In this episode of Special Ed Rising: PURGE 47 Edition, host Mark Ingrassia steps away from disability policy to confront a reality that affects every American: the rapid erosion of democratic norms and the rise of authoritarian governance in the United States—most visibly playing out right now in Minnesota.

Mark examines the aggressive federal immigration enforcement surge led by DHS, ICE, and Border Patrol, including mass arrests, militarized operations in residential neighborhoods, and multiple fatal encounters involving U.S. citizens. He addresses the killings of Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, the mounting allegations of illegal and inhumane ICE practices, and the constitutional crisis triggered by unchecked executive power.

This episode also draws historically grounded parallels to past authoritarian regimes—not as sensationalism, but as a warning. Through legal analysis, scholarly research, and firsthand accounts, Mark explores how democratic erosion happens: through normalization, propaganda, the weakening of oversight, and the weaponization of fear against marginalized communities.

This is not a partisan episode. It is a civic one.

If you believe in due process, equal protection, and the rule of law, this conversation is not optional.

🧭 What We Cover in This Episode

1. Why Mark is stepping beyond disability policy for this urgent episode
2. The federal immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota
3. Militarized ICE operations and mass detentions
4. The killings of Renée Nicole Good and Alex Pretti
5. Allegations of warrantless stops, racial profiling, and suppression of civilian recording
6. Federal court intervention and constitutional challenges
7. The concept of the “prerogative state” and authoritarian drift
8. How language and propaganda are used to dehumanize targeted groups
9. Historical warning signs of democratic erosion
10. Why silence and normalization are the real danger

🧠 Key Themes

1. Federal overreach and lack of accountability
2. Due process and Fourth Amendment erosion
3. State vs. federal power conflicts
4. Militarization of civilian law enforcement
5. The human cost of unchecked authority
6. Historical parallels to authoritarian systems
7. Civic responsibility in moments of democratic crisis

📌 Sources Referenced

1. CBS News — Minneapolis becomes ground zero in immigration crackdown
2. PBS NewsHour — Federal court hearings on Minnesota enforcement surge
3. Business Insider — Labor unions call for ICE to leave Minnesota
4. ACLU — Statements on ICE and CBP deployment
5. The Guardian — Constitutional challenges to ICE operations
6. Center for American Progress — How democracies erode
7. Berkeley News — Historians on modern fascism parallels
8. Wikipedia — Dual State (Model)
9. Minneapolis.gov — Legal filings on Operation Metro Surge
10. Wikipedia — Killing of Alex Pretti
11. Wikipedia — 2026 Anti-ICE Protests in the United States

(Full source list available on specialedrising.com)

📣 Call to Action

If you’re listening to this and thinking, “Someone should do something,” that someone is you.

Share this episode. Call your representatives. Demand accountability. Show up in your community.

Silence is complicity—and democracy doesn’t defend itself.

🔗 Links

🌐 Website: https://specialedrising.com

📬 Contact Mark: specialedrising@gmail.com

https://www.gofundme.com/f/join-rays-respite-care-mission

Episode 159: “Democracy in Danger: Minnesota, Federal Overreach, and the Threat to All of Us”

Hello, I’m your host, Mark Ingrassia, and this is Special Ed Rising: PURGE 47 Edition—the show that keeps a close watch on government actions impacting the disability community.

If you’re here, you already know this: when policies shift and rights are on the line, we cannot afford to look away.

In this episode, I step away from disability politics to focus on what’s impacting all of us—what’s happening in this country, and specifically what’s unfolding in Minnesota right now. If I’m going to be able to look myself in the mirror, I can’t stay on the sidelines of history, doing nothing while human rights abuses take place and democracy continues to crumble. This is no longer hyperbole or political rhetoric. What we’re witnessing is the real-time emergence of authoritarian rule in America—and silence is no longer an option. This is not about partisan ideology. It is about power, accountability, and the rule of law—and how those foundations are being tested in ways that should concern every American who still believes the Constitution is more than symbolic.

It is about morality and the side we chose to protect and defend will define our future as a country.

If you’re enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review, subscribe, and share. Those subscriptions matter—they help boost our rankings and make it easier for new listeners to find the show and join this mission.

To support the podcast or learn more about my parent coaching, visit specialedrising.com. You’ll find resources packed with tools, links, and practical guidance for families navigating the system.

Support Sarah Ingledue’s dream of opening Ray’s Respite Care, a safe, loving space for individuals like her sister Rachel—every donation helps families in need; find the GoFundMe link in the show notes

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Be ready.

The work continues.

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Since I was a little boy, I think I’ve always been deeply aware of injustice. I was offended by it. I never liked seeing people picked on, targeted, or treated as less than. And I think that sensitivity—to other people’s suffering—is what drew me, even at a young age, to learning about the Nazi regime and the atrocities of that era.

Not because I was fascinated in a morbid way, I was and continue to be, despite the honor of knowing firsthand survivors, flawed that it could happen. And I always believed the same thing so many of us did: If I were there, I would stand up. I would do something. I wouldn’t let that happen. We all like to believe that. We imagine ourselves being brave, speaking out, stopping the rise of something so evil. So easy to do from a million miles away.

But now, that reality isn’t distant history anymore. It isn’t something we study or warn about in hindsight. It’s here. It’s closer to home than we ever wanted to admit.

I believe we are now living in an authoritarian country—led by someone who recently stood on a global stage in Davos and openly bragged, quote:

“Usually they say he’s a horrible dictator-type person. I’m a dictator. But sometimes you need a dictator.” —Donald Trump.

That isn’t a slip. That isn’t satire. That’s a declaration.

And the consequences are already playing out. People are being subjugated by a government that is openly seeking authoritarian control. They are being gaslit. They are being abused—based on who they are, what they look like, what language they speak, and what groups they belong to. And yes, people of color and other marginalized communities are bearing the brunt of it.

The killings. The arrests. The disappearances. The intimidation. It’s been horrifying from the start—but now it’s unmistakable.

I sit back and I realize: It’s happening.

Not in the exact same way—but in disturbingly familiar ways.

A regime-driven loyalty. Armed agents operating with impunity. Dehumanization. Fear as a political weapon. And a base that’s been trained to cheer it on while being told not to believe their own eyes.

And I ask myself—what are we doing?

My platform may not have been built for this topic. But it doesn’t matter. This is the platform I have. And this is my responsibility.

I cannot look myself in the mirror and stay silent while injustices are happening in real time—while democracy is being systematically dismantled, while people are being harmed, while truth is being buried under propaganda and distraction.

To stay quiet would be appalling. It would be shameful. And it would be a failure on my part.

So in this episode, I am speaking up.

I’m speaking out against what’s happening across this country. Against a government that has convinced its followers to fear a manufactured enemy—the so‑called “immigrant”—while using that fear to justify abuse, detention, and state violence.

Yes, immigration policy can be debated. It can be improved. But this isn’t that.

This is the normalization of mass detention.

This is people being imprisoned based on language, appearance, or suspicion.

This is the opening of camps.

This is collective punishment.

And the lie that’s been sold—that immigrants are violent criminals destroying this country—is demonstrably false. Study after study shows that immigrants commit less crime than native‑born citizens. That narrative is a distraction. A weapon. And enough people bought it for real damage to be done.

And now the question is no longer what’s happening.

The question is: what are we going to do about it?

Because we are dangerously close to the point where stopping it becomes impossible.

There is a small amount of hope—some Republicans are beginning to speak up. But not nearly enough to stop what’s unfolding. Not enough to stop innocent people—yes, innocent Americans—from being harmed in the name of a lie.

You don’t get to claim you’re protecting this country from violent predators while the violence is coming from your own policies, your own agents, your own abuses of power.

And you don’t get to gaslight people into believing what they’re seeing isn’t real.

It is real.

It is happening.

And history will not be kind to silence.

So here I am. I’m speaking. Because doing nothing is not an option anymore. People are afraid that democracy is slipping away and that their children are going to be kidnapped and taken away from them.

Several fatal shootings by federal agents have intensified public scrutiny and outrage. In each case, federal authorities initially framed the deaths as justified uses of force, while eyewitness testimony, video evidence, and independent reporting raised serious questions about those narratives (CBS News, 2026). Beyond the immediate tragedy of lives lost, these incidents have forced urgent constitutional questions into the open: who holds federal agents accountable, what standards govern their use of force, and what recourse states and communities have when federal power appears to override local authority and civil liberties.

And the human cost of this erosion of accountability isn’t some abstract idea — it’s bloody, it’s real, and it’s happening now. In Minneapolis, two American citizens have been killed by federal agents in just weeks, and the outrage across the country is exploding.

Then, just weeks later on January 24, 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti — a Minneapolis ICU nurse, U.S. citizen, and caregiver to veterans — was shot dead by U.S. Border Patrol agents during the same wave of federal enforcement. Video and eyewitness accounts show him holding a phone, trying to help someone who had been shoved to the ground, when he was pepper-sprayed, wrestled down, and then riddled with multiple shots while pinned. Officials tried to paint him as a threat — claiming he approached them with a gun — but the footage and family accounts tell a different story: he was unarmed in that moment, trying to do the right thing, and still paid with his life.

These aren’t isolated tragedies — they’re symptoms of systemic lawlessness. And the refusal of federal authorities to be honest or accountable is tearing communities apart and igniting protests because Americans see with their own eyes what’s happening.

Together, these developments reflect a broader and deeply troubling shift away from constitutional democratic norms. N all 3 times he ran, Tim Walz is governor and it is a sanctuary city..

Due process and Fourth Amendment protections are being weakened. Militarized enforcement is becoming normalized in civilian spaces. When federal agencies operate with limited transparency, resist oversight, and respond to dissent with force rather than accountability, we are no longer talking about isolated policy disputes. We are talking about the structural conditions that allow authoritarian systems to take shape.

This is where history becomes relevant—not as a blunt accusation, but as a warning. There is an important comparison to make: how some government tactics we are witnessing in the United States resemble patterns that scholars and historians associate with historical authoritarian regimes, including Nazi Germany. I am not saying these modern actions are direct Nazi policies, nor am I equating any contemporary leader with Adolf Hitler. That said, Trump has repeatedly praised modern strongmen and authoritarian figures. For example, he has referred positively to leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and others, highlighting strength or respect rather than democratic norms:

Stephen Miller is quoted by the Washington Post saying, “We live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.”

Miller has expressed views diminishing judicial authority over executive actions, arguing that presidential power should not be subject to review:

Miller said that the president’s powers to “protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.

The historical context, scale, and ideology of the Third Reich are unique and horrific. But history teaches us that democratic collapse rarely begins with its most extreme outcomes. It begins with patterns.

Scholars who study democratic erosion emphasize that authoritarianism does not arrive overnight. It advances incrementally—through legal changes, the erosion of norms, and the normalization of extraordinary state power. Institutions are weakened from within. Oversight is obstructed. Law enforcement becomes politicized while still claiming legality. This is how democracies slide, not how they fall all at once.

Historians have also observed that the social conditions that enabled authoritarian movements in the twentieth century—economic anxiety, scapegoating of vulnerable groups, and the systematic undermining of checks and balances—can echo in modern political contexts. These parallels are contextual, not literal, but they are instructive. They show us how fear can be weaponized and how rights can be reframed as obstacles rather than safeguards.

In Minnesota, this tension has become especially visible. Governor Tim Walz has publicly likened the heavy federal presence and aggressive tactics—armed agents in neighborhoods, warrantless stops reported by residents—to the climate of fear associated with historical occupations in Europe. Such comparisons reflect a deeper concern shared by many local leaders: that the exercise of federal power is increasingly detached from democratic accountability.

Critics say that sending thousands of federal agents into public spaces, stopping people without clear cause, and detaining them without proper judicial oversight looks like what scholars call a “prerogative state.” This describes a system where the law becomes arbitrary and no longer protects people—a pattern historians see in past authoritarian regimes.

Authoritarian systems always start with language. In Nazi Germany, they labeled entire groups as “enemies of the state,” making it easier to justify exclusion, repression, and violence. Look at today: critics are seeing similar patterns. Immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ communities—they’re being cast as threats, while laws and protections meant to keep them safe are stripped away. Scholars point out that when governments try to suppress research, erase information, or control what can be studied about marginalized groups, it’s not just bureaucracy—it’s a warning sign. It’s the same playbook authoritarian regimes have always used to control knowledge and decide who gets to exist openly in society.

Again, this is not about claiming equivalence. It is about recognizing warning signs. Democratic societies do not lose their constitutional guardrails all at once. Civil liberties erode. Courts are pressured or bypassed. Law enforcement is insulated from accountability. Dissent is reframed as danger. Over time, the extraordinary becomes routine. And then we find what is happening today, innocent people who entered the country legally, have contributed to our economy and way of life being sent to concentration camps and deported. The term “concentration camp” predates World War II and was used in the Spanish‑American War and Boer War long before the Holocaust. What distinguishes it historically is the forced detention of civilians without criminal process, not necessarily the death camp context often associated with Nazi genocide. Representative Alexandria Ocasio‑Cortez stated that facilities holding asylum seekers in harsh conditions “are concentration camps”

History shows us that authoritarian regimes often begin with centralized power exercised under the appearance of legality, followed by the weakening of independent institutions and the silencing of dissent. The safeguards we rely on today—judicial oversight, separation of powers, due process, free speech—exist precisely because earlier generations learned, at enormous cost, what happens when those protections fail.

The question is no longer whether we are headed toward authoritarianism—we are already living in an authoritarian country. Democratic norms are being undermined, constitutional protections are being ignored, and the balance of power that safeguards our freedoms is being dismantled in real time. Understanding history isn’t about fear; it’s about recognizing what happens when power goes unchecked, so we can respond before it’s too late.

I’m speaking out because I refuse to stay on the sidelines while human rights are violated and the foundations of our democracy are dismantled. This is no longer hyperbole. This is our reality. Defending constitutional principles—due process, equal protection, and limits on government power—is not optional. It is a responsibility we all share.

If you care about democracy, human rights, and the Constitution:

Stay informed. Share this episode. Call your representatives. Demand accountability. Show up in your community. Silence is complicity—and democracy doesn’t defend itself.

History is happening now. Don’t sit this one out.