Turning Points and Authoritarian Escalations

Is America’s descent into autocracy accelerating or is the Trump regime struggling to break through the democratic defenses? In Minneapolis, the tenets of the white nationalist worldview are being refuted.

By Thomas Zimmer, February 2, 2026

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The past week may have brought us some of the most extreme narrative swings of the Trump era. The public discourse ranged from “Trump is pivoting to moderation” to “Trump is smashing through the last constraints, escalating into full-own autocracy” – from “Trump is definitely losing” to “America’s inevitable descent into authoritarianism is accelerating.”

We seek certainty. But perhaps the best thing we can do is to grapple with the ambiguity, the murkiness, the contradictions of this moment. The situation is highly volatile. And yet, I do believe we can filter out some of the noise and the nervous excitement of the daily news cycles, take stock of where America stands.

Forget all the nonsense about Trump “pivoting” to moderation. This regime is ideologically and psycho-politically incapable of that. They will continue to escalate, hoping to intimidate people and institutions into compliance and submission. But in Minneapolis, people are holding the line. And that matters greatly, because the stakes in this confrontation are extremely high. What the regime was intending to be a warning to the rest of the nation is turning into something very different. It is not only MAGA’s ability to consolidate authoritarian rule in the face of sustained resistance that is being put to the test here. In Minneapolis, the tenets of the white nationalist worldview are on trial: The Trumpists claim that multiracial pluralism is a dangerous lie, it is weak, it lacks cohesion, it stands no chance against the strength of the autocratic ethno-state. But what they are encountering on the ground is a population mobilizing in defense of their non-white neighbors. A multiracial community exercising solidarity, galvanized by the authoritarian assault. Nothing could be more dangerous to Trumpism as a political project.

No “pivot” – but a significant defeat

To recap: After initially doubling down, just like they had after the murder of Renee Good, slandering and vilifying the victim as a “domestic terrorist,” the regime started the week after the execution of Alex Pretti by modifying its public approach. Trump momentarily changed his tone, going so far as to signal sympathy (Abre numa nova janela) with Pretti’s family. The regime sidelined border patrol “commander-at-large” Greg Bovino, the face of the ICE/CBP occupation, replacing him with border czar Tom Homan. There were reports of internal strife and finger pointing (Abre numa nova janela), as not everybody in the Trump White House was overly happy with how DHS secretary Kristi Noem and America First chief agitator Stephen Miller had been handling the situation. All of this prompted some mainstream media outlets (Abre numa nova janela) to diagnose a “pivot” (Abre numa nova janela) towards “easing tensions.”

Let’s be frank: The idea that the Trumpists would henceforth pursue a strategy of moderation and de-escalation, that perhaps Donald Trump was sincerely affected by the violence in Minneapolis and therefore seeking a more conciliatory approach, was obviously stupid. It takes a significant level of foolishness and/or (willfull) ignorance to indulge such notions – a complete lack of understanding of who and what Trumpism is.

Sure enough, the “pivot” didn’t last. Or rather: It had never actually materialized on the ground to begin with. Certainly not in Minneapolis (Abre numa nova janela), where the federal occupation force continued its strategy of terrorizing the people. The “softer” rhetoric didn’t stick either – by the middle of the week, Trump was back to raging against “insurrectionists and agitators” (Abre numa nova janela) in Minneapolis. In fact, while the “pivot” talk was still ongoing, ICE was already expanding (Abre numa nova janela) its aggressive raids in Maine (Abre numa nova janela). As I am writing this, it looks like the Trumpists are preparing a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Haitian migrants (Abre numa nova janela) in Springfield, Ohio. Vice-president JD Vance and Trump tried to incite a pogrom (Abre numa nova janela) against them during the presidential campaign in the fall of 2024 – and MAGA seems to be itching to make that community their next target. As an exclamation mark, the regime ended the week after the murder of Alex Pretti by arresting journalists (Abre numa nova janela) for the crime of having reported from Minneapolis.

Based on these developments, it is easy to mock the idea of a “turning point” – another term that has been prominently floating around lately. I have seen lots of angry ridicule directed at the idea that the resistance in Minnesota had meaningfully impacted the course of events. Aren’t we actually witnessing an acceleration (Abre numa nova janela) of America’s descent into full-on autocracy?

Here I want to caution against throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I believe that assessing the events in Minneapolis by whether or not they actually induced some sense of moderation in the regime is entirely the wrong framework. We shouldn’t dismiss the significance of the resistance on the ground because it failed to trigger a sincere change of heart in a regime that is utterly incapable of such enlightenment. The fact remains: The resistance the Trumpists are encountering in Minnesota is a serious threat to the authoritarian project – and the ideological foundations on which it is built.