OCTOBER 15, 2026 – By now even the most ostrich-like Americans are familiar with the name Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota congresswoman targeted by the Crime Family operation conducted through the Department of Injustice. This fishing expedition against her, launched just three weeks before the mid-terms, is such a blatant act of political intimidation, it should knock the breath out of every American who values their own freedom from arbitrary and capricious authoritarian rule. Omar’s politics—as much as yours or mine—should be irrelevant to our ironclad protections under the Bill of Rights. By making Omar’s politics (or ethnicity, religion or place of origin) relevant to the violation of those protections, Trump’s rogue administration has trampled over us all—even his supporters, since he has demonstrated time and again, that to him, loyalty is strictly a one-way street. Everyone in his orbit is summarily dispensable. Such is a tyrant’s trait.
The regime’s bully tactics against Omar are typical of what Trump has applied against his other political enemies. Such tactics are how tyrants attempt to silence their opposition: by making flimsy accusations in parody of truth and law; on tenuous technical grounds, going for the jugular, threatening loss of position, even citizenship, to quell opposition. Meanwhile, mocking the system they’ve hijacked, Team Trump engages in dazzling grift, from granting no-bid contracts to buddies, to rewarding mega-donor billionaires with seats at the table of influence. And as if to rub our noses in the offal of his sorry political career, Trump pardons—pardons—mega-fraudsters and calls January 6 rioters “heroes” and pardons them too. Trump’s contempt for legal constraints on his own power underscores the irony of his abuse of legal process against his political enemies.
Sadly, abuse of investigative and prosecutorial arms of the government against Omar is an extension of Operation Metro Surge conducted by ICE here in Minnesota last winter and financial punishments of the Democratic-run state of Minnesota. The savage, lawless police state tactics revealed how far America had sunk under the command and control of a tyrant and his more-than-willing minions. Although much of the offensive drama has vanished from our streets, uncivilized and illegal treatment of detainees and deportees continues. Unfortunately, these continuing attributes of the police state we’ve become are now eclipsed by bigger concerns of the electorate, such as the high price of gas and diesel—tied directly to the Trump-Hegseth-Netanyahu-Forever-War against Iran.
This is the country in which we live—one now defined by the chasm between what thought we were and what we’ve shown ourselves to be. In response, sure . . . we can do as others I know are doing—applying for dual citizenship in other countries, “just in case” all hell breaks loose here, particularly starting next month. But instead of jumping ship, we should join hands and loop arms for the common good; we should strive to uphold civility and decency; embrace fairness and equality; support beneficial science and technology; treat the whole earth as sacred ground and seas; reform our economy so that all boats are seaworthy and navigate according to established law, not piratical caprice. Despite dark smudges across the arc of our history and storm clouds over us now, we still possess a stockpile of strengths to see ourselves through to a better place for all.
Election Day next month isn’t the finish line. It’s only a new beginning. So much has been wrecked, ransacked, and turned on its head, we’ll be working for the next many years to restore all that’s been broken—and all that’s been neglected while the hooligans were looting us blind. The mission before us goes well beyond replacing Republican rascals with Democratic ones. To meet the challenges of today, tomorrow and beyond, we desperately need to reform the framework of government and reduce the concentration of Big Power in the hands of Big Money.
In the meantime, pledge your support for Ilhan Omar—not necessarily her politics, if they’re not aligned with your own—but her rights and standing, which apply equally to each of us. In the end, equal protection under the Bill of Rights is infinitely more important than policy positions—hers, yours or mine.
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© 2026 by Eric Nilsson
