone's like, I'm not going. I. I'm. I'm involved in a huge hunting conference that's taking place in two weeks in downtown Minneapolis at the Minneapolis Convention center. Usually draws about 30,000 people. I am sure that those people who are planning this are shitting bricks right now because of, you know, you think some pheasant hunter from Aberdeen, South Dakota, is like, yeah, I want to go to the Twin Cities for a weekend? No. They're going to be like, nope, nope, not going.

[A]

Right. Yeah.

[B]

So, I mean, we have a big, you know, convention industry here. A lot of conventions come to town, and those are going to be. Some of those are going to be canceled. And, yeah. And also, I guess, just like, be aware that the federal government could do this to your city.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And there's very little you can do to stop it. It turns out, like, even legal mechanisms don't seem to be working to stop it.

[A]

Don't tempt me into discussing existential psychology.

[B]

And we're in. Like, unfortunately for us, the 8th Circuit federal court, federal appellate court is arguably the most conservative in the country. So even if our judges here say, like, you have to kick out ice, they're immediately going to be overturned by the 8th Circuit. So our hands are tied. You know, we. I think there's.

[A]

Yeah. Well, I mean, Congress. This might be the thing where it's been resolved by the time this comes out, but, you know, they. They're holding off the shutdown for some ice, you know, masks off and stuff like this.

[B]

Yeah. The House is supposed to vote tomorrow, so.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, we'll see.

[A]

Yeah. Well, Tony, I feel like this was a heartening conversation. I. We both came in kind of lower energy. I was feeling a little depressed and, you know, appropriate for the somberness of the topic. But I also feel like this was encouraging. Like I. Orienting is maybe. Orienting is the word, I think, for me.

[B]

Well, thanks for the opportunity and yeah, of course. For your friendship, you know, over the years. Yeah.

[A]

Well, we'll go back to making dick jokes and making fun of each other next month with Josh.

[B]

I did, I did get on Facebook the other day, a pop up memory from the YHP mini conference.

[A]

Oh, in Seattle. Yeah.

[B]

That was. So this must have been like whatever, three years ago.

[A]

Three years ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked about some more in person stuff. I don't know. We'll see. But at the moment, still planning to be at beer camp in Kansas City in the fall. And so that'll be the next. That'll be the next one, probably, but. All right, Tony. Thanks, man.

[B]

Thanks, Dan.