The Week Magazine January 23, 2026

How many words have been bashed out by political scientists and historians attempting to impose a coherent framework on our anarchic Trumpian reality? To really understand what President Trump and his MAGA allies are trying to do, we are told, you need to look back at the agenda of paleoconservative pioneer Pat Buchanan, or the theories of German authoritarian jurist Carl Schmitt, or the foreign policy doctrine of President James Monroe. Study these past figures, the idea goes, and you’ll unlock some secret knowledge that will render every inexplicable policy move and pronouncement suddenly explicable. It’s a comforting and deeply human impulse to search for order and meaning amid chaos. That’s why we see shapes—faces, animals, monsters—in the clouds. But there’s a big difference between perceiving order and meaning and…

What happened The Trump administration doubled down on its immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis this week, as growing numbers of demonstrators took to the city’s streets to protest the fatal shooting of a local woman by an ICE officer and the increasingly brutal tactics used by immigration agents. Some 2,000 immigration officers were dispatched to the Twin Cities area last week for a sweeping crackdown tied in part to a welfare fraud scandal involving members of the Somali community in Minnesota. That deployment was met with protests by residents, among them Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who was shot three times in her car by a veteran ICE agent (see Talking Points, p.16). Cellphone footage of the killing fueled anger in the city, as did videos circulating on…

While it’s a virtual certainty Jonathan Ross won’t face federal charges for shooting Renee Good, Minnesota prosecutors could try to bring a case against the ICE agent, said Shaila Dewan and Jonah E. Bromwich in The New York Times. But they would face “many obstacles.” The Constitution bars state prosecution of federal officers who were performing an act they were legally “authorized to do” and did “no more than what was necessary and proper.” The state would have to show Ross exceeded those bounds, and “success is rare.” On Capitol Hill, progressive Democrats “are pushing for an all-out fight” to rein in ICE, said Manu Raju and Sarah Ferris in CNN.com. They want the party “to hold firm” against passing a government-funding bill without conditions such as requiring agents to…

What happened Iranian security forces massacred thousands of protesters this week in an attempt to quell a surging nationwide uprising, as President Trump vowed to defend the demonstrators with “strong action” against the country’s theocratic rulers. The regime said some 3,000 people have been killed in the demonstrations, which began in late December as an economic protest quickly broadened into a general uprising advocating the fall of the ayatollahs. Witnesses and analysts say the true death toll is likely many times higher. Videos taken by protesters show security forces firing again and again as demonstrators chant “Death to the dictator!” In an effort to prevent such images from getting out, authorities cut off internet and cellphone service for days, and guards went house to house to confiscate Starlink satellite internet…

■ American Prairie, a land conservation nonprofit, rang in the new year by reporting that it had removed the 100th mile of derelict barbed wire on its Montana holdings, rewilding a pathway for animals to roam free. To date, the organization has removed and recycled roughly 500,000 pounds of thorny fencing and scrap metal in central Montana. Alongside maintaining safer fencing for cattle and bison, the nonprofit plans to completely rewild swaths of the 600,000 acres it manages for elk, deer, pronghorn, and birds. ■ At 104 years old, Dominick Critelli can still carry a tune. Last month, he wowed the crowd at UBS Arena on Long Island, New York, with his soprano saxophone rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before a National Hockey League game between the Rangers and Islanders.…

“So, about all that Venezuelan oil,” said Rogé Karma in The Atlantic. In recent days, President Trump has settled on a new rationale for ousting Nicolás Maduro, that his primary goal is not to liberate Venezuela’s people from tyranny but to liberate the estimated 300 billion barrels of crude oil sitting beneath their country. Trump promised that American oil firms will soon “go in” to Venezuela—which he will “run” for the foreseeable future—and start generating great gobs of money. Setting aside the morality of using military force to plunder a weaker nation, Trump’s plan is “delusional” on its own terms. Venezuela’s oil sector lies in ruin after two decades of kleptocratic rule. As top oil executives gently explained in a White House meeting this week, rebuilding it would cost perhaps…