Heartbreaking Bravery

For the near-duration of the horrific tenure of the second Trump administration, the United States has dulled Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into a blunt instrument of federally-sanctioned domestic terrorism. In one of the most deliberately perverse moves of this century, the agency—and those responsible for its ongoing utility—have claimed that their efforts have been predicated on protecting American citizens. These claims have continued, despite reports of ICE members raping and torturing detainees, being prone to domestic violence, engaging in sex crimes involving children, and executing citizens, including those exercising their constitutional right to protest the agency’s descent into a functionally unregulated extrajudicial paramilitary.

One of the lines of response gaining popularity across social media and select activism circles is “we aren’t angry enough.”

It’s a line that has been lobbed primarily at a transparent cover-up attempt to shield the Trump administration and their political allies from any form of punishment. More times than not, the punishment—or lack thereof—in question is connected to Trump’s innumerable appearances and links to the Epstein files, an intentionally-shielded document collection that provides insight to a global, depraved, pedophilic sex trafficking ring. In even a cursory exploration of the files’ documents—at least when they’re available to be publicly accessed and aren’t suddenly and unceremoniously disappeared—”we aren’t angry enough” rings painfully true.

It rings true, again, when the phrase is applied to ICE. Along with several of the people who may read this, I saw the raw footage of ICE agents ending the lives of multiple citizens in irredeemably brutal fashion. I will not link those videos here, but believe they are fundamentally necessary viewing to fully understand the nightmarishly craven nature of the agency. Most of us didn’t need the clarity of forensic breakdowns to understand the monumental injustice that was being facilitated, and even expedited, by Republicans sitting in the country’s highest offices. The requirements for participation in ICE at this point effectively greenlight a level of misconduct paramount to what would be seen as an abdication of duty for any recent era of “lawful enforcement.” It is, again, of no shock to see only the cities of Trump’s perceived political opponents be subject to this degree of violent, punitive persecution. Nor is it of any surprise that the areas that have been targeted by mass ICE deployments all boast diverse demographic makeups.

The Tump administration implicitly projected christofascism (and the ideology’s requisite tenets of white supremacy, all conveniently draped in “Family Values” clothing) as its overarching intent, even when lofting repeated campaign-trail claims that the morally heinous blueprint of The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 was of no interest. Given the administration’s appointments of Project 2025 architects to influential positions, and their implementation of the Project’s various outlines in the first year of Trump’s second presidency, it is safe to say that their projected disinterest was a calibrated falsehood that constituted an egregious brand of political gamesmanship.

In Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership,” there are loose guardrails for deportation policy. Trump’s administrative actions have vastly exceeded the published guardrails (though it is worth noting there is well-founded suspicion that the more extreme measures were intentionally left out of publication). Even so, the present administration’s efforts have been in keeping with Project 2025’s calls to narrow the intent of ICE in a deliberate effort to remove immigrants, lessen the requirements for immigrant detention, and increase funding for ICE and detention facilities. Each of those calls to action on and for immigration enforcement has been invoked by the Trump administration, while continuing to brazenly ignore lawful mandates surrounding those issues.

Trump’s administration has signaled, repeatedly, that they believe they generally believe themselves to be above the law and have blanket immunity from the need to comply, especially with lower-level decisions. Politicians holding out hope for restorative norms to be the standard have shown themselves to be fundamentally incapable of meaningfully meeting the moment, and their shockingly tepid and overwhelmingly feckless response to this presidency has only compounded its damage.

We are in new territory, and need to view that territory with a separate, singular lens that removes precedent, because, quite literally, there is no precedent for the collective actions of this administration. There are parallels to nationalism-minded moves towards zealously violent fascism, but none of those rightfully reviled figureheads were as entrenched in willful deception or disobedience, nor were any a central figure in a global pedophile operation. We are in the midst of what we can only hope to be the final chapters of a new brand of overwhelmingly narcissistic malfeasance that prizes cruelty above unity, and pretends its patriotism. Actual justice may yet come, but the fact that we’re still waiting to see a shred of justice delivered evidences multiple ongoing failures, many of which are tied to a deeply compromised judiciary.

Try as they might, Republicans—especially as they pertain to this administration—have not completely overtaken the judicial branch. Yes, Republicans have packed SCOTUS with a majority (and most are Trump appointees), and, yes, Republicans intentionally led successful, long-term efforts to capture the majority of judiciary appointments. But a non-zero percentage of those appointments were textualists born out of a Republican-brand deference to traditionalism. And they have shown an increased willingness to challenge this administration’s reckless disregard for lawfulness, in several separate areas. It is, at least, a distant glimmer of faint hope for a halfway reasonable future outcome regarding meaningful penalties for extraordinarily apparent misconduct. Perhaps more Republicans are beginning to realize that the optics of persecuting Trump will be a better long-term strategy than simply acquiescing to preserving what little may be left of his public image in the wake of multiple, severe ongoing investigations.

The administration’s various modes of misconduct—whether it comes via the administration’s handling of ICE, the Epstein files, the emoluments clause, the coordinated effort to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, or any other thing you could possibly single out—is part of why the rapidly-emergent “comply or die” crowd’s proposed, repeated framework is especially galling. If they truly wanted to invoke that ethos and hold everyone accountable to it, a lot of governmental officials and law enforcement officials—up to and including the president, his cabinet members, and various ICE agents—would be dead at their hands. Then again, people whose primary interest is in penalizing those they believe to be inherently inferior to them are not generally capable of meaningfully interrogating any evidence that pushes against their beliefs (especially in cases when it threatens their supposed authority), so to expect them to have the ability for expanded reason isn’t going to do much for anyone. (At some point or another, we need to have a more collective reckoning about the festering authority complex being laundered via various outlets—including the Catholic church—towards susceptible young males who are conditioned to both expect and desire power, but that’s a conversation that deserves more time than can be provided in the context of this particular piece.)

On the side of civilian-level opposition, we are seeing an increase of righteous protest. Where a number of elected officials have been prone to failure, there has been hope in grassroots community-organizing. As is typically the case in times of turmoil, there have been a number of arts-led responses. Whether that art comes by way of cartooning, sign-making, film, illustration, photography, or any other medium, the through-line that sustains all of it and gives it weight is community. It’s something that holds especially true for music, and the musicians who are productively contributing to forms of protest that are in service of fortifying the security of their community members. (See-saw‘s Evan Minsker recently authored an extraordinary Rolling Stone article that explored Minneapolis musicians’ resolve in the face of an ICE occupation that resulted in the agency murdering two citizens, with more believed to have died in detention—with the latter category representing a medium of statistics that are being abhorrently, nefariously mishandled).

Despite ICE’s comparatively small activity in Wisconsin when compared to the Twin Cities, Wisconsin musicians have refused to be silent. I count myself among that group. We have intentionally pushed back against becoming tacitly complicit in the rise of practically unchecked, hyper-violent authoritarianism, and we remain appalled by the cataclysmic failure of what was once believed to be a robust system of checks and balances. Thus far, it seems that the only check or balance that seems to make any meaningful difference in creating headway between atrocity and reason is, disappointingly, optics and the tide of public opinion. No Wisconsinite needs to be reminded that the interest of most modern Republicans is inherently tethered to consolidating and fortifying protection of power. (Something we saw in nakedly shameless action via Scott Walker’s disgraceful exit from the Governorship.) If public opinion sinks low enough to threaten that power, they will typically take drastic, course-correcting action to distance themselves from PR poison.

Entertainment isn’t going to be our salvation. In no circumstance should we expect that to be the case. What it can do is encompass and be emblematic of surges of opinion. It can put a visual or a soundtrack to the communally-bound power of mass resistance. And that’s worth participating in, and supporting, which is why community-driven events like the “MELT ICE” showcase at the High Noon Saloon are so incredibly vital.

Each of the four musicians participating in the show were from around Wisconsin, demonstrating a connective tissue underlining a common cause. Bitch Creek from Milwaukee, and three local Madison acts: The Spine Stealers (whose frontperson, Emma O’Shea, organized the event), Hush Now, Sweet Halo (HNSH), and Excuse Me, Who Are You? (EMWAY?). On paper, the bands’ connection lies in geography, political belief, and little else. Two of the acts—Bitch Creek and The Spine Stealers—enticingly blend elements of folk and indie-rock together in acoustic-led reveries. The pair of bands making up the other half of the equation are loud, raucous emo-tipped bands indebted to metal, post-rock, and post-hardcore influences. But their stylistic differences speak to the volume of boundary-demolishing collaboration that anchors effective protest events. It is an intentional testament to the strength and power of forging connections to create and support something larger than the sum of its individual parts. And that’s worth supporting and celebrating. As is the artist collective decision to donate all of the proceeds of the show to the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) and Voces De La Frontera, two organizations that have been instrumental in pushing back against ICE’s barbarism and providing protection to immigrant communities.

Every artist performed admirably, and represented Wisconsin—and the cause they came together to support—exceptionally well. Bitch Creek’s opening set was a lovely way to ease into the proceedings, The Spine Stealers continue to be (in my frank and honest opinion) the best folk-forward band in the upper Midwest, HNSH’s brand of volume-pushing controlled chaos spoke directly to a number of my personal preferences, and EMWAY?’s headlining set confirmed the growing buzz around the quartet is extremely well-deserved. But the moment that will stay with me the most from that night wasn’t one based in music, but theater.

Before EMWAY?’s set was sent into a frenzied, technically-proficient sprint, the band brought out a personal friend—American Players Theatre’s Ari Pollack—to perform an impassioned, full-chested section of the under-heralded Sir Thomas More, a 16th-century play that is widely believed to contain contributions from Shakespeare. Sir Thomas More‘s estimated time of public unveiling was the early 1590’s, roughly 430 years ago, making the unceasing stubbornness of its central plot beats all the more enraging. Four centuries and change is a long time to make significant progress in the quest for attaining personal freedom without the oversight of an intentionally predatory governing body that maliciously targets its denizens, and to see so little change on those fronts over that amount of time is all the more reason to fight back with an increased amount of velocity.

Here’s a portion of the ending excerpt from Pollack’s selection, which features the titular character railing against a familiar framework in an effort to calm a race riot, posing questions and observations that remain frustratingly relevant:

Tell me but this. What rebel captain,
As mutinies are incident, by his name
Can still the rout? Who will obey a traitor?
Or how can well that proclamation sound,
When there is no addition but a rebel
To qualify a rebel? You’ll put down strangers,
Kill them, cut their throats, possess their houses,
And lead the majesty of law in line,
To slip him like a hound. Say now the king
(As he is clement, if th’ offender mourn)
Should so much come to short of your great trespass
As but to banish you, whether would you go?
What country, by the nature of your error,
Should give you harbor? Go you to France or Flanders,
To any German province, to Spain or Portugal,
Nay, any where that not adheres to England,⁠—
Why, you must needs be strangers. Would you be pleased
To find a nation of such barbarous temper,
That, breaking out in hideous violence,
Would not afford you an abode on earth,
Whet their detested knives against your throats,
Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God
Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants
Were not all appropriate to your comforts,
But chartered unto them, what would you think
To be thus used? This is the strangers’ case;
And this your mountanish inhumanity.

When Pollack closed, a hushed silence gave way to rapturous applause, and those cheers were pushed louder still when EMWAY? vocalist Kyle Kinney punctuated the moment with a perfectly-placed, deeply-felt “Fuck ICE.” It was a beautiful and incredibly unexpected moment of cross-medium artistry, and conjured up a momentous springboard that EMWAY? didn’t hesitate to seize. Before the cheers subsided, the quartet was already tearing into a blistering set that proved to be a fittingly raucous end-cap to an evening born out of pent-up frustrations. Even when that frustration was made the focal point, the desire to work towards assisting vulnerable communities facing disproportionate harm, rather than preying on them for ideological gains, was evident.

At its core, empathy and the recognition that value isn’t exclusively tied to something as arbitrary as immigration status, race, gender, or sexual preference is the separation point between those of us who have maintained our humanity and those of us who have chosen to condemn it for the sake of a misguided, bound-for-failure supremacy quest.

MELT ICE was a welcome reminder that together we have strength, that art can be leveraged to make a difference, and to find and cultivate new modes of community. MELT ICE was an incredible, worthy evening, and it is my personal hope—and unwavering belief—that it won’t be the last of its kind we see in Madison.

If you missed the show but are still interested in contributing to the causes it was orchestrated to support, you can donate to MIRAC here, Voces De La Frontera here, and can find a list of fundraising resource links for communities impacted by ICE’s presence in the Twin Cities here. Every effort matters, and won’t go unappreciated.

An expanded photo gallery of the show can be accessed here.