Minnesota resident Will Stancil is a lawyer, policy researcher, and onetime candidate for the state’s house of representatives who has long been a voluble progressive presence on X and Bluesky. Over the past week, Stancil has become a mainstay of citizen patrols, tracking ICE agents around the city in his Honda Fit and sharing his experiences with his 100,000-plus followers. On Friday, I spoke with Stancil about what he has witnessed over the past few days.
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Do the videos we’ve seen — of violent arrests, of agents deploying flash-bangs and tear gas on bystanders — capture the full extent of what’s happening?
No. In the private rapid-response channels, people will share many, many videos, and they don’t want to bring them public because they don’t want to be identified. People are worried. So there’s lots and lots more private stuff that is never circulating. The other thing is I think it’s really difficult to capture. The last few days have been calmer. But for the first week or so, it was really hard to convey the unrelenting pace of this stuff. I had a journalist come ride along — he just published an article about it. I had been talking about how crazy it was, and I could tell he was a little bit skeptical. He thought, Okay, maybe we’ll see an ICE car. In a two-hour ride, we chased four ICE convoys onto the highway, saw someone violently abducted alive in front of us, then saw a separate ICE convoy tear-gas a major commercial intersection for no reason at all. In two hours.
We have these rapid-response channels. I mean, I got to the point where — and this is very difficult to do — but I got to the point where I mute them or turn them off or leave them when I come home in the evening because getting the constant updates — as much as I want to be informed of my community, if I’m not out there and can’t do anything about it, I am a raw nerve all day and night. I come home and I just have to lie on the couch and just shut everything off and shut my brain off because you’ll go insane hearing about what all they’re doing.
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And the child that caused all of this thinks he deserves a prize for bringing peace.
He deserves a fucken rope and a dirt nap. Fucken loathe young shitstain magas, at least the boomers have the material excuse of lead poisoning and several decades of constant propaganda.
If you give boomers the excuse of propaganda then young magas get the same excuse, is even worse now when algorithms dictate what information you receive
It’s the propaganda and the lead poisoning that gives them an excuse, strip either or and they’d damned near functional. With a few exceptions damned near every boomer I’ve met has had a critical lack of stop and think, be it my grandmother jumping to sawzaw at the drop of a hat or watching a lefty boomer verge on reactionary it’s a common trend.
While younger magas may have a similar excuse in the future due to pollution or even just long term usage of short form content there is still not enough data in my opinion. Propaganda is a powerful force sure but I’m a lot less forgiving towards someone who falls for it by itself versus folks with actual proven brain damage via lead exposure.
Period. Tired of playing nice, these muthafuckas only understand one language and they couldn’t even spell peace so it’s time to “speak” in terms even a smooth brained sister fucking magat understands
War is peace.
Truth is lies
Better give this saint the peace prize and someone’s country.
This is what a US American civil war looks like.
It will officially be once Waltz orders the state national guard to defend the city from ICE. Which is why he doesn’t.
He is not going to do that. I like Walz but that isn’t going to happen.
Minnesotans are modest but hard as nails. Don’t bet against it.
When do we, though?
WhenOnce it’s clearly over already? Then, we can “bet against it”? When it doesn’t fucking matter anymore?Tough as nails that are currently getting hammered into silence, more like. 🤌🏼
(edited for clarity)
Minnesotans are out in the street daily. It is the democratic leadership I have no faith in.
Fair enough. 🥲
i don’t know what news you’re watching but minnesota is literally resisting harder than any other state short of maybe California
In what way is California resisting ICE harder than Minnesotans?
I’m not answering your question because I literally never even said that
Already passed laws against masked and anonymous ICE, alongside a governor that at least speaks with a spine. Far as I can tell, most states don’t have enough establishment leadership that opposes ICE.
Still not enough IMO.
Maybe not when their political career is on the line.
That’s what I don’t get. There will be no politics when this is over if we don’t fight. What career are people trying to save.
The same one corporate boardrooms do. The ones that can’t look past the next quarterly report, the one that sacrifices the middle class and the biosphere for safe profits. The same one that shortsightedly sacrifices the future for the status quo, the status quo that requires no loss other than the creeping one you can ignore.
What would be the point? Trump can just instantly federalize them and then use them against you.
Anyone who thinks we’re getting out of this through some kind of military action is delusional. We don’t have the resources to stand up to the military and the massive police state in this country, that’s just a fact. That’s not even include all the wingnut traitor militias out there.
If we ever get back in power then we need to strip the presidency of most of its powers (after we destroy maga and their billionaires and media apparatus via the DOJ) and return control of the NG back to the states.
The president shouldn’t be able to seize those units unilaterally without permission from the state governor/legislature. That defeats the entire point of having state militias.
WHY would we DO such a Thing as PUNISH MAGA when we Need HEALING and PEACE!
-Democrats who said They had Enough Information to Jail Trump during Biden’s Term but chose Not to!
Kronstadt is the point.
He’s walking a knife edge right now. MAGA is looking for an excuse to go fucking crazy violent and suspend elections, and Walz doesn’t want to give it to them.
We’ll see what happens AFTER the Midterms. Whatever the outcome, MAGA will use it as an excuse to crank up their violence, and I doubt governors and mayors will continue to be as accommodating.
They’re going to cancel midterms anyways. And if they don’t and we win a few seats, they’re not going to recognize it. Why let this drag on when it’s actively causing harm to millions every single day?
NO, they will not cancel Midterms. We’ve never cancelled an election in American history, not even during the Civil War or WW2. That is a BRIGHT RED LINE that they will NOT be permitted to cross for ANY reason. Non negotiable.
Respectfully, who is going to enforce that they happen? It certainly won’t be the government
The Black Panthers?
The state national guard can become federalized in a moment if Trump says so. Don’t count on them being any help unless they’re willing to disobey orders.
Yeah, there have been a few instances of that happening. Notably, it happened when the governor of Arkansas tried to use the national guard to bar black students from entering a (recently desegregated) white school in 1957. Eisenhower federalized the guard, and ordered them to protect the black students instead. And the governor was forced to watch as all of “his” troops (who were already on the ground and ready to work because the governor had called them in) about-faced and started following the POTUS’ orders instead of his. It backfired on the governor pretty spectacularly, because they wouldn’t have been in place to enforce the desegregation unless he had ordered them to be there in the first place.
And Walz isn’t dumb. He undoubtedly knows that story. He doesn’t want a repeat of that, where he calls in the guard, then has them turned against him.
Eisenhower, the last non-evil Republican president.
Eisenhower orchestrated the 1953 Iranian coup, overthrowing a democratically elected government, and installed an authoritarian, US-backed puppet. He also overthrew the democratically elected government of Guatemala at the behest of a banana company (United Fruit, now Chiquita).
Every new Republican advances the evil, because it’s never punished.
Every US President does shit like that. At some point you have to draw a line because it’s not helpful to just proclaim them all evil.
They are all evil.
I just had a horrific thought that old tricky Dick Nixon may actually end up inheriting that title just because of how bad everyone after him has been. Like compared to Trump the war on Drugs ain’t fuck all, and compared to Bush jr Vietnam was practically a peace operation.
The US has never had a non-evil president from any party.
Not a war when only one side has weapons shooting and murdering
But, the “other side” is brandishing free speech, equal rights, fair wages, safe housing, and more! 😭😱
Radical equal rights! Selfish democracy!
What’s happening in our country is a political genocide. Us citizens that don’t agree with the administration are getting hounded by federal masked agents. I’m just glad in my relatively unpopulated and very dem area I have yet to see ice or any nonsense. The “city” I live in wouldn’t qualify for a small town in neighboring states so I get a bit shielded from all the crap going on, but I fear that means I can make no meaningful impact before it’s too late because by the time they come for small America there won’t be an America as we would like to know it.
They will come for you too. You need to organize. Join (or form) a union. Arm yourself. I am not joking. Check the IWW for resources.
IWW is a work union isn’t it? I work automotive we don’t get rights like that lol. Only thing I can think effective is to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Protesting around here seems a bit like preaching to the choir, not sure what else I can do in my area.
It’s just a good start.
And yet, every time I talk to right wing people around here. They’re like “well this just happened because of the fraud. They can’t detain legal immigrants” as my list of people around me grows as citizens get detained and taken to Texas.
Wake the fuck up.
Those idiots will perpetually double down on their identification. They are like the people who were dying of covid and still claimed in the hospital that they didn’t have it. You could march them off to prison and they’d probably claim the police were secretly left wing something or others.
Are you guilty?’ said Winston.
’Of course I’m guilty!’ cried Parsons with a servile glance at the telescreen. ’You don’t think the Party would arrest an innocent man, do you?’ His frog-like face grew calmer, and even took on a slightly sanctimonious expression. ’Thoughtcrime is a dreadful thing, old man,’ he said sententiously.
I still pop my head into Facebook from time to time, mostly because I have some groups I need to keep track of. Unfortunately, my feed keeps getting slammed with news posts, too. And because of the way the algorithm works, the top comments on every one of them is some MAGA jackass who doesn’t have a clue. A couple days ago, when that family got tear gassed in their car and their infant child ended up in the NICU, every single article had some asshole posting “Why are they bringing their baby to a riot?” right underneath it. But of course, you don’t see all the responses explaining that no, they live there and were just on their way home when they ran into the mess and tried to turn around. But all those responses are the reason Ace McFucknut is the top comment. Engagement FTW, am I right?
I officially hate this world.
If it’s anything like Tiktok, 75% of them are bots who never respond to comments, have similar profile pics and all have 50 followers who are also bots.
You should see how fucking insane they are on NextDoor.
Oh I deleted my NextDoor account years ago. That site has always been a cesspool. For whatever reason, people on NextDoor have always been perfectly happy to spout bigoted/racist crap at their neighbors.
It hasn’t changed. A few days ago ICE was spotted in an adjacent neighborhood.
I made a post linking to the article and simply stated “ICE spotted in neighborhood.”
Then I stayed silent and watched. HOLY FUCK that was an eye-opener. If I trusted my neighbors before I sure as fuck don’t now.
Also, in typical rightwing fashion, they reported the post and it got hidden because “it created danger for the community.”
Here’s one screenshot as an example:
Yeah, that tracks with my experience, sadly. “…respect the brotherhood…” JFC.
My fury is boundless.
I’m in the South and didn’t see that but have been off for a few years now.
ICE just deployed in my Southern capital city - bluest areas only, of course - and the local business owners quietly formed a pact to refuse them service and we all started privately sharing info about them. Just to note that ICE will come to other cities and it’s important to know ahead of time what you’ll do, and if you plan on being near them, what lawyer you or your family might call - or have a canary pact with (if you don’t hear from me, I am missing).
If you’re white, help protect those who aren’t. Let them know immediately as you hear about ICE movement in your city. Make sure they aren’t blindly walking around neighborhoods where they might be kidnapped off the streets.
Form private networks and use them. Neighbors, affinity groups, whatever tools you have available, or can build now, are the tools you’ll use. Think ahead.
Sounds like good ol’ Austin behavior!
There’s no accountability and transparency in where these people are disappearing to
We need more community defense classes
When Waltz calls to defend his state, this is when it starts being official. This is the casus belli they’re forcing the people into
He will fold like a paper napkin. The only chance we have is if the American people rise up against Trump and remove him from power by force.
Right?! Like why are you all waiting for capitalists to save us from capitalism?
I heard this is a test to evaluate people’s reaction before going global
Oh? Where did you hear that? 😶
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I’ve been reading “Fighters in the Shadows” by Robert Gildea, it’s about the resistance in France during World War 2. It’s funny how big the tent can be when you’re fighting fascism. They had people from all across the political spectrum, urban and rural, French plus countless other nationalities, and they were pursuing a really wide spectrum of activities.
If you read Stancil’s feed these days he’s really doing the work, plus publicizing the issue. I don’t think it makes sense to prioritize social media grudges at the moment.
prioritize social media grudges at the moment.
One more way we keep ourselves divided and infinitely goatsied —but, at least we’re unified in the pounding. 🤢🤌🏼
Fair enough, haven’t been on there in a bit.
Voluble.
