Column By John Young
Their claim was self-defense, sir. Just don’t believe your eyes. It’s our blood and bones, and these whistles and phones against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies.
– Bruce Springsteen, “The Streets of Minneapolis”
Stephen Miller went to Washington seeking fame. Now he has immortality — in a new anthem’s stinging verse.
He’s made it. He’s in the limelight. He’s a lesson to every aspiring climber. It pays to be the ugliest man in every room.
Not because of his cue-ball countenance. Not because of his face-disabling sneer. No, his ugliness is in his words and actions as the president’s deputy chief of staff — the ideas man behind today’s immigration horrors. Add family separations eight years ago.
He’s the man who says just the right things for a racist and vengeful boss.
As one who is aghast at Stephen Miller’s every utterance, I’ve worried that not enough Americans knew his name. Now Springsteen has memorialized it. Play it now. Play it loud: tinyurl.com/26futb86
I wondered recently about the paucity of protest songs during this authoritarian, anti-people moment. We have one that will last.
Now they say they’re here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights.
Rights are the law, too. Every police department knows this.
Rights are the only reason we have law. It’s what forced the founders into triple overtime, hashing out protections against power when colonies rejected the first notion for a nation.
This president and his White House hench-crew stood back as their paramilitary proxies took a pickaxe to such MAGA non-starters as habeas corpus and due process for people snatched on suspicion of being “the others.”
And now they have killed two Americans in actions for all to see.
The only crime committed by either is exercising that first provision among the supposedly God-given rights any lawman must honor: free speech.
Unbelievably, in justifying the murder of Alex Pretti, they even made a hash of the Second Amendment, the only constitutional right that, across time, “law and order” Republicans have treated as truly inviolable.
Miller said Pretti’s lawfully possessed firearm — which he never brandished on that sidewalk and was taken from him before he was shot — made him an “assassin” who had “tried to murder federal agents.”
Miller would later blame the Border Patrol for making such a ridiculous claim.
Kristi Noem would blame Miller for her own statements, calling Pretti a “domestic terrorist,” the same thing she called Renee Good.
And then there was our president, who said Good tried to run over agents. Doesn’t he have a television anymore?
A wise leader would demand that his lieutenants provide a close-to-reality snapshot so he could make a measured statement about it. This president does nothing measured.
“De-escalate” was the word from the White House for the situation in Minnesota. Where is the evidence? A “plan” to ease tensions? I’ve got a plan. ICE out, now. Send the goons home.
These are not individuals protecting the people of Minneapolis. They are, like our president, paid provocateurs. They are not in Minnesota because of a need there. They are there because our president has targeted blue states with shows of federal might.
Texas has roughly 2 million undocumented individuals, according to federal estimates. Minnesota has barely more than 100,000. Why would the latter get the surge? We know.
What Minnesota has, other than having voted against this president, is a healthy sampling of Somali immigrants, the sort of “low IQ” – meaning dark-skinned — people he and Miller want out of our country.
Well, guess what? The people are speaking. See them in the street. They are not buying the “Great Replacement Theory” that Stephen Miller espouses. They are buying the words enunciated by Lady Liberty. Like the founders, they can find community amid diversity. It all comes from human respect.
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
Here in our home, they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26.
Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email him at jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author.
