January 2026
Rorschach tests are the ink blotter images which evoke differing reactions depending on the observer. One person sees a butterfly where the other sees a bat. This idea has stuck with me throughout the month as each news story seems to bring a whole other level of division. Everyone is seeing what they want to see. People are living amongst each other in totally separate realities.
The most prevalent example of this throughout the month has been in Minneapolis. Specifically the deaths of both Alex Pretti, and Renee Good. Both of their lives were ended on video that was almost instantaneously distributed across the nation via social media. In both instances, those who have predispositions to the right and left perspectives fell into their respective camps; with each attempting to build a narrative as powerful as the other.
We’re in a Rorschach world.
For some looking at the ink blotter that is our world, the United States is under siege from the federal government. They see Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers as rogue thugs acting as agents of an out of control federal administration. They see the raids on cities such as Minneapolis as intimidation warfare on the civilian population of the nation. When the videos of the two shootings were seen by these individuals, they saw a federal government murdering innocent citizens - and it sparked a rage. A rage that results in people gathering to protest a nation they see as descending into fascism - boiled to the point where many aim for the total abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
For those that see the ink blotter differently than the former; these United States of America have had roughly ten million people enter the country without any form of documentation or process. They see Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers as preforming the necessary duty of an immigration system that is deportation. They see the raids on cities such as Minneapolis as necessary law enforcement operations to protect the deportation efforts ongoing in those cities. When they saw the videos of the two killings, they saw a protester obstructing officers in the road and another who attempted to stop an arrest while holding a firearm. This has sparked an indignation towards those who are cheering on the protests of deportation.
It doesn’t draw the same reactionary attention as the prior, but there is a third view of this Rorschach. That being the sensible conversation left by the wayside from the ire of the latter two. All of the reactionary points of view being over-expressed in this time stem from kernels of truth. These United States of America, and any nation in the world, in order to function as a nation; needs a strong and secure border. Having a secure border means that you know who is coming and going from it, that they are doing so with documentation and through a legal process. Otherwise, you are inviting the mass chaos of unvetted immigration from all corners of the globe. In a situation where a large number of undocumented people illegally enter the country, there will and has always been; deportations of those individuals. I don’t particularly want to quote Barack Obama, however this is a prescient quote of his from 2010:
"There are those in the immigrants' rights community who have argued passionately that we should simply provide those who are here illegally with legal status, or at least ignore the laws on the books and put an end to deportation until we had better laws. And often this argument is framed in moral terms: why should we punish people who are just trying to earn a living?
I recognize the sense of compassion that drives this argument. But I believe such an indiscriminate approach would be both unwise and unfair. It would suggest to those thinking about coming here illegally that there will be no repercussions for such a decision, and it could lead to a surge in illegal immigration. And it would also ignore millions of people around the world who are waiting in line to come here legally.
Ultimately, aren't we a nation of laws? Our nation, like all nations, has the right — and the obligation — to control its borders and set laws for residency and citizenship.
No matter how decent they are, no matter their reasons, the 11 million who broke these laws should be held accountable."
He said this because the truly compassionate approach to immigration, is a sane and comprehensible system by which people can legally enter the country. Who does it benefit to have a secondary class on individuals with no legal status living within the country? As Senator Sanders said to Ezra Klein in 2015, open borders is a koch brother proposal.
Huge corporations and other exploiters of cheap labor are who benefits. Many of the chambers of commerce and other business lobbies are the ones who most profit from the importation of non-legal residents, who are forced to work under the radar and in the shadows. In poor working conditions, for little pay, these people are in many cases scrambling just to survive. That isn’t compassion towards people seeking a better life, and as much as the United States is a wealthy nation which should aim to lift as many boats as it can - it cannot be the ocean.
That being said, there is another kernel of truth. No deportation force should be roving the streets asking citizens for their papers. Arresting people out of their cars, leaving the car and all of the individuals effects of the road. Using lethal force as loosely as we have seen it used in broad daylight, on agitated protesters. No just deportation process sends people to supermax prisons in countries afar from the one of their origin, when the individual being deported has no criminal background. This is all completely antithetical to a sane deportation system. It seems to me that this is an effort to gin up chaos. The more chaos, the more confusion. The more confusion, the more people won’t notice that their entire country is being sold out from beneath them. Left, right. Black, white. Keep ‘em going about whatever it may be while we make out with the gold. And let us be clear, they don’t care what carnage it takes to get it.
This feels to me like the last squeeze of the lemon slice. Those in power trying to wring out the last drops of wealth that can be extracted from this system before the house of cards crashes on its own weight. The drip, drip, drip of the contents of the Epstein documents held by the department of justice seems the prime example of the pressure on the floodgate.
Over the weekend, about three million new different files, containing millions of different pieces of content in the already vast library of assorted bits and pieces that make up the puzzle of Jeffrey Epstein were released. If I go too far down this path here I won’t be able to stop - and so I will merely restate that this mounting drip from the floodgate is proof that something is about to give. What that is? I wouldn’t begin to claim to know. All I know is the ramping terror on the streets, combined with the chaos of the parliamentary system, and the drum beats of war in the desert getting louder - don’t bring me to ease.
The amount of plates I’m trying to spin now means that I am going to have to cut this shorter than the rest. There is much to discuss regarding the legislative session, but that will have to come at another time. For now I will but mention that on the House Environment and Agriculture Committee I working hard to stop, or at the very least significantly reduce the use of neonicotinoid pesticides. Many of the bills I have sponsored have had their initial public hearing, including legislation to ban price fixing software from being used to fix rents, provide a tax credit to veterans and their families, legalize cannabis, prevent post arrest-photography from being used prior to conviction, stop criminalizing homelessness, and much more.
January was a non-stop slog, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Rounding this out - as we proceed forward in this Rorschach world. Let us remember that even the person sitting next to us may be seeing the ink in a totally different light. If we are to proceed as a nation, we must find a way to put the test down entirely - and get back to base reality so that we may deal with the true issues of our time. The more we wait the faster the atrophy of our basic natural rights as citizens will erode.
What this really comes down to is, I refuse to concede my nation to pedophilic sociopaths.
You should too.
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