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Dino Alonso's avatar

Chris, I’ve been examining closely what you wrote. Not because it shocked me, but because it clarified something many of us have been sensing and struggling to name.

Let me ask it the way I keep asking myself.

What are we actually being governed by right now?

Is it law.

Is it principle.

Or is it appearance.

Because what you’re describing isn’t confusion or mixed messaging. It’s choreography. It’s the careful staging of opposition while the machinery underneath keeps moving, uninterrupted and well supplied.

Here’s the part that won’t let me go. This isn’t unfolding in a place we’ve already written off. It’s happening in a blue environment. A city fluent in the right language. A city that knows how to sound like resistance while continuing to provide material support to harm.

So I have to ask another question.

When does appearance stop being cover and become the strategy itself?

Because what you document is a pattern that feels painfully familiar. Outrage delivered to cameras. Concern delivered to headlines. Reassurance delivered to the public. And then quietly, overtime approved. Perimeters held. Crowds cleared. Paths opened. Time bought.

That distance between what’s said and what’s done isn’t an accident. It’s functional. It produces calm when disruption’s needed. It teaches patience where interruption’s required. It convinces people that accountability’s coming so they can afford to wait. Meanwhile the violence continues on schedule.

Here’s the truth your piece forces us to confront.

Blue doesn’t mean safe.

Blue doesn’t mean aligned.

Blue doesn’t mean immune.

It often just means the performance is more polished.

We’ve trained ourselves to read politics by tone instead of outcome. By posture instead of consequence. By statements instead of arrests. That’s the trap. And once you see it, you can’t unsee how much energy gets spent defending the appearance of restraint while bodies keep falling.

So I ask the question that keeps pressing.

If officials have jurisdiction and evidence and authority and still do nothing, what exactly are they governing?

Not justice.

Not safety.

Not law.

They’re governing perception.

And perception buys time. It diffuses anger. It turns urgency into process. It convinces people someone else is handling it. That isn’t neutrality. That’s intervention on behalf of the existing order.

What you’re naming, and naming without flinching, is that the real divide right now isn’t federal versus state or left versus right. It’s appearance versus action. Language versus consequence. Officials who understand that sounding opposed is often enough, and people who can’t afford that illusion because the harm’s already at their door.

Which brings me to the question that matters most.

What happens when people stop trusting appearances altogether?

The answer’s already visible. They stop waiting. They stop asking permission. They stop confusing calm with safety. They begin doing the work institutions have abandoned.

That isn’t chaos. It’s legitimacy migrating away from offices and into streets, kitchens, carpools, and cold nights where people decide not to sacrifice their neighbors to preserve someone else’s image.

Your work matters because it refuses to let appearance stand in for truth. It insists on inspection. And right now, inspection isn’t cynicism. It’s survival.

We don’t get the luxury of believing words anymore. We have to watch hands. We have to follow money. We have to count arrests. We have to notice who’s protected and who’s left bleeding while statements are drafted.

That isn’t radical. It’s simply paying attention.

And thank you for doing it out loud.

MUSA💙💙💙USAM's avatar

My heartfelt gratitude goes to the people of MN. If it wasn’t for them we would all be under martial law.

I’d like Senator Amy Klobuchar and Gov Walz to address MN law enforcement standing with ICE and the AG and DA’s outright lies and what are they doing to stop them!

Not only do the people of MN deserve an answer but the rest of the country does also.

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