Olson: Walz and other leaders just showed us who they are

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After the Jan. 7 fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman by a federal immigration agent, U.S. Sen. Tina Smith posed the question at the heart of our agony: “I mean, seriously, when do things stop being about politics and start being about actual human decency?”

Smith and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey also employed a sharp expletive in telling President Donald Trump and his henchmen to stay away. They were justified in doing so because the worst had happened to one of our own; 37-year-old Renee Good was shot in the street by federal agents after dropping her child off at school.

Their reactions punctuated yet another tragic Minnesota week in which our politicians showed us who they are for better and so much worse.

The week began with Gov. Tim Walz announcing the tough decision to drop his 2026 bid for a third term. Walz expressed hope that the end of his political career would get Trump to peel the target off Minnesota’s back.

The governor looked worn down and frustrated by the relentless nastiness Trump and his eager goons have directed at Minnesota.

That was Tuesday. Good was killed Wednesday, and Walz begged anew on our behalf for a reprieve from the cruel narcissist in the White House.

“Just give us a pause. Let us breathe. We’re exhausted as Minnesotans. We’re exhausted as Americans,” he said Thursday.

Walz was feisty, and a maybe a little erratic at times, but who wouldn’t be? He had in recent weeks recognized the tough reality that his re-election campaign could cost his party. Seeing the foundations of this country shaken by an amoral president, the governor shelved his personal ambition.

So there was some of the decency Smith sought, but not from the highest offices in the land.

There were few comforting words, calls for calm or prayers from Minnesota Republicans, and there definitely weren’t any from the so-called leaders in Congress.

Emmer sank lower, calling Walz and Frey “cowards” and accusing them of inciting violence, as if they weren’t publicly wearing their pain in their pleas for peace.

It was all too much for Democratic U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, who has served with Emmer for nearly a decade. She confronted him on the House floor, and what unfolded was a troubling emblem of the era: Emmer, captured on camera inches from Craig’s face, both refusing to disengage. The widely circulated image seems to speak less to a single dispute than to the deep and dangerously polarized moment the country now occupies.

In an interview later, Craig said it’s time for Republicans to stand up to Trump. “This targeting of the immigrant communities, targeting of people of color when they’ve done absolutely nothing wrong, targeting of American citizens, it’s out of control,” she said.

Even former Gov. Jesse Ventura was appalled enough to emerge from retirement to visit the targeted students at his Minneapolis alma mater, Roosevelt High School, and call out Republicans. “Freedom is not arresting people without a warrant. We have a system here called the Constitution,” he said.

Craig, Frey, Smith, Ventura and Walz all stood up in yet another awful Minnesota moment as Trump and his minions rained down the ridicule.

In what had to be one of the worst weeks of his political career, in a year already marked by unthinkable violence, Walz sought to shield and buoy us for the road ahead.

On Thursday, he shared conversations he had with the late congressional colleague, U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia. In the 1960s, Lewis organized civil rights marches, suffered beatings and arrests.

Lewis coined the term “good trouble,” the use of nonviolence to stand up to injustice. Walz said he had asked Lewis many times, “Didn’t you want to lash out?”

Walz recalled that Lewis responded: “Yes. Daily, but I wanted to win this. I wanted to do it right and I wanted justice to prevail and to do that I knew the only way was to not lash out, to not give in to that.”

The governor was reminding us that we have overcome and that we can do it again.

There’s strength in numbers and power in peace, he said, adding, “We won’t let them tear us apart. We will not turn against each other.”

When Walz announced he wasn’t running for re-election, political reporters openly wondered how he would act for the next 11 months. What would a Walz unchained to his future electoral ambitions look like?

Now we know.

In a week that tore at his soul, Walz showed up with compassion, dignity and inspiration.