Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, January 28, 2026 Real World News

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; There is nothing new under the sun.” — Ecclesiastes 1:9

The Left and their funding sources are in Minneapolis running with the same playbook last used to great success in 2020.

The Left’s tactics “align closely with the organizing doctrine articulated by Saul Alinsky, which relies on pressure, ridicule, narrative inversion, and institutional coercion to extract concessions from power centers without ever engaging the stated issue itself,” according to retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn who has extensive military intelligence experience which included heading the Defense Intelligence Agency.

“What is unfolding in Minneapolis is not spontaneous unrest, and it is not about social grievances,” Flynn noted in a Jan. 27 Substack.com analysis. “It is a disciplined political operation following a playbook that has been publicly available for decades.”

Alinsky was explicit that the issue is never the issue. The issue is power, and Minneapolis is being treated as terrain, not as a community to be stabilized.”

What is happening in the frigid first month of 2026 follows a familiar sequence from the playbook.

First, “a triggering incident occurs,” Flynn wrote. “Facts are declared settled before investigations begin. Emotional framing replaces evidence. Institutions are pushed to violate their own rules in the name of compassion. When they comply, the violation becomes the precedent. When they resist, ridicule and escalation follow. The objective is leverage, and every concession extracted becomes proof of concept for the next demand. Each display of restraint by authorities is interpreted not as good faith but as weakness to be exploited. Compromise accelerates conflict rather than resolves it.”

The Left is again testing “whether institutions can be forced, through narrative pressure and moral intimidation, to abandon their own standards in real time,” Flynn wrote. “If they can, the tactic will be repeated elsewhere. If it works once, it becomes doctrine. The actors driving escalation are not trying to win an argument. They are trying to condition behavior. The measure of success is institutional submission.”

In the summer of 2020, Flynn noted, “single incidents were elevated into national moral crises before facts were established. Media narratives hardened instantly. Elected officials, facing coordinated pressure and public shaming, moved not to restore order but to distance themselves from their own institutions. Funding was cut, authority was restricted, proactive enforcement was rebranded as provocation, and officers were left politically exposed. Policing did not become safer or more accountable. It became hesitant, risk-averse, and selectively enforced exactly as intended.”

The same pressure sequence from the playbook is currently being used in Minneapolis.

“In Minnesota, federal agents are now operating under sustained political, legal, and narrative assault from state officials, activist networks, and national media simultaneously,” Flynn noted. “State authorities have openly moved to counter federal messaging, challenge federal investigations, and force de-escalation through public pressure rather than adjudicated findings, while the White House signals retreat amid mounting outrage.”

Flynn continued: “Once an enforcement body is conditioned to believe that any use of authority will be punished regardless of context, the authority ceases to function. That outcome becomes the objective. The conservative failure in this moment is not one of messaging or optics. It is a failure of institutional nerve. Faced with coordinated pressure, many Republican officials are not defending process, authority, or the rule of law. They are preemptively retreating. Instead of demanding independent investigations before judgment, insisting on operational transparency grounded in facts rather than headlines, and protecting federal agents from political scapegoating while reviews are conducted, they are signaling accommodation.”

Flynn concluded: “The most dangerous mistake now is pretending we are still operating inside a shared ethical framework. We are not. One side increasingly treats politics as a zero-sum struggle over legitimacy itself, where opponents are not fellow citizens but obstacles. Understanding that reality is not extremism. It is situational awareness. Without it, moral confusion becomes the most effective weapon on the field. Minneapolis has revealed that weakness, and until it is recognized and addressed, the United States will continue to cede ground to those who understand the rules of the game far better than those entrusted to enforce them.”

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  Flynn: Minneapolis a 2020 rerun; ‘Not about social grievances’ but a ‘disciplined political operation’, WorldTribune.com