Everything Trump has done since returning to power was to distract from this bombshell

Future historians just might pinpoint the week of Jan. 26, 2026, as when the Trump regime’s collapse finally began.

The timeline is painfully obvious: They couldn’t spin Alex Pretti’s murder in Minneapolis, so they raided Fulton County’s elections hub and arrested four Black Americans over a Minnesota protest as distractions, because they knew a major #EpsteinFiles dump was coming by Friday, Jan. 30 — a full six weeks after the deadline set by the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

Let’s break that down, shall we?

Trump’s protectors spent a lot of time trying to spin the ICE murders in Minneapolis in their usual blame-the-victim ways, but the available footage of Alex Pretti’s execution by seven masked agents has been seen from every possible angle and studied as intensely as the Zapruder film. The narrative that began with Pretti supposedly attacking the cosplaying Proud Boys eventually led to Trump threatening MAGA’s beloved Second Amendment.

But don’t forget why ICE was occupying the streets of another Blue city, fomenting violence: MAGA shill Nick “Baby Teeth” Shirley was dispatched to Minneapolis to film Somalian day care centers as the newest scapegoat distraction from the Epstein files.

MAGA has long targeted Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), as demonstrated by their endless online bullying, pushing Putin-y propaganda about her family. Omar has been ferociously resistant to such tactics, even when one of them showed up at her Town Hall and sprayed her with something.

Instead of seeing a woman defending herself like a powerhouse Shero, MAGA went the Angry Black Woman route, shaming Omar for defending herself. So much easier than admitting her attacker was one of their own.

You know what would’ve happened if the situation were reversed, and someone did that to a white woman like Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). You can imagine their false outrage, because if there’s anything MAGA loves more than ignoring truth, it’s their own hate.

There’s no winning narrative with the MAGA cult mentality. You can’t expect reasonable behavior from people who refuse to listen to reason.

In the scapegoating hierarchy, Trump usually starts with Black women or women of color, then Black men or men of color, then liberal white women, and finally, any liberal white man who speaks out.

Trump has also scapegoated entire cities, states, and countries as distractions — says the Portland resident, who also lived in Georgia for eight years and knows a thing or two about how MAGA operates so Dear Leader is never forced to take responsibility.

Ask Blue states about their FEMA funds and SNAP benefits. Also, notice how nobody has really spoken about Greenland in the past five days? In contrast, Venezuela is making a wee comeback, thanks to Nicolás Maduro potentially saying he helped Joe Biden steal the 2020 election in exchange for a pardon. Which we all know is a lie, but that didn’t stop Sundowning Paw Paw from rageposting all night on Truth Social. He’s now demanding the arrest of Barack Obama, because he wouldn’t let him win in 2020. He also didn’t win in a landslide in 2016, but then again, his brain is rancid rice pudding riddled with rancid raisins.

While we were all still parsing what exactly is going to happen in the wake of the FBI raid on Fulton County and how it might impact the midterms, Don Lemon was arrested while covering the Grammys on Thursday night in Los Angeles for … checks notes … Doing A Journalism At A Church Protest While Black.

Three others were also arrested after being indicted by a Minnesota Grand Jury: independent journalist Georgia Fort, Black Lives Matter Minnesota leader Trahern Crews, and Jamael Lundy, an intergovernmental affairs manager married to St. Paul City Council Member Anika Bowie.

And what do they have in common, aside from having their First Amendment rights violated by the Trump regime?

Weird, huh?

A Minnesota grand jury has indicted all four on charges related to the interruption of a religious service at a church where a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official serves as a pastor.

The First Amendment applies to all of us equally. This is an egregious move by the Trump regime, to silence anyone telling the truth.

This is a nice moment to share that Trump blocked me on Twitter in August 2015 and has never unblocked me, so he’s technically been violating my First Amendment rights for over a decade. If only I could somehow monetize this already.

What a cowardly fragile thin-skinned bully.

But Friday, Jan. 30, that’s the real date to remember. Because the previous week was all meant as a pre-distraction from the bombshell release of millions of pages of files related to Jeffrey Epstein. Now they’re here, and they’re the most damning yet for Trump and his protectors.

The remaining MAGA cult is going to have a hard time disputing the new release, but you know they’re still going to try. I’d say horrific details like these should be enough to finally uncult themselves, but they also can’t ever be wrong about anything. The ostrich method of ignoring all the truths they don’t like about Trump is about to finally suffocate them.

Screenshots are forever, MAGA.

The fallout will continue, hopefully starting with Lemon et al suing the federal government, followed by something that resembles consequences for Trump and his fellow conspirators.

It’s up to us to keep pressure on our elected officials to see this through. We’ve all seen more than enough death and violence on our streets. We’ve seen children traumatized by ICE, fellow citizens murdered by government agents, and a blatant attack on too many of our Constitutional rights.

The entire Trump regime must be removed, before it can do any more damage to our fragile democracy.

• Tara Dublin is a political writer/commentator based in Portland, OR, who has been blocked by Donald Trump on Twitter since August 2015 and can occasionally be heard as a fill-in host on SiriusXM Progress. She is also the author of The Sound of Settling, a rock ‘n’ roll love story available at taradublinrocks.com