During late January, much of the United States was plunged into a deep freeze. Some of the coldest weather was in Minnesota, where temperatures plummeted to more than 25 degrees below zero. On Jan. 24, I attended a regional gathering of hunters, anglers, and other public lands advocates on northern Minnesota’s Pelican Lake.
It was the same day Federal immigration agents shot and killed Veterans Affairs nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Trump administration officials were quick to label Pretti a “domestic terrorist,” despite video evidence to the contrary. As explained by CNN’s Josh Campbell in a Feb. 2 analysis, “The video shows Pretti sought to shield a woman shoved to the ground by an immigration agent … before agents eventually opened fire.”
“After the January 24 shooting, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asserted that Pretti, a licensed gun owner, was brandishing a firearm at federal agents, ‘wishing to inflict harm on these officers,’” Campbell wrote. He added, “White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller was quick to label Pretti ‘a domestic terrorist’ in the aftermath of the shooting,”
And only two weeks earlier, on Jan. 7, an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis, a 37-year-old mother of three, just after she dropped her child off at school. Within hours, before an investigation even began, the Trump administration didn’t just defend the shooter; it began an all-out assault on the truth. Kristi Noem and official DHS accounts immediately labeled Renee a “domestic terrorist” despite zero evidence. She was a stay-at-home mom.
Fascist regimes are, by default, neither transparent nor accountable, because they’re inherently corrupt. Hence, the need to lie constantly. For fascism to survive, it needs to create a “post-truth” society, which is facilitated by fake news-peddling sycophants serving up heaping helpings of lies, half-truths, and just plain idiocy. Not to mention arresting journalists, suing news outlets, and intimidating anyone and everyone who opposes their lawlessness.
All this is part and parcel of fascist regimes. As George Orwell put it in his novel “1984:” “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
My response: Believe your eyes, not their lies. It’s hard to believe so many could be so easily duped by Trump’s criminal cabal of billionaire buzzards (14 of them in his cabinet), but here we are.
On Pelican Lake, at Breezy Point Resort, our keynote speaker was Hal Herring, a public lands advocate and Field & Stream contributing editor.
“The current attacks by the Trump administration have brought our public lands into focus for the American people in a way that has not been seen before,” Hal explained in a Jan. 4 RE:PUBLIC opinion piece.
“In the lifetime of any living American, there has never been such a melee of concentrated assaults on our hard-won heritage of conservation, public lands, hunting, fishing, and the liberty that they provide,” he added in a Winter 2026 Backcountry Journal article. “In the luxury of having so much, we underestimated how easily it could all be lost — or taken.”
“Speaking to a crowd of more than 130 public land supporters, Herring inspired attendees with a powerful reminder of why advocacy matters, especially in divisive times,” Minnesota Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Board chair Chance Adams wrote in a Jan. 27 blog post.
In Minnesota, ICE was humbled by average citizens armed with cellphones, Charlie Sykes explained in a Jan. 28 Substack post. “And those phones turned out to be Trump’s kryptonite,” he emphasized, “because they showed the world what was happening — thousands of videos, tens of thousands of stories that accomplished what speeches, rants, podcasts, and Congress could not. Their images broke through — everywhere.“
“Great times at … Breezy Point Resort near Brainerd, Minnesota,” Hal posted on Instagram on Jan. 25. “When we have emerged from our current trials and tragedies and political agonies, this is what we will be getting back to — the triumph of the real — fish, bright sun, ice, healthy people, family, community, clean air and water, life writ large and outside under the clear skies and heavens. Now, we’re headed south to the Twin Cities, and the reality of our national pain.”
A key takeaway from this gathering on Pelican Lake, Hal’s keynote speech, and the Minneapolis ICE murders: Hunters, anglers, and other public lands advocates are Trump’s kryptonite too. We are all part of the “triumph of the real” over his “post-truth” sycophants. There’s going to be an election on November 3, 2026, and we are done with your fascist betrayals.
David A. Lien of Colorado Springs, Colorado, is a former Air Force missile launch officer and author. In 2014, he was recognized by Field & Stream as a “Hero of Conservation” and urges action at backcountryhunters.org/get-involved/take-action. This is his personal opinion and not that of any other group/organization.
