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I think history will mark January 24, 2026 as the beginning of the end of Donald Trump as a political leader.

That’s the day, of course, two Border Patrol agents shot Alex Pretti in cold blood on a street here in Minneapolis. His death was an extension of the tragic moment when an ICE agent murdered Renee Nicole Good two weeks before. But two factors makes Alex’s death the seminal moment anti-Trump sentiment solidified for good.

One was the protest of 50,000 plus Minnesotans on the Friday before he was killed in below zero weather that drew the nation’s attention. The eyes of America were on Minneapolis when Saturday’s events happened.

The other factor was millions of people who were forced to be home because of the snow storm across the midwest, south, and northeast, with little to do but watch television and be on social media. Over and over again they saw Alex being shot in the back several times and, thus, knew exactly what had happened before the Trump propaganda machine kicked in.

That’s when the majority of Americans not only knew the truth about the death of Alex Pretti. They knew the truth about Trump and his administration, that they are liars who are willing to say anything to cover up the truth. Any trust Trump enjoyed was finally destroyed.

Of course, Trump had already had a bad week before Alex was killed. Jack Smith told a nationwide audience about why Trump was responsible for the January 6 insurrection, and the fact that he knew he was lying when he said the 2020 election was stolen from him. He also made it unequivocally clear that he and his team of investigators knew they had a solid case against Trump for taking classified documents to Mar A Lago, carelessly storing them, and then obstructing justice in his effort to cover up what he had done.

Then came the disaster at Davos, Switzerland where Trump made himself look like the fool he is and became a world-wide embarrassment to the United States.

All of this on top of an economy plagued by Trump’s thoughtless tariff policies, his dumb claims about taking control of Greenland by force, and, of course, the continuing saga of the Epstein files.

Alex’s death was the straw that broke the camel’s back. His and Renee Good’s deaths are not directly responsible for Trump’s presidency being irreparably damaged. It took the entire state of Minnesota standing-up to Trump because of their deaths to expose him for the paper lion he is. The actions of Minnesotans have become the equivalent of paving over with concrete the hole Trump has been digging for himself for the last year.

I could not be prouder than I am as a resident of this great state for the last 28 years. My home is Virginia so I don’t talk like a Minnesotan, but I am one in my heart.

Donald Trump picked the wrong people to fight with over immigration. Minnesota was literally founded by immigrants. I have never lived anywhere where the sense of pride about their immigrant heritage was as strong as it is here. Minnesotans speak of their Scandinavian roots with pride and joy. Garrison Keillor earned his fame telling stories of Minnesota’s Norwegian bachelor farmers.

It is instinctual for Minnesotans to rally to protect their immigrant neighbors Trump has tried to demonize. He didn’t have the sense to know he was demonizing all Minnesotans by attacking the state’s immigrant population. Inevitably they were not going to stand for it, not now, not ever.

Tragically a young woman and a young man with their whole lives in front of them are gone. But I am confident history will record their deaths as the moment Trump’s second presidency began to breathe its last breath.

He isn’t gone yet, he still has power, he will continue to lie, his incompetent Cabinet members are still in place, but what’s different now is that he has no moral or political authority to force his way on the rest of us.

That is what now matters. The actions of Minnesotans represent the majority of Americans who are fed up with everything Trump says and does every single day of our lives. He’s a nuisance and a menace, a virus we are ready to be rid of permanently. What has happened here is proof that we, the people, are stronger than one man and his anti-American political party.

Trump has met his match in the streets of Minneapolis where people are proving that our democracy is stronger than he knew it was, in fact stronger than many people believed. It’s holding against an unprecedented assault on its institutions and is still standing. Minnesotans are telling the entire world that American democracy will NOT fail, but Trump will.

All that said, there is a palpable sense of sadness we feel over what has happened. I felt it in my bones last Sunday morning when I awakened feeling much the way I did just after 9/11 happened 25 years ago. Alex Pretti’s death felt like an attack on America the way 9/11 made me feel.

I’ve never been a super-patriot, and have never really liked people who are, but last Sunday I grieved for our country and wanted to give it a big hug. So I did what I always do. I turned to music, remembering that a month after 9/11 the great Ray Charles was invited to sing his version of “America, the Beautiful” at Game 2 of the World Series game in New York City.

When I listened to it (more than once) it made me feel like all of us are Minnesotans because all of us are Americans, and this is our song we can sing together as we resist and defeat Donald Trump’s autocratic attack on our country.