The last time I was in Minneapolis, the city was under siege.
In January, I came to Minneapolis on behalf of Baptist News Global. I arrived two weeks after Renée Nicole Good — a U.S. citizen and mother of three — was shot dead by an ICE agent as she followed orders to move her car out of the road.
Mara Richards Bim
While in Minneapolis, I participated in rapid response patrols and then joined more than 700 clergy from around the country for a day of nonviolent action on Jan. 23. That action — the Day of Freedom and Truth — was organized, in part, by the multi-racial, multi-faith organizing groups MARCH Minnesota and ISAIAH. My role was to support a group of more than 100 Minnesota clergy who knelt in -30 degree temperatures for 90 minutes to shut down the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport.
The day was filled with joy, purpose and solidarity. Minnesotans from all walks of life held successful statewide protests and an economic boycott. Marches occurred across the state, and more than 50,000 people marched in downtown Minneapolis. After participating, I boarded a flight back to Dallas to beat a winter storm that was headed for North Texas. I left buoyed by hope.
The next morning, as I enjoyed a lazy, icy morning in Dallas, I scrolled through Instagram. There I saw the first images of the murder of Alex Pretti in real-time as it happened. I was stunned.
It is no coincidence that one day after the successful, nonviolent demonstrations that brought the Minneapolis economy to a stand-still DHS retaliated with brute force, shooting another U.S. citizen dead in broad daylight.
These events were in the back of my mind as I traveled to Minneapolis again last week.
Images of Alex Pretti assisting a woman and then being attacked by ICE (screencaps)
Over the past six months I’ve participated in multiple trainings and convenings of clergy and faith leaders.
In Dallas, I’m part of a multi-faith coalition of faith leaders (CLEAR DFW) that has held constant weekly vigil outside the Dallas ICE field office. In April, a handful of us traveled to Austin to work with Interfaith Alliance and Freedom Trainers to learn how to begin talking about authoritarianism with faith communities in Dallas. I followed this training with additional trainings specifically focused on election protection offered by States at the Core and Freedom Trainers. And last week, I once again participated in a call to action for clergy, this time under the banner of the coalition Faith in Us. Now clergy are being called not to stand with the people of Minneapolis, but with our own communities to protect our democracy.
These convenings have convinced me of the urgent threat our democratic institutions face.
Yes, it really is ‘that bad’
There are people I know and love — very smart people who are aligned with me spiritually and politically — who still don’t believe (or don’t want to believe) the imminent threats to our democracy. They tell themselves any number of things to quell their anxieties about the moment: “It can’t be that bad.” “Our institutions will hold.” “Our courts will save us.” “Both parties are corrupt, so what’s the point?”
“It is time we all start having difficult conversations about authoritarianism and our democracy.”
It is time we all start having difficult conversations about authoritarianism and our democracy.
Having watched competitive authoritarianism develop in countries around the world, scholars can now predict how a country will fare when a democratically elected authoritarian takes power. The organization United to Protect Democracy created a version of the aptly named Authoritarian Playbook 2025 which describes the means by which an authoritarian, once elected to power, works quickly to consolidate that power and remain in office:
- Pardons to license lawbreaking
- Investigations against critics and rivals
- Regulatory retaliation
- Federal law enforcement overreach
- Domestic deployment of the military
- Refusal to leave office
Anyone who has been following the news since Donald Trump was last sworn into office should notice how many of these tactics his administration has used (and is currently employing) at great speed in advance of the midterm elections.
More recently, The New York Times has created a helpful Authoritarian Index with 12 benchmarks that they and other scholars are tracking to gauge where our country is in its democratic backslide. It’s worth reading their most recent update to the index which includes recent examples of the administration’s efforts at democratic erosion. On a scale of 0-10, the Times and their team of scholars just released their most recent update and scores:
- Manipulating the law to stay in power (4)
- Stifling speech and dissent (4)
- Persecuting political opponents (while pardoning lawbreaking supporters) (5)
- Bypassing the legislature (5)
- Using the military at home (3)
- Defying the courts (3)
- Declaring false emergencies (5)
- Vilifying marginalized groups (6)
- Controlling information (3)
- Trying to take over universities (3)
- Creating a cult of personalities (6)
- Using power for personal profit (7)
The president is terrified of losing power, and his administration has been working double-time to manipulate our elections in advance of his defeat.
According to the Times, in the first half of 2026 alone, the president has:
- Said not ordering troops to seize voting machines in 2020 was a mistake
- Used federal agents to raid a Georgia election office
- Issued an order that could suppress mail-in ballots
- Demanded the names of 2020 Georgia election workers
- Ordered states to change voting rules or lose antiterrorism funds
- Gave a White House address with falsehoods based on misleading intelligence
- Threatened to arrest uncooperative local election officials
With each passing day, the president makes ever more threats against the midterms. There is little doubt that we will, in fact, have elections. The question is whether the administration’s efforts at voter suppression and intimidation at the polls will rob Americans of their rights to choose their leaders.
This moral crisis calls for moral leadership
While it’s important that we all step into this moment to emphasize our sacred right to vote, my time in Minneapolis last week confirmed for me the vitally important and unique role clergy (rabbis, pastors, imams) have in this moment.
Over and over again in the training with Faith in Us, the roughly 100 clergy gathered (along with about 50 laity) wrestled with this. The fact is, in our current environment overrun with active disinformation campaigns by the administration, clergy are a moral voice that still matters.
We must step forward in this moment. Clergy can uniquely call out disinformation for what it is: Lying. When we take to the streets in religious vestments, our presence gives lawless and lawbreaking federal agents pause. This fact was proved over and over again in Chicago and Minneapolis where clergy put their bodies between agents and protesters.
As a Baptist writing for a Baptist publication, I’m well-aware of our tradition’s belief in the priesthood of the believer. Someone ordained to the gospel ministry is no more a priest than someone in the pews. Yet, it was Baptist pastors like Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy who leaned into their ordination vows and the justification it afforded them to lead the masses in the Civil Rights Movement.
Now is the time for clergy to step up — step forward in a visible way — and lead their flocks from the front.
In the words of Minneapolis Minister JaNaé Bates, co-executive director of ISAIAH: “My hope and prayer is that we all take ourselves just as seriously as Homeboy in the White House takes us and that you take your leadership and your acumen and your faith just as seriously as the Almighty Creator takes you.”
Mara Richards Bim serves as a Clemons Fellow with BNG and as the first Justice and Advocacy Fellow at Royal Lane Baptist Church in Dallas where she recently was ordained to the gospel ministry. She earned the master of divinity degree and a certificate in spiritual direction from Perkins School of Theology at SMU. She also is an award-winning theater artist and founder of the nationally acclaimed Cry Havoc Theater Company, which operated in Dallas from 2014 to 2023.