George Samuelson
What the Trump administration is doing in Minneapolis is exactly what is needed to pit brother against brother in the United States.
According to a recent tabletop simulation, what the Trump administration is doing in Minneapolis is exactly what is needed to pit brother against brother in the United States.
Since January 6, around 2,000 ICE agents have stormed Minnesota in response to a vast fraud scheme that saw Somali scammers steal billions of dollars from the state. This has led to neighborhoods across the state being terrorized by masked agents who are indiscriminately and aggressively harassing and seizing individuals right off the streets and in their homes.
On January 7, ICE agents shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who has been branded a "domestic terrorist" by the Trump administration, who appeared to be attempting to flee police officers in her vehicle before she was shot in the head three times. Rather than investigate the actions of the officer who shot Ms. Good, the Trump administration has announced "absolute immunity" for ICE agents, as well as members of Custom and Border Patrol.
"That guy is protected by absolute immunity," Vice President JD Vance said of the ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, who killed Ms. Good. "He was doing his job."
The violence being perpetrated against innocent civilians did not stop with Ms. Good. Federal agents have forcibly taken thousands of individuals to detention facilities, regardless of their legal status. They have shot protesters in the legs while blinding two activists with so-called "less deadly" munitions. They fired teargas canisters at the car of a family carrying six children, sending one child to the emergency room. They aggressively dragged a woman out of her car and on to the ground screaming.
Meanwhile, instead of investigating the conduct of the officer who shot Renee Good, the Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, and Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, accusing them of conspiring to obstruct federal agents. Renee Good's widow is also under investigation.
If you think all of this resembles the early rumblings of a civil war, you are not alone. The scenario closely mirrors one explored in an October 2024 tabletop exercise conducted by the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL), at the University of Pennsylvania. In that simulated exercise, an American president initiated a highly unpopular law-enforcement operation in Philadelphia when he attempted to bring Pennsylvania's national guard under executive control. When the governor balked and the guard pledged its loyalty to the state, the president deployed active-duty troops, resulting in an armed conflict between state and federal forces. According to Claire Finkelstein, the director of CERL, the "core danger we identified is now emerging: a violent confrontation between state and federal military forces in a major American city."
Ominously, none of the participants, which included top-ranking former military and government officials, considered the explosive scenario unrealistic. In a rapidly evolving emergency such as the one in Minnesota, courts would most likely be "unable or unwilling to intervene in time, leaving state officials without meaningful judicial relief." In other words, a full-blown clash between the state and federal forces, otherwise known as a civil war.
In such a scenario, military leaders must be prepared to "assess the legality" of their orders. Even under the Insurrection Act, federal troops are not legally permitted to attack protesters unless they are defending themselves from an imminent threat. Yet as we saw with the cold-blooded murder of Renee Good, such egregious conduct is already happening in Minneapolis at the hands of federal agents.
In November, Washington was rocked by comments by Democrat Senator Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain, and five other veterans, who implored military leaders to "refuse illegal orders" against American citizens, even if the orders come from the Commander-in-Chief. While that may sound like nothing more than good old fashion common sense, it opened the door to the Trump administration accusing Kelly of treason and sedition.
Though the Philadelphia simulation appears to resemble the harsh events citizens in Minneapolis have experienced at the hands of ICE agents, the simulation misses one key factor: currently, municipal and state officials don't seem interested in attacking ICE agents anytime soon. Let's pray that that trend continues.