The Minnesota governor said that the path to tyranny “is littered with people telling you you’re overreacting”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was testifying before Congress about his state’s handling of immigration when he learned Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., was forcibly removed from a Department of Homeland Security news conference Thursday.
The irony, he told the attendees of the Center for American Progress’ “Listening to Lead” event Friday, was in lawmakers grilling him and his colleagues, Govs. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y. and JB Pritzker, D-Ill., over the “incredible crime of treating people like human beings” as FBI agents tackled a sitting senator to the ground and handcuffed him in Los Angeles.
“I am not prone to hyperbole. I am prone to, like, popping off a little bit. I know that,” Walz said, prefacing his argument that Americans are living in a “dangerous” time. “I believed all along we were marching towards authoritarianism, and people were telling me in December, ‘You know, you’re overreacting.’ And I said, “The road to authoritarianism is littered with people telling you you’re overreacting.”
I find that mimicking their gestures to show that I understand their pain helps start the conversation. If you are not wearing a pearl necklace you can clutch, you can and should carry a fancy handkerchief and bring it to your nose as if to ward off a bad smell. Thats my goto when someone uses uncouth language when talking about cancelling SNAP, deporting children, or expanding our support of racist genocides.
From there, conversation hopefully can flower, if theres good tea, doileys, adequate crumpets, and high quality lemon curd to be had.