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GROUND ZERO: Life Under Occupation in Minnesota
🌟 Welcome to Episode #9 of The Politics Chicks Podcast! 🌟
🎙️ After a pause from podcasting, we’re back — not because it’s convenient, but because it’s necessary. Minnesota is at ground zero, and what’s happening here demands to be witnessed, documented, and shared.
This episode is not analysis from afar. It’s lived experience.
🐓 IN THIS EPISODE:
👋 We return to the mic
Christy and Monica explain why now is the moment to bring the podcast back — as Minnesota faces what many residents are describing as life under occupation.
👤 Meet our guest: Anton Friant
A lifelong Minnesotan, parent, designer, former MCAD instructor, and community organizer. Anton joins us after writing a powerful Facebook post that captured what it feels like to live inside this moment — a post that resonated far beyond state lines .
🗺️ What it’s really like in Minnesota right now
This is not “just Minneapolis.”
ICE activity has spread across suburbs and greater Minnesota — St. Cloud, Rochester, St. Louis Park, and beyond. The Twin Cities are not insular. We are deeply interconnected, and what happens in one neighborhood ripples everywhere .
👨👩👧👦 Parenting young kids in unprecedented times
Anton shares heartbreaking, honest conversations with his 12-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter:
- Children who already know the names, faces, and details
- Kids asking if this is normal
- Middle schoolers grieving strangers as people
- Elementary school kids crying at the sound of whistles, afraid they’ll come home to empty apartments
- This is collective trauma — and our children are carrying it .
🚨 When ICE shows up near a school
Anton recounts witnessing ICE raids across the street from his daughter’s elementary school — patrols forming human chains, whistles blowing, rapid response networks activating — while children inside panic, believing their parents may be taken .
🤝 Community response: the quiet miracle
- Out of fear has come extraordinary coordination:
- Parents on patrol at school drop-off, recess, and dismissal
- Neighborhood rapid-response teams
- Food, supplies, and mutual aid networks
- People skipping appointments, enduring subzero cold, and showing up day after day — simply because their neighbors need them
- This isn’t centralized.
- It isn’t funded.
- It’s organic, hyperlocal, and deeply Minnesotan .
🕯️ Honoring Alex Pretti and Renée Good
We reflect on loss, on helping professions, and on what it means that Alex’s final words — spoken while protecting someone else — were “Are you okay?”
Their names will live on. So will what they represent .
🌍 The ripple effect
Anton shares a moment that stopped us cold: his words reached the UK, where a Member of Parliament is organizing a solidarity rally in Nottingham — reading his letter aloud for Minneapolis.
The world is watching. And responding .
🧠 How people are coping
This is a marathon, not a sprint. We talk about sustaining ourselves, taking breaks, and protecting one another so the work — and the people — endure.
🐥 FINAL WORD:
- This isn’t about politics as sport.
- This is about human beings, children, neighborhoods, and the refusal to normalize cruelty.
- Resistance doesn’t only look like marches.
- It looks like whistles, human chains, shared food, missed appointments, extra hugs at bedtime — and neighbors who refuse to leave each other behind
🧭 HOW YOU CAN HELP:
We’ll include links in the show notes to:
Link to Anton’s Article on our Substack https://substack.com/@thepoliticschicks/p-184814003
Stand With Minnesota https://www.standwithminnesota.com/
Community support and eviction-prevention efforts https://www.givemn.org/story/arpbcg
Calling Governor Walz to support an eviction moratorium is one concrete way to act right now.
💌 We’d love to hear from you
If you have resources to share, stories from your community, or topics you want us to cover — reach out. This podcast exists because of you.
💌 If this episode moved you, challenged you, or helped you understand what’s happening here — please like, comment, and share.
It helps more than you know. It puts these stories in front of more eyes and helps grow this community of people who refuse to look away.
📱 Find and follow us on:
Substack, Bluesky, Threads, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook
👉 @thepoliticschicks
🧡 Keep shining your light so we can find each other in the dark.
We are always stronger together.
— Christy & Monica
View all episodes
By Christy Branham & Monica Healy
🌟 Welcome to Episode #9 of The Politics Chicks Podcast! 🌟
🎙️ After a pause from podcasting, we’re back — not because it’s convenient, but because it’s necessary. Minnesota is at ground zero, and what’s happening here demands to be witnessed, documented, and shared.
This episode is not analysis from afar. It’s lived experience.
🐓 IN THIS EPISODE:
👋 We return to the mic
Christy and Monica explain why now is the moment to bring the podcast back — as Minnesota faces what many residents are describing as life under occupation.
👤 Meet our guest: Anton Friant
A lifelong Minnesotan, parent, designer, former MCAD instructor, and community organizer. Anton joins us after writing a powerful Facebook post that captured what it feels like to live inside this moment — a post that resonated far beyond state lines .
🗺️ What it’s really like in Minnesota right now
This is not “just Minneapolis.”
ICE activity has spread across suburbs and greater Minnesota — St. Cloud, Rochester, St. Louis Park, and beyond. The Twin Cities are not insular. We are deeply interconnected, and what happens in one neighborhood ripples everywhere .
👨👩👧👦 Parenting young kids in unprecedented times
Anton shares heartbreaking, honest conversations with his 12-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter:
- Children who already know the names, faces, and details
- Kids asking if this is normal
- Middle schoolers grieving strangers as people
- Elementary school kids crying at the sound of whistles, afraid they’ll come home to empty apartments
- This is collective trauma — and our children are carrying it .
🚨 When ICE shows up near a school
Anton recounts witnessing ICE raids across the street from his daughter’s elementary school — patrols forming human chains, whistles blowing, rapid response networks activating — while children inside panic, believing their parents may be taken .
🤝 Community response: the quiet miracle
- Out of fear has come extraordinary coordination:
- Parents on patrol at school drop-off, recess, and dismissal
- Neighborhood rapid-response teams
- Food, supplies, and mutual aid networks
- People skipping appointments, enduring subzero cold, and showing up day after day — simply because their neighbors need them
- This isn’t centralized.
- It isn’t funded.
- It’s organic, hyperlocal, and deeply Minnesotan .
🕯️ Honoring Alex Pretti and Renée Good
We reflect on loss, on helping professions, and on what it means that Alex’s final words — spoken while protecting someone else — were “Are you okay?”
Their names will live on. So will what they represent .
🌍 The ripple effect
Anton shares a moment that stopped us cold: his words reached the UK, where a Member of Parliament is organizing a solidarity rally in Nottingham — reading his letter aloud for Minneapolis.
The world is watching. And responding .
🧠 How people are coping
This is a marathon, not a sprint. We talk about sustaining ourselves, taking breaks, and protecting one another so the work — and the people — endure.
🐥 FINAL WORD:
- This isn’t about politics as sport.
- This is about human beings, children, neighborhoods, and the refusal to normalize cruelty.
- Resistance doesn’t only look like marches.
- It looks like whistles, human chains, shared food, missed appointments, extra hugs at bedtime — and neighbors who refuse to leave each other behind
🧭 HOW YOU CAN HELP:
We’ll include links in the show notes to:
Link to Anton’s Article on our Substack https://substack.com/@thepoliticschicks/p-184814003
Stand With Minnesota https://www.standwithminnesota.com/
Community support and eviction-prevention efforts https://www.givemn.org/story/arpbcg
Calling Governor Walz to support an eviction moratorium is one concrete way to act right now.
💌 We’d love to hear from you
If you have resources to share, stories from your community, or topics you want us to cover — reach out. This podcast exists because of you.
💌 If this episode moved you, challenged you, or helped you understand what’s happening here — please like, comment, and share.
It helps more than you know. It puts these stories in front of more eyes and helps grow this community of people who refuse to look away.
📱 Find and follow us on:
Substack, Bluesky, Threads, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook
👉 @thepoliticschicks
🧡 Keep shining your light so we can find each other in the dark.
We are always stronger together.
— Christy & Monica