With Minnesota under siege by brutal and murderous agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this is an appropriate time to read John Steinbeck’s 1942 novel, The Moon Is Down.  

Written to inspire resistance movements in occupied countries, it has appeared in at least 92 editions across the world.

It tells the story of a Norwegian village occupied by Germans in World War II.

At first the invasion goes swiftly. Wehrmacht Colonel Lanser establishes his headquarters in the house of the democratically-elected Mayor Orden.

Lanser, a veteran of World War I, considers himself a man of civility and law. But in his heart he knows that “there are no peaceful people” when their freedom has been forcibly violated. 

After an alderman named Alex Morden is executed for killing a German officer, the townspeople settle into “a slow, silent waiting revenge.”

Between the winter cold and the hostility of the townspeople, the Germans become fearful and disillusioned. One night, a frightened Lieutenant Tonder asks: “Captain, is this place conquered?”

“Of course.” 

“Conquered and we’re afraid; conquered and we’re surrounded,” replies Tonder, hysterically. “Flies conquer the flypaper. Flies capture two hundred miles of new flypaper!”

Several nights later, Tonder knocks at the door of Molly Morden. He doesn’t realize that she nurses a deep hatred of Germans for the execution of her husband, Alex. Tonder desperately wants to escape the fury and loneliness of war. Molly agrees to talk with him, but insists that he leave and return another time.

When he returns the next evening, Molly invites him in—and then kills him with a pair of scissors.

John Steinbeck

A British plane flies over the town and drops packages of dynamite, which the townspeople hurriedly collect.

When the Germans learn about the droppings, Colonel Lanser arrests Mayor Orden and Doctor Albert Winter. As the two await their uncertain future, Orden tries to remember the speech Socrates delivered before he was put to death:

“Do you remember in school, in the Apology? Socrates says, ‘Someone will say, ‘And are you not ashamed, Socrates, of a course of life which is likely to bring you to an untimely end?’ To him I may fairly answer, ‘There you are mistaken: a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether he is doing right or wrong.’”

Colonel Lanser enters the room and warns Orden: “If you don’t urge your people to not use the dynamite, you will be executed.”

And Orden replies: “Nothing can change it. You will be destroyed and driven out. The people don’t like to be conquered, sir, and so they will not be. Free men cannot start a war, but once it is started, they can fight on in defeat.

“Herd men, followers of a leader, cannot do that, and so it is always the herd men who win battles and the free men who win wars. You will find that it is so, sir.”

Explosions begin erupting throughout the town.

As Orden is led outside—to his execution—he tells Winter, quoting Socrates: “’Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius. Will you remember to pay the debt?’”

“The debt shall be paid,” replies Winter—meaning that resistance will continue.

On January 6-7, 2026, President Donald Trump flooded Minneapolis and St. Paul Minnesota with about 2,000 thuggish ICE agents. 

During his 2024 campaign for President, Trump had promised—warned—that he would pursue “retribution” against those he believed had wronged him. 

One of those was Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who had dared to run against him as Kamala Harris’ vice presidential pick. Making Minnesota an even more attractive target for him was the state’s large Somali population, whom he had publicly labeled “garbage.”

ICE agents 

Chad Davis, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

But then the unexpected happened: Minnesota residents began a wholesale resistance to ICE efforts to arrest—and often brutalize—their immigrant friends and neighbors. 

Minnesotans used whistles and encrypted chats to follow and document ICE activity. Starting in December, 2025, hundreds of people signed up for ICE observation training at a church in Uptown. Such trainings are now common. 

The ICE killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti steeled Minnesotans to turn out in even greater numbers to protest their occupiers. At great personal risk, motorists followed ICE agents’ vehicles and photographed their assaults on illegal aliens—and American citizens. 

“In one city—in one city we have this outrage and this powder keg happening,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News. “And it’s not right. And it doesn’t happen anywhere else.”

Gregory Bovino, commanding “Operation Metro Surge,” noted: “They’ve got some excellent communications.” 

In turn, Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to launch criminal investigations into Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. They are accused of impeding federal immigration enforcement through public criticisms of ICE.

Trump-–like Adolf Hitler-–believes that power flows from the top down. He believes that if he “takes out” leaders like Walz and Frey, opposition to his rule will collapse.

He can’t understand—and cope with—a bottom-up movement driven by constituents, who—like the citizens in The Moon Is Down—have emboldened their leaders to stand their ground.