In 2023, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party held a slim, single-seat majority in the Minnesota State Senate and control of the State House and Governor’s Mansion. It had been a decade since the last Democratic trifecta in the state, which like many similar moments of prior eras, produced only incremental wins for progressives and the Left.
Since the financial crisis and Great Recession of the early Obama era, a core group of community and union organizers in Minnesota had been building what they called “alignment.” It would go beyond the traditional coalitions so many of us were used to — ones coalesced around a single fight but too pragmatic to inspire people to action. Real power building, I was told, would require something different: An ability to work across organizations and ideologies while holding up bigger sets of common, universal demands.
In 2023, that vision became what was known as the “Minnesota miracle.” In a single legislative session, the Minnesota legislature enacted paid family and medical leave, free breakfast and lunch for all K-12 public school students, access to drivers’ licenses regardless of immigration status, free public college tuition for low-income Minnesotans and much more. All of this with only that slim, single-seat majority.
Two years later, as federal immigration agents descended on Minnesota in December 2025, the organizations central to the “Minnesota miracle” moved into action. As grassroots rapid response and ICE watch networks organized by neighbors through social media and Signal groups sprang into existence, progressive labor unions, faith-based organizations, worker centers and community groups ran alongside them. Thousands of federal agents poured into the state, upending daily life for hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans, immigrants and non-immigrants alike.
After the murder of Renée Good on January 7 sent shock waves across the country and the world, the Trump administration and its immigration enforcement apparatus doubled down. As elected leaders from the city and state debated courses of action, Minnesota’s popular movements doubled down as well.
On January 13, leaders from immigrant, faith, labor and community organizations across the Twin Cities took what seemed like a drastic step. They called for a “Day of Truth and Freedom” on January 23 — what JaNaé Bates Imari said would be “a day when every single Minnesotan who loves this state — who loves the idea of truth and freedom— will refuse to work, shop and go to school.”
When I arrived in Minneapolis on January 21, you could feel the energy in the subfreezing air. As neighbors in immigrant communities continued their ICE watches and community defense and the offices of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation hummed with activity, posters adorned the windows of businesses across the region:
ICE OUT
A DAY OF TRUTH & FREEDOM.
NO WORK. NO SCHOOL. NO SHOPPING. JANUARY 23
This was the first large-scale collective economic action of the second Trump era — and one that we must learn from to beat back the authoritarian tide. Polling indicates that almost 25% of Minnesotans participated in some way, with thousands of workers staying home and more than 50,000 marching through Minneapolis in wind chills that reached minus 40 degrees. And now, as immigrant families forced into hiding struggle to pay their bills, key labor and community groups are organizing for a mass rent strike, should Gov. Tim Walz refuse to enact an eviction moratorium.
The key lessons are not about specific tactics or strategies. We can’t recreate the organizing conditions that led to the “Minnesota miracle” or January 23. What we can do, wherever we are, is work to align the direct response and mutual aid networks on the ground with collective economic action and political pressure.
There is no clear roadmap out of this moment. Our path forward requires us to assess the terrain we are on, to focus not on slogans and maximum demands but on what can move majorities forward and into action. Minnesota hasn’t shown us the way completely, but it has given us a snapshot of what is possible.
Alex Han is Executive Director of In These Times. He has organized with unions, in the community, and in progressive politics for two decades. In addition to serving as Midwest Political Director for Bernie 2020, he’s worked to amplify the power of community and labor organizations at Bargaining for the Common Good, served as a Vice President of SEIU Healthcare Illinois and Indiana for over a decade, and helped to found United Working Families, an independent political organization in Illinois that has elected dozens of working-class leaders to city, state and federal office. Most recently he was executive editor of Convergence Magazine.
