Waiting for the Last Gasp – Adam Overland

A dozen years ago, I posted a picture on Facebook of two city workers in safety vests using blowtorches to heat asphalt for pothole repairs on the streets of Minneapolis, streets that crack and heave in the frigid winter temperatures in a never ending battle against mother nature. 

This year, on Friday, Jan. 23, I gathered in downtown Minneapolis with about 40,000 others in what was claimed as the first general strike in America in 80 years. Hundreds of businesses closed (but no major corporations, most of whose nametag-at-best leaders continue to sit idle with milquetoast PR messages of nothingness) and a mass of people like I’ve never seen protested the senseless murder of Renee Good. It felt like hope was on the horizon. There were signs, and there was singing, and I saw no violence, as has been the case at every protest I’ve been to this year and last in Minneapolis. 

Less than 24 hours later, everything did a 180 when Alex Pretti was murdered in what looked like a hit sanctioned by the mafia, as ICE agents disarmed him (removing a gun from holster–he had not drawn it) and then shot him, then continued to shoot his lifeless body nearly a dozen more times as it lay dead in the street. At the site of his death later in the afternoon, mourners kicked aside empty teargas canisters fired by masked and faceless government agents. Within minutes of each ICE murder, the killers were declared innocent at the highest level of government in press conferences, no investigations. That should deeply concern all of us. 

There have been 3 homicides in Minneapolis in 2026. Two of them have been perpetrated by our own federal government—ICE. Minneapolis PD conducted thousands of arrests in 2025, including hundreds of violent offenders, confiscating 900+ guns in the process. They did so without killing a single person. ICE appears incapable of the same. 

Twelve years ago I was amused by potholes. Today in Minneapolis children of any color and citizenship status are terrified to go to school, people of any color are fearful of leaving their homes, ICE agents are entering vehicles and homes without warrants and beating people senseless, and we are to believe that America has somehow been made great again? 

Our fears, our desire for safety and security have been used against us to turn us on each other and on our neighbors and own family members, and in addition to potholes, we now have dead bodies in the streets.

What ICE has found in Minnesota are purpose-driven people. They wanted to find passivity. They want to overwhelm people and cause them to give up, to feel small and insignificant against such a brutal, unchecked force. They haven’t found that here–don’t let them. We are not small. We are Minnesota. 

If you have been, like me, a person who primarily expresses their displeasure once every couple of years by voting, but you’re now wondering what more you can do, I applaud you: you are right to feel this way. If you have been on the sidelines, we sideliners are exactly the people who can and must change the tide on a government that is using fear-mongering and racist pretenses to stir up division and hatred (like power-grabbing politicians have done throughout history), to recruit aggressive and violent ICE agents and to instill in those agents the idea that their violence is justified no matter what. This government cannot be trusted with this power. 

In the meantime, what can we do? 

1. Call or write your senators and reps, especially if you live in states where they don’t already support at least a halt on ICE operations. Congress has to pass a new budget to fund the Department of Homeland Security by Jan. 30.
2. Make a commitment to give more to charities and causes that support immigrants this year than you’ve ever given before. Give an amount that feels like a sacrifice, that makes you uncomfortable—because people are sacrificing now with their lives. Here are Minnesota causes to donate to now to help our communities. What would that be worth to you if it were someone you loved?
3. Make a plan now to give more to candidates who are on the right side of history in 2026 and 2028. 
4. It’s a sad truth that the economy is the only thing many people care about. What can you do about that? Stop buying shit you don’t need, at least for a time (until Nov. 2026, I suggest). Ask yourself, do I really need this? Save that money for point #2 & #3 above.
5. When you do spend money, watch where you spend it. This isn’t hard in the age of information at your fingertips. A good rule of thumb: spend local and spend at small businesses. Otherwise, ask Google if the organization you’re about to purchase from supports this bullshit happening now. An app called “Goods Unite Us” does an ok job of this. It’s impossible to be pure in this, but you can make an effort. Don’t say it doesn’t work: Boycotts and general strikes have a long history of success in this country, and they can see that success again through us. 
6. Workers’ letters and protests during Trump’s first term successfully convinced business leaders to end their relationships with immigration-focused federal departments. This works. Search for companies that contract with ICE and write to them.
7. If you have a 401k at work and can select from various mutual funds, see if your company offers options for funds that use specific environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria. Through my workplace I’ve alternatively had the option to invest in mutual funds like the Vanguard FTSE Social Index Fund, Fidelity Environment and Alternative Energy, Fidelity U.S. Sustainability Index, and the Calvert US Large Cap Core Responsible Index fund. These aren’t perfect either, but I do my best not to invest in oil companies or mutual funds that hold them. I don’t invest in weapons manufacturers or mutual funds that hold them. Invest in the things you want to see in the world. 
8. Do something–anything. Fill in the potholes. 

Here are words from the poet Mary Oliver which we should all strive to make untrue: 

“We will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness.”