Notes from the ongoing occupation
I don't intend to keep writing about Minnesota, but I haven't spoken to one person this week who has had a good night's sleep. We are all anxious and terrified that our friends and neighbors will be next, that we will witness, or worse, be hurt or killed by something unimaginable.
In my media diet, outside of local news, I see that the severity of what is happening in my state remains relatively undercovered, especially in the social media spaces that I follow for work (newsletters and LinkedIn, primarily). So, this is my plea to you: We are actively being hit right now, at this moment. The scale of federal occupation of Minnesota is unprecedented. There is no end to the violence, and we want other Americans to stick up for us.
By writing these newsletters, I put my neighbors and potentially myself in danger. I need you to make like Minnesotans protesting ICE involvement in our communities: be loud and form a crowd.
Language and unique voices are the best online resistance
Influence is usually measured by the count of unique voices discussing a topic on the public internet. Right now, there's an exceptional amount of hatred covering the violence in Minnesota, particularly from right-wing creators.
If you cover the Creator Economy and are American in any way, we are asking you to stop ignoring us for defending ourselves. We are asking you to mention that the DHS is sending more armed, untrained men to our state than there are police officers.
Please do not assume "everyone has seen all the videos." Everyone has not seen all the videos, nor will anyone ever have seen all the videos. Many people who have not seen all the videos are out protesting the violence they see on the street, as ICE is going after their neighbors.
All we need from you, content professional with influence, is to say what you don't like about the current situation in Minnesota. Read the news or listen to the radio, as opposed to watching the news. (It's way less stressful for me to read the news than to watch a video.)
Think about how the facts match up with what you know about how the government should function, the American Constitution, and the history of oppression of peaceful protestors. Feel free to invoke the First and Fourth Amendments, and why what is happening in Minnesota makes you uncomfortable in a theoretical sense, like you are writing a paper. (School sucks. I know.)
Think about the Boston Massacre, even if you didn't sit down with your spouse to watch the entire Ken Burns Revolutionary War documentary. Think about all the Libertarians you know.
Regarding "fraud"
If you have people in your family talking about "Minnesota fraud," please let them know that there is certainly not $8 billion in fraud in Minnesota stolen by daycare providers. Do you know people who run daycare centers? I'm a woman who has taken entrepreneurship seminars, so I have met plenty of people who work in child care. They are concerned about running their daycare centers, not fraud.
Feeding Our Future was fraudulent. But the fraudsters were caught! People went to jail! The trial was crazy, but it's resolved via the law! There have been instances of other fraud, some reported by left-leaning news outlets, but the state is working on it. I don't know what other states are like, but I assume that other states also had fraud stemming from pandemic-era support, but those states did not catch their fraudsters.
And in a fundamental "at a party and having a discussion with a pedantic law student," Minneapolis and the whole of Minnesota should not be punished with violent, aggressive military force for fraud.
When I say violent, aggressive military force, I mean mindlessly teargassing a family van with six children. Every day there are similar stories because DHS believes everyone in Minneapolis is violent and is a potential threat.
Concerning world and local history
I have been thinking a lot about my history classes and how much I remember about the general subject "totalitarian warfare and European political theater 1907-1982." Turns out I remember quite a bit!
There's no direct parallel to events during the Cold War, but you could draw some close comparisons between Eastern European dissent movements and crackdowns during the Soviet Union: The Hungarian Revolution, the Prague Spring, and martial law in Poland in the early 80s.
There are plenty of direct comparisons between now and World War II, but I'd prefer the Third Reich comparisons to stop because I believe the lingering effect is that many folks believe we're in a movie or a history book. See, a few years ago, I thought Ukraine was the Sudetenland for Russia, but now I'm wondering whether Minnesota is the Sudetenland for America. Then I realized that nothing in 2026 is the Sudetenland, and that trying to draw direct analogies from twentieth century history is a fool's errand. We are in a new situation that deserves new language.
What is happening right now is worse because it is happening now, and we do not live in a history book.
I'll say this again: We do not live in a history book. We can learn from history, and what I learned from history is that totalitarianism is bad, whether it comes from the right or from the left. There are no "both sides" about it. Violent totalitarianism crushes culture and human rights.
Reconsider the willful ignorance of classifying everything discomforting as "rage-bait"
"I have no particular insights to offer on the subject, and I don’t take it as my job to simply be mad in print about everything I’m mad about offline."
—Male media industry newsletter writer, January 13, 2026*
I have heard many bad arguments from men this week, and this one takes the cake as the absolute worst. When I have asked men with relatively large online platforms to say something about the violence of the federal government occupying Minnesota, I've largely encountered the argument that "It's not my job." I don't want to get too down this rabbit hole, but, sirs, you have made it your job to report on the media, and you are part of the ongoing disruption wherein people increasingly get their news online. On the internet, men have far larger influence than women in the sphere of politics, law enforcement, and the military.
If you are American outside Minnesota, with a distribution above 1,000 people, there are people on your email list who have heard very little about the ongoing federal occupation in Minnesota, or they think that we are protesting too loudly and deserve what we get. If you know this is a vile narrative, I need you to call attention to it. Not so that more violence shows up here, and you don't need to argue with the right-wing influencers online, but you need to say something so the violence stops. The cruelty of ignoring someone's cries for help is far worse than the rudeness of how that cry is formed.
What we are living through in Minnesota is not rage-bait. Nothing in this newsletter will ever be rage bait. I have problems with the term "rage-bait" and the way people have classified any human, mean feelings as rage-bait, but that's not the point today.
The point is that your language matters, especially if you are a white man who also talks with other white men. This counts triple if you work in or write about media, tech, or business or the combination of above.
I understand internet influence and traffic dynamics better than 99.9% of people (that is the job I am paid for), and I assure you: using your posting platform outside of Minnesota can affect popular opinion right now. I am not writing now as some ploy for algorithmic attention. Anyone who knows me understands I'm not into that.
I am writing because I fear for my neighbors' lives and my city's way of life. I am writing this because I fear media writers specifically have decided rage is gauche or irrelevant. I fear there's a significant portion of white men who think "Well, violence is part of history" and leave it at that.
I am writing because every history, civics, and politics professor I've ever had would describe the situation Minnesota as a five-alarm fire. I have not physically participated in protests, and I don't particularly want to draw attention to myself for activism because there are better activists in this town. I want to live my life in the city I love.
But I'll say it clearly: The violence in Minnesota is a direct targeting effort from YouTube influencers who have been angry about Minneapolis since 2020. Why are influencers angry at Minneapolis? Lots of reasons! But know that it doesn't have much to do with fraud at the end of the day; it seems to have more to do with becoming famous on the internet and courting favor with the current administration. Also, Minnesota's idealism, racism, and the history of the American west all play a part, but I'll spare you the dissertation.
And, New York, I love you, but your head's up your ass if you think you're not next on the list of cities for this terror campaign. Maybe you think that having a socialist mayor will offer some protection, but we've all learned in the past year that mayors can't really do much against DHS. The current federal government will likely make an example of Mamdani as soon as it can. I know this because if I were a strategist (I am), I would say New York is the next best market to make the point our administration is trying to make.
It's not about me, and it's not only me.
If you are more angry about how I am saying the message than the message I am trying to convey, stop. Refocus. Prioritize. It is in my neighborhood. It is in our workplaces. Federal agents are in much of the metro area. The federal government has moved beyond the city, and that is why it is, in a "having a discussion with a law student" sense, legal.
And no, this is not just like Palestine. This particular armed conflict, between the federal government and peaceful (but mean!) protestors in the state of Minnesota, hasn't been going on for thousands of years. If anything, Minnesota is known as a place where people of all political parties get along! It's not just like Palestine because it is in the United States. It's worse than it has been, and it will keep getting worse until it does not anymore.
By the way, if someone calls you a "wine mom" or a "Karen" or "mean" or "bizarre" because you didn't approach them with kindness and sweetness in your state of immense stress, call them a chauvinist (just like old times). Remind them that you are no one's mom and that you are more of a whiskey girl. But that is not the point today.
So yeah, it's not good. It's worse than in 2020. It's not just a "OMG look over here" issue, and I know you have it in you to figure out why. It's not just me.
Truly, all I want for 2026 is to be able to do the work I love doing. I don't want to write about the resistance, as much as I romanticized the idea of resistance in my 20s. In my 40s, I want to write about information architecture. And I don't want my neighbors violently arrested, deported, and shot simply for being associated with my city and state and standing up for themselves.
If you have written anything in protest of the current occupation of Minnesota (it is entirely possible I have missed it), please send along, and I will read it.
The Content Technologist is a newsletter and consultancy based in Minneapolis, working with clients and collaborators around the world. The entire newsletter is written and edited by Deborah Carver, an independent content strategy consultant.
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