ICE & Theories for the Midterms

Theory: ICE on the ground in cities is meant to accustom (and build an “excuse” – such as it is) for the public so when the midterms come around, the paramilitary thugs on the street are already in place to help out with voter intimidation. Who in their right mind will risk going out to vote unless they look like they are of northern European extraction?

My unfinished idea today is that the reason that Seattle hasn’t been targeted much harder for ICE raids is that Washington has mail in voting. As in, the entire state votes by mail and there is really no opportunity in the state to vote in person even if you wanted to. Thus, there isn’t any real “efficiency” to wasting your agents intimidating a population that, due to logistical reasons, it doesn’t really make much sense to bother with. The juice isn’t worth the squeeze to use a modern idiom.

ICE raids could be happening in rural areas, where a LOT of illegal immigrants are working in industries like meat packing… but they’re not. Or at least, not much anymore. Instead, we’re seeing these crazed, inefficient, house-by-house searches being conducted that are obviously designed to terrorize and intimidate. And it’s happening in cities where the vast majority of democratic voters live. Take a look sometime at the county level electoral map of the US. It’s an ocean of (lightly populated red) with little blue city islands.  Hell, take a look at the MINNESOTA map from 2024:

Kamala won with not even 51% of the vote, a red shift of ~3% even though her VP pick was native son, Walz. Think the GOP believes they can intimidate ~138K voters into staying home on election day because of fear of harassment and/or arrest? I do. Whether that’s feasible or not is beside the point. I bet they think they could pick up Angie Craig’s D+3 seat in MN-02. Which just happens to start about 8.5 miles south of where Renee Good was shot dead.

Also, Minnesota only allows vote by mail in certain small jurisdictional races. And Minnesota has a senate race in 2026! On the Dem side the primary looks like it’s starting with above-mentioned Angie Craig vs. lieutenant governor Flanagan. (Sure to be carrying the stink of the large-scale fraud courtesy of reality and the GOP outrage machine.) Trump won’t be on the ballot in 2026 but that might not matter. Consider how this might play out in areas across the country. I’m sure we’ll have more examples.

In my even more conspiratorially minded moments, I do think the tactics in Minnesota are getting the extreme left that are to be found in cities like Seattle and definitely Portland, all wound up. And then in the summer, ICE breaks out its brutal gestapo tactics there and the city goes up in (metaphorical, hopefully) flames. Then the army gets called out to put down civil unrest, except it’s not the army. It’s ICE, CBP, whatever… the paramilitary organizations packed full of MAGA loyalists. Voter intimidation under guise of civil unrest writ large but importantly – ONLY IN THE CITIES. The rural areas will have no problems voting.

This will ensure the Senate staying in Republican hands as intimidation in a few key places in states like North Carolina where Tom Tillis is retiring and his seat will be hotly contested. Or in Georgia where Ossof (D) will be trying to defend his seat? Think you'll see some federal paramilitaries out to "maintain order" in places like Atlanta and Raleigh-Durham, Charlotte, etc? I do. It won't take much to tip those races.

We're on a very, very dark path.