Living Outside the Narrative: A Conversation With My Father About Minneapolis, “Gestapo,” and Media Bias

Photo by Meg on Unsplash

My father asked me recently if I’d seen the news about Minneapolis — the protests, the deaths, the chaos. I told him I hadn’t watched any mainstream coverage. When he asks if I’ve “seen the news,” what he really means is: Have you watched MSNBC? That’s the only news he’s consumed for the last 20 years. He literally sleeps with the TV on MSNBC; it’s his comfort sound.

I told him, honestly, that I don’t watch MSNBC. I don’t plan to. I don’t think they report news; I think they disseminate propaganda. The lens and bias with which they present information feels dangerous to me. Over time, I’ve gravitated away from mainstream TV news altogether.

For me, the danger isn’t disagreement. The danger is certainty built on only one side of a story.

The Question About Minneapolis

My dad asked me why the government would send “untrained officers” into Minneapolis to do a job they “don’t know how to do.” Underneath that question, I could hear the storyline he’d absorbed: Trump arming untrained goons and sending them in to cause problems and kill protesters.

I work in law enforcement. So I tried to answer him from that perspective.

I explained that agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement are very good at immigration enforcement because that’s their mandate. They’re not street cops. They’re not a municipal police agency. They’re also not heavily trained in crowd control and protest management. That isn’t the core of what they do.

At the same time, ICE’s rapid growth and evolving mission have raised serious questions about training, oversight, and the mismatch between its immigration-enforcement mandate and the operations it’s increasingly drawn into. (ICE expansion has outpaced accountability. What are the remedies?)

But here’s where it gets complicated: when local government doesn’t support federal operations, and local police aren’t working in concert with federal agents, there’s no real cross‑agency networking or deployment. These guys are out there on their own. They’re deployed into a volatile environment that demands coordination, planning, and shared rules of engagement — and they don’t have it.

In Minneapolis, for example, federal immigration operations have played out in neighborhoods where the community is actively warning one another about approaching agents and trying to shield vulnerable people from sudden enforcement actions. (Minneapolis community defies ICE to warn immigrants of approaching agents)

When things go bad, they go really bad. Not because the agents “don’t know how to do their job,” but because they are thrust into a situation that requires support they never get.

That opens the door to deeper political questions: What are state and city leaders doing? How much responsibility do they bear when they refuse cooperation but keep federal agents in the line of fire anyway? What does “accountability” look like when failures are layered — federal, state, and local?

It’s a nuanced conversation.

But my dad would rather believe that the government is sending untrained thugs into Minneapolis with the intent to kill protesters. And that’s when I realized: this is likely how the story is being framed to him, day after day. It’s not just information; it’s a narrative.

When “Gestapo” Enters the Chat

At some point in the conversation, the word “Gestapo” came up. I think I was the first one to say it. My dad jumped on that.

He said, “What is that supposed to be? I’ve been hearing that all day, and they keep talking about it. What is the Gestapo?”

I explained what it was, historically: the secret state police of Nazi Germany, an apparatus of terror with sweeping powers, used to intimidate, disappear, and murder people. I explained their significance as a political police force, not just “tough cops” but a tool of authoritarian control.

As I talked, I could feel him trying to justify that description. Trying to wrap his mind around accepting that framing of federal agents in an American city: These guys are the Gestapo.

And I could almost feel the pressure on him — the gravitational pull of his media world — nudging him toward agreement. It’s as if the older generation is under constant pressure to believe what’s being disseminated to them, to force reality to line up with the words their favorite hosts use, no matter how extreme those words are.

I don’t know what that feels like from the inside. I’m grateful I don’t have to.

The Comfort of Team Identity

I’m thankful that I don’t feel constricted by my political identity. I don’t wake up in the morning needing to align every thought with “my side” just to feel okay.

If someone came up to me and said, “ICE is just the Gestapo,” I could disagree without feeling any internal conflict.

If someone came up to me and said, “Trump is making a lot of mistakes during his presidency when it comes to immigration,” I could agree with that and not feel like I’d betrayed my conservative values or ideals.

That shouldn’t be rare. But I don’t think a lot of people are in that position anymore. For many, politics has become a team sport, and agreement is less about truth and more about loyalty. You don’t evaluate claims; you protect the jersey.

That’s a real problem.

In a fragmented media environment, confirmation bias pushes people toward outlets that echo their beliefs, and exposure to contradictory information can harden their views rather than soften them. (Confirmation Bias and Asymmetric Political Polarization)

“What Would You Do?”

At one point, my dad turned to me and said, “Well, what would you do?”

From where I sit in law enforcement, the answer feels simple, even if the consequences wouldn’t be.

If I were president, I would pull all my federal resources out of the state of Minnesota.

If the people in Minnesota truly don’t want federal agents in their cities — if they believe these agents are nothing but hostile occupiers — then I would take them at their word. I would pull every single federal officer out of the state. FBI, CIA, federal task forces, every specialized unit. Gone.

I would pull every penny of federal funding tied to law enforcement and related support. I would leave it up to Minnesota taxpayers to build and maintain the public safety system and social environment they want, with their own money and their own agencies.

Let’s see how that goes.

Because from where I stand, there is nothing a president can do, from a law‑enforcement angle, that will be received fairly in a climate like this. No deployment, no policy shift, no tactical adjustment will be interpreted in good faith. Every action will be read as proof of whatever the narrative already is.

If you believe Trump is sending in jackbooted thugs to murder protesters, nothing he does will ever look like “law and order.” And if you believe progressive leaders are deliberately sabotaging public safety to hurt the president, nothing they do will look like “reform” or “restraint.”

In that environment, federal involvement becomes a lose‑lose proposition.

The Part Nobody Wants to Own

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: the bias doesn’t just run one way.

It’s easy to point at “the media” — to say “the left is telling people to be biased” or “the right is brainwashing their viewers.” There’s truth in that. Outlets absolutely frame stories in ways that inflame their audience and harden their side. Viewers tuning into different networks aren’t just getting different commentary; they’re often seeing different events described — one side emphasizing “peaceful protests,” the other focusing on “riots” and violence. (Protests or riots? Media wages war for control of narrative)

But that’s not the whole story.

The other part is us. The viewers. The voters. The people who are willing to perform mental gymnastics just to stay in good standing with our chosen tribe. The people who will twist reality to fit the segment we just watched, rather than question it.

My dad is not unlike most men from his generation and geographic home. Good as gold in some areas, about as sour as old milk in others, but I watched him strain to make “Gestapo” fit, because the voices he trusts keep handing him that word and daring him not to use it. I watched him lean toward believing that the government’s goal is to send untrained killers into American cities, because that’s the logical endpoint of the story he’s being told.

Research on older adults and political misinformation suggests that as people age, they can become more likely to share and believe partisan information that reinforces their identity — even when it’s misleading or false. (Older adults share more political misinformation. Here’s why.)

That’s what media bias does when it’s fused with identity. It turns news into a loyalty test.

The problem isn’t just biased content. It’s a culture in which people feel they must contort their beliefs to match that bias or risk being exiled from their political family.

I’m grateful I don’t feel that pressure. I’m grateful I can disagree with “my side” and still sleep at night. But I’m also deeply aware that more and more people — including my own father — don’t feel like they have that freedom anymore.

And that might be the most dangerous thing of all.