Dear Connor,

Dick Grist, your great-grandfather, was a political junkie, a World War II vet and a voice of reason when your Ninny went off the rails over whatever outrage of the day sparked my ire. One of the things he counseled me often was big-picture patience:

“The American ‘middle’ holds out for a long time,” he said. “They go about their daily lives disconnected from the political upheavals that get you so upset. It’s not that they don’t care. It’s that those things aren’t affecting them at the moment and they feel they have more important things to do, like feeding their kids and going to work.

“Every country, every organization, needs a push from activists at the edges to get the middle to move. The American ‘middle’ stands aside and lets the ‘extremes’ at the edges of American society do the work of forcing change.

“But,” he always added, “those same people in the middle do not tolerate extremes for very long. Eventually they choose a side and when they do, real change happens. Be patient with the middle. It’s slow to get on board but the American middle always does the right thing.”

I hear his counsel this morning as threats to American constitutional democracy appear insurmountable. When, I ask over and over, will that vaunted “middle” America get its act together? The last time the American middle chose sides, the United States entered World War II and established with its partners the global rule of law that has maintained, at least on the macro-level, a stable world.

Two times before World War II, the American middle made a choice. First in July 1776 when it finally agreed with the extremists that King George III had no business ruling America. And again in April 1861 when the middle forsook the white supremacist land barons and threw its reluctant support behind the activists who believed no one should own another.

The American middle didn’t magically wake up one morning and say “get ‘er done.” All three times it took at least 10 years of divisive rhetoric leading up to declarations of war for the middle to choose sides. Once they did, the world changed, justice was served and we built a better place.

The American middle includes about 60 percent of the U.S. population. It includes mostly political independents rounded out by moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans and non-voters. Dancing at the edges are the hardcore on the left and right in about equal measures.

Those folks on the edge are, by the way, the ones — for good or evil — who’ve been pushing the middle toward an irrevocable choice. For much of the past decade they’ve owned the political stage, fascinated the media, captured the headlines and consolidated political power bases. They’re called Christian Nationalists, Nazis, fascists, woke and DEI disgraces. They are patriots to some, domestic terrorists to others.

Regardless of their politics on the right or the left, regardless of their values and raison d’être, they do not reflect the American middle as it ambles through its daily life. Since about 2008 with the election of Barack Obama, the first Black U.S. president and through the Trump 1.0-Biden-Trump 2.0 presidencies, the hard right and left have been shaping the choice middle America must make — and soon.

Good-hearted, politically purple Minneapolis, Minnesota, with its penchant for Midwestern Nice, is ground zero for where the American middle makes its choice.

Minnesota Nice | The American middle has made its choice

In Minneapolis, on May 25, 2020, police murdered George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for more than nine minutes until he died. It wasn’t enough to move the middle. On Jan. 7, 2026, Renée Good was murdered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. It was almost enough. On Jan. 24, 2026, Customs and Border Protection agents murdered Alex Pretti, shooting him at 10 times. And that was enough.

When law enforcement becomes the executioner of American citizens without due process, when the National Rifle Association and Second Amendment hardcore types join liberal Democrats in appalled news releases, when Marjorie Taylor Greene, a diehard former MAGA U.S. Representative, says, “Both sides need to take off their political blinders. You are all being incited into civil war, yet none of it solves any of the real problems that we all face, and tragically people are dying” —It. Is. Enough.

The American middle has had enough. I believe the choice to replace evil with good has been made and though it may remain elusive for months (or, God forbid, years) to come, we have taken the first real steps away from the abyss. This train wreck will still go over the cliff; there’s nothing to stop that now, if ever we could have. But the choice of Minnesota Nice over MAGA authoritarianism has been made.

So, Connor, as you get a couple days off school because of the ice and snow storm and as I am sitting here on the porch pretty happy with Key West’s sunny day, I’m making three predictions:

• 2026 is the tipping point where middle America shakes off its sluggish apathy, raises its head, looks around and chooses sides. We’re going to be a nation that abides by the rule of constitutional democratic law that stays true to all are created equal — or we’re going to be controlled by an “Epstein class” regime complete with an untouchable dictator.
• The American middle will not choose authoritarian control and its choice will root out the unholy global cabal that today is destroying our country and the world.
• That choice will be years in fulfilling its promise. It will require sacrifice beyond what most of us can imagine. And if history is any guide, it will bring escalating violence, death and bloodshed. But once made, the choice will be irrevocable and that arc of history bending toward justice will prevail.

If I can hang on another five years, I’ll have weathered the worst. If I make it 10 years, I will see the budding of a new and powerful nation. Different from the past, of course, but committed to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, a nation of laws that protects the most vulnerable, respects our differences as strengths, not as points of division, and seeks justice for all.

Ihave faith in the generations that follow my dying baby boomers — the pragmatic Xers, the “all-for-one hero” Millennials, the go-along-to-get-along Gen Zs and, yep, yours, Gen Alpha. Gen Alphas may well be the reincarnation of the boomers. Hope y’all are as good as our good side — and can resist the worst of our bad side.

Learn more

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5705837-greene-maga-shooting-minnesota