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I will be sincere, it did not take lengthy for the recent, excited power I used to be attempting to deliver into 2026 to be quashed. (However perhaps that is on me — I forgot to place “assault a overseas nation and seize its chief with solely the murkiest of communications about what may come subsequent” on my “out” listing this yr.)
However this week, I wish to discuss two different tales that, when juxtaposed, paint a placing image of how some individuals are grappling with life underneath the second Trump administration.
First, a form of ridiculous one: the petitions to deport Nicki Minaj.
Nicki Minaj arrives on the MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 12, 2023, on the Prudential Middle in Newark, N.J. (Photograph by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
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Evan Agostini/Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Have you ever all heard about this? Greater than 120,000 folks have signed petitions calling for the rapper cum proper wing political activist to be deported to her house nation of Trinidad. Minaj was dropped at the U.S. by her dad and mom as a younger youngster, and has spoken previously about not being a U.S. citizen. And in current months, she’s angered massive parts of her fan base by praising Donald Trump and the broader MAGA motion, after being outspokenly in opposition to the primary Trump administration’s household separation insurance policies. (There’s a complete lot of different stuff folks do not like about Minaj, which you’ll be able to examine right here.) One of many petitions asserts that deporting her “would function a reminder that public figures have to be accountable for his or her phrases and the broader affect they’ve on various communities.”
I examine all {that a} day earlier than an ICE officer shot and killed a lady, Renee Nicole Good, in Minneapolis.
A makeshift memorial honoring the sufferer of a deadly taking pictures involving federal regulation enforcement brokers is taped to a put up close to the positioning of the day prior to this’s taking pictures, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photograph/Mike Householder)
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Mike Householder/AP
There are, predictably, diverging accounts of what led to the taking pictures. The federal authorities says that it was an act of self-defense in opposition to Good, who they allege was making an attempt to drive her automotive into ICE brokers. State and native officers are, fairly actually, calling bull****. The mayor of Minneapolis described the occasion as “an agent recklessly utilizing energy that resulted in someone dying, getting killed.” He then, uh, politely requested that ICE “get the f*** out of Minneapolis.” There may be prone to be weeks of fallout because the federal and native governments conflict over the continued presence of ICE in Minnesota, and the repercussions of Wednesday’s violence.
So what do these tales should do with one another? To me, they illustrate the contradictions that come up when folks attempt to cherry decide purposes of the regulation. The signers of the Nicki Minaj deportation petitions appear to be deeply offended by her embrace of the Trump administration. (“If [Minaj] believes in supporting the agenda that each one unlawful immigrants must be deported it doesn’t matter what they carry to this lovely nation then what is nice for the goose is nice for the gander. Good riddance homophobic Nicki,” one petitioner commented.) However in calling for her deportation, they’re tacitly accepting a key little bit of MAGA logic — that an individual’s political ideology can and must be grounds for his or her removing.
For those who settle for that, then you might also have to simply accept that deporting folks is one thing that requires a drive of brokers — brokers whose job is to take away folks from the nation. Not simply individuals who offend their followers.
Audre Lorde famously wrote that “the grasp’s instruments won’t ever dismantle the grasp’s home. They might enable us quickly to beat him at his personal recreation, however they are going to by no means allow us to result in real change.” It might have felt enjoyable for some folks to really feel like they have been giving Nicki Minaj a style of her personal MAGA-flavored medication by calling out her immigration standing. But when these individuals are genuinely involved about how Trump’s insurance policies are affecting on a regular basis folks, their rage ought to doubtlessly be targeted extra on the underlying constructions of the administration than at one among its minor mouthpieces.
