When Fear Outgrows Its Author
By Patrick Theros - February 8th, 2026
Anyone following the events in Minneapolis would be forgiven for a serious case of whiplash. In the space of a week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol killed a Veterans Administration ICU nurse after disarming him. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her designated enforcer in Minneapolis, Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino, promptly declared the victim a “domestic terrorist,” a judgment echoed by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Then, almost overnight, the script flipped. President Trump placed a “productive” phone call to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, sidelined Noem, stripped Bovino of his inflated title and transferred him back to his old job, and dispatched Border Czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis to calm things down.So what happened?Donald Trump has never been squeamish about encouraging or threatening violence for political advantage. But he has always had a sharp instinct for tactical retreat when that violence threatens his electoral prospects, his financial interests, or – most importantly – his personal dominance of the headlines. Minneapolis was not Trump’s moral awakening – it was an operational problem. Fear-inducing violence, once unleashed, does not always remain controllable. To understand what’s happening in Minneapolis, it helps to study how authoritarians rule through fear – and how it sometimes escapes their control.Fear-inducing violence has long been one of the most efficient tools of authoritarian governance. It need not be constant or universal. In fact, it’s most effective when it’s selective, visible, and unpredictable enough to discipline an entire population, not just those directly targeted. Nor is fear limited to physical violence. Detention without cause or limits, reputational smearing, financial ruin through arbitrary litigation – all function as coercion. Being singled out by the state for reasons never fully explained is often enough.
Successful authoritarian systems calibrate fear carefully. They rely on institutions that appear disciplined, hierarchical, and purposeful, even when operating brutally. When violence serves a recognizable political end, it can suppress opposition for long periods. But when it becomes gratuitous, theatrical, or crosses clear boundaries, it stops intimidating and begins to radicalize, mobilize, or fracture the society it is meant to control. That was the danger signal Trump missed in Minneapolis.Over the past year, the Trump administration has deployed ICE and other federal law-enforcement bodies under the banner of immigration enforcement. But the tactics suggest a broader objective: intimidation, particularly in Democratic-controlled cities. Masked, militarized agents have conducted violent raids, detained U.S. citizens without cause, used chemical agents unnecessarily – and killed two Americans, only to label them “domestic terrorists” after the fact.This is not law enforcement. It is political signaling. The message is that even being near dissent – protesting in the wrong neighborhood, on the wrong street at the wrong moment – can carry severe, even lethal consequences. While ostensibly aimed at undocumented immigrants, these operations terrorize entire communities: bystanders, motorists, courthouse visitors, families. Federal power is being used not just to go after migrants (that’s a campaign gimmick), but to remind citizens that it can intrude suddenly, violently, and with impunity.I have seen this dynamic before. I served as junior political officer in Managua in the 1960s during the Somoza regime, a corrupt family dictatorship that relied on the potential for state violence but generally exercised it with restraint. Its militarized police force, the Guardia Nacional, was corrupt and often indifferent to public order. The regime preferred co-opting opponents to mass repression – until it didn’t.
During the 1967 election campaign, popular discontent boiled over. A large demonstration turned violent. What followed was not renewed oppression but 400 dead in one night, followed by escalating violence that ultimately fueled the Sandinista rebellion. Somoza did not fall because he lacked coercive power. He fell because excessive, poorly controlled violence breached society’s tolerance for authoritarian rule and delegitimized the regime itself. Fear, mishandled, corrodes power.What happened in Minneapolis fits this pattern uncomfortably well. Under the authority of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and operationally through Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino, ICE enforcement crossed from intimidation into spectacle. Bovino appears to have gone off the rails. Whether driven by temperament, ambition, or the intoxicating effects of unchecked power, the result was the same. Encouraged and publicly protected by Noem, he behaved less like a disciplined federal officer than a man performing dominance for its own sake.This is a familiar authoritarian failure: subordinates acting not merely to serve the leader’s interests but to display zeal and cruelty as a path to advancement. In Nicaragua, Somoza rewarded a Guardia officer after he dropped a student dissident into a live volcano. The regime mistook brutality for strength – and generated the revolution that destroyed it.Trump has always encouraged violence rhetorically. But until now, he has generally tried to keep it politically useful and bounded. I believe his problem this time was distraction. Trump took personal ownership of an extraordinary range of foreign policy crises, Greenland, Ukraine, Venezuela, Gaza, Iran, even Canada – while paying only erratic attention to domestic affairs. He lost track of how quickly Minneapolis was spiraling out of control.Carelessly, he amplified Noem’s accusations against Renée Good and Alex Pretti. He had created a culture of impunity and rewarded brutality; Noem and Bovino acted accordingly. Trump’s wake-up call came not from conscience but from Republican leaders warning that Minneapolis threatened GOP fortunes in November.
The response was swift and telling. Bovino was transferred and demoted; Noem was sidelined; Trump placed a conciliatory call to Governor Walz; and sent Tom Homan, a more disciplined political operator, to stabilize the situation.This is what happens when fear outgrows its author. Trump could not fire Noem outright without signaling weakness, nor could he easily find an equally loyal, equally cruel, but more disciplined replacement. He had to contain the damage.The political consequences remain unresolved. Trump just avoided another government shutdown – this time far easier to blame on him than the last.President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan has announced the Department of Homeland Security will immediately withdraw 700 personnel from Minnesota.Whether that maneuver succeeds will determine more than the fate of Minneapolis. It will tell us whether fear can be brought back under control – or whether it continues to destabilize the system that unleashed it.