By Timothy Snyder,

”Thoughts on Minnesota: Law, language, and leadership.

The president has the constitutional authority to execute the laws – not to execute people. By his own admission, he sent ICE to Minnesota for reasons that have nothing to do with its legal existence – which have to do, instead, with voter rolls and the welfare state. It looks like one big violation of the law.

Language. It’s very important to call things by their proper names. To call an execution an execution. To call a murder a murder. It’s very important not to use vague concepts like law enforcement, when what is clearly happening is that the law is being broken. It is important to notice and to react when the people who should be our authorities are using language like ‘terrorism’.

Finally: Leadership. Who are the leaders? They are not the people who are breaking the law. They are not the people who are lying to us and abusing the language. They are the ones who are caring about the language and speaking the truth. They are the ones who care about the law and resist, non-violently. The leaders are people like Alex Pretti; Americans who are trying to do what’s right. And it’s in how we behave now, in how we treat the law, the language, how we respect the real leaders, that we become the people who can get ourselves out of this, and into a better country.”