The Minneapolis Toxin

Thursday, January 29, 2026

The situation has grown completely out-of-hand.  Social media is, in some circles, full of memes that amount to death threats aimed at anyone involved in the unfortunate deaths in Minneapolis in recent days – up to and including the POTUS.  In a different age, the things I have read would lead to a knock on the door from the Secret Service.  Ilan Omar was attacked yesterday – some wonder if it was a set-up.  Regardless, it is symbolic of a situation that has left the boundaries of reason and civil discourse.  The former Vice President and the host have issued clarion calls for reason and sobriety – both in severe short supply.

Said the former V.P.:

State and local elected officials have chosen not to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement since the beginning of the crackdown. Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey has repeatedly called for ICE to leave the city and, as of Tuesday, still reiterates that Minneapolis “does not and will not enforce federal immigration laws.” Both the mayor and governor have consistently declined to work constructively with the administration and instead frame the enforcement of long-standing federal immigration law as a humanitarian and moral crisis to be resisted.

This attitude is a recipe for heightening tensions, increasing the chances for miscommunication, and stoking further unrest.

Said the host:

The point of this column is in a country addicted to instant replay and decisions made within minutes, the patience required for serious deliberation and adjudication has eroded. It’s been worn away. We almost all watch sports. We almost all “call” pass interference when it benefits our team. Most fans think “targeting,” to name just one particularly difficult to define infraction, occurred or didn’t occur based on their allegiances. And we are passionate about it. Sometimes for decades.

That is not this. That is a habit of judgment to which we have become accustomed and indeed expect, but it is a habit that does not belong here.

This situation is not born of the moment – it is like a volcano erupting.  It is the visible outpouring of actions and movement that occurred out of sight, underground for long periods of time, gaining velocity and momentum and pressure that must be expended, but in this case it involves emotions, not magma or lava.  And whether its the rhetoric from the administration or the spotters and organizers of the protests, people on both sides are trying to capitalize on the eruption instead of limit or stop it,  At times, the whole thing feels like the chicken pox parties of my youth.

At bottom of all of this is a toxic stew.  Decades of politicians and protesters and “leaders” appealing to our lower, emotional nature rather than calling on our higher, rational nature.  A media environment that is increasingly visual, prompting visceral rather than cerebral reaction.  Social media that enhances, amplifies and rewards the irrational.  As The Doobie Brothers put it, “What were once vices are now habits.”  The upheaval of morals and mores and social guardrails in my lifetime has left us in a world where right-and-wrong are undefinable.  Giving license to the sort of things once thought inconceivable.

And the eruption threatens to spread.  Even if a cork is put in Minneapolis, the pressure underground is still there and will seek another exit.  We all wrote off the George Floyd riots to the pressure created by the pandemic lockdowns, but clearly, now, we can see the pressure is far bigger than that.  The J6 riot was another eruption that we should have seen was born of the same toxic stew, but that was considered separate because it came from the other side of the political spectrum.  It will keep erupting, and erupt in new places, if not relieved.

Sober judgement and toned down rhetoric are a fine start, but are insufficient of themselves to fully deal with the pressure that percolates beneath us.  We need to once again create boundaries that enable us to rein in our all-too-human hearts and their overwhelming passions. We need some sort of solid ground on which to stand instead of a constantly shifting landscape of desire and distaste.  We need something our political structures cannot give us.

This is a gap which only the church can stand in.