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Don Lemon’s Travail Is a Warning of Rising Authoritarianism; I Would Know
My experience as a university professor in Congo demonstrates that repressive governments may go after a variety of observers sympathizing with militant protesters by purveying false or distorted reports of their actions.
Feb 12, 2026
Former CNN anchor Don Lemon is under federal indictment for participating in a Minnesota protest group’s obstruction of a church service. He is scheduled to be arraigned Friday. News of his prosecution took me back more than five decades to when I was a young university professor in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). At that time, President Mobutu Sese Seko’s government threatened to arrest me for my alleged involvement in student disruptions.
In both cases, increasingly authoritarian governments decided to clamp down on independent observers—journalists or others—who sympathized with community activists. To do so, they distorted what actually happened to serve their political interests. Yet, I suspect that the last person President Donald Trump wants to be compared to is a corrupt, fallen, disgraced African dictator.
In December 1970, my university screeched to a halt as the entire student body boycotted classes. With support from Zairian professors and staff, the students called for the replacement of the Protestant missionary rector, criticized for incompetence and racism. From afar, I sympathized with their position. One day, with the university offering no information on the conflict, I accepted an invitation to hop onto a student bus. As a curious political scientist, I hoped to learn more about what my students were thinking. Arriving at a dormitory, I found myself enveloped in a crowd slowly moving forward. Suddenly, I found myself standing before a mock coffin for the rector emblazoned, “Rest in Peace.” Reaching for humor, I tossed a vine I had picked up onto the coffin. Then I walked away, seeing no opportunity for discussion.
Encountering one of my best students on campus a day or two later, I asked him what was happening with his movement. We discussed the students’ perspective and actions. I posed questions in the style of a neutral reporter or scholar. At a certain point, he reiterated the students’ expressed belief that the rector had discouraged his better qualified, potential replacement. Out of sympathy with the student demands and wanting to equalize our exchange, I shared relevant information I had, which appeared to confirm their suspicion. In doing so, I later realized, I yielded to an impulse that deserved more scrutiny.
Whether or not Lemon is convicted, the Trump administration’s approach of pursuing individuals who can be loosely linked to disruptive demonstrations is likely to continue.
Soon, I was surprised to learn that the rector’s supporters in the university were spreading exaggerated and false versions of my involvement in the protests. I was said to have knelt before the coffin, worked to replace a Protestant rector with a Jewish one, and actively participated in students’ subsequent siege, including minor violence, of university trustees’ meeting in a private home. Declassified State Department records show that Mobutu, his minister of the interior, and the American ambassador believed these baseless reports. I was ordered to fly with my family 800 miles to the capital and report to the minister. Over 10 anxious days, I finally managed to persuade the minister that my case should be “closed.”
Last month, Don Lemon live streamed a community protest group’s disruption of a religious service in a St. Paul, Minnesota church. In the context of community resistance to Immigration and Custom Enforcement abuses, the group had discovered that one of the pastors was an important ICE official. Lemon and eight others were charged under the federal FACE Act with conspiring “to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate” (including chants, yelling, and physical obstruction) multiple persons in the free exercise of religion—causing termination of the service, parishioners’ flight, emergency planning, and children’s fears.
Lemon himself was accused of certain “overt acts“ in and around the church:
- Reporting on parishioners' responses to the mayhem, including a young man crying and congregants departing, he called them understandable since the “whole point [of the operation is to disrupt;”
- Physically obstructing, along with two other protesters, the pastor on three sides while peppering him with questions and ignoring his request to leave immediately; and
- Physically obstructing some parishioners attempting to leave.
Some MAGA activists condemned Lemon and the others for “storming” the church and committing an anti-Christian hate crime.
Yet, a detailed examination of Lemon’s hour-long live-stream video of the event shows a far different reality. He is mainly observing and interviewing—as I was in the Congo—plus publicly reporting on what he sees. Inside the church, he tells parishioners and viewers several times that he is “chronicling and reporting” and “not part of the activists.” He interviews protesters, the pastor, and parishioners, generally seeking their views in a neutral way. Sometimes his questioning cites protesters’ grievances, but he generally does not insist upon them. It is also clear from the video that he and nearby protesters are not obstructing the pastor, nor are they preventing parishioners from leaving the church.
Like me, Lemon indicates sympathy with the protesters, invoking the history of the US civil rights movement. At one point he tells viewers—but not others—that he supports the disruption because “you have to make people uncomfortable in these times [when ICE is committing abuses during operations against illegal immigrants].” “I believe…, he declares, "everyone has to be willing to sacrifice something.” Only once though does he seem to depart from neutrality with a parishioner. After an interchange in which he states ICE’s excesses are powering protests and his interlocutor maintains ICE is keeping America safe, he asks the latter, “Do you really believe that?” Then, as the man starts to walk away, Lemon persists by trying to present him with “facts” that immigrants have lower crime rates than natives and most detainees were not convicted of crimes.
Lemon also presents an alternative to the conflict: He suggests to both the pastor and a parishioner that they move from confrontation to calm discussion with the protesters, for that might reveal areas of agreement.
These are however minor chords in Lemon’s overall conventional reporting style. We might consider whether, in an age of flagging journalist legitimacy, a reporter’s acknowledgement of his personal perspective amid an effort to tell a story objectively can enhance audience trust.
Either way, Lemon’s remarks did not transform him into a member of the group besieging the church any more than my two encounters with student protesters made me into a member of the group besieging the trustees.
Together these cases warn that repressive governments may go after a variety of observers sympathizing with militant protesters by purveying false or distorted reports of their actions. Whether or not Lemon is convicted, the Trump administration’s approach of pursuing individuals who can be loosely linked to disruptive demonstrations is likely to continue. Worryingly, the head of the FBI has announced investigations of “paid protest campaigns” throughout the country including “organizers, protesters, and funding sources that drive illicit activities.”
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'Operation Dildo Blitz' Anti-ICE Protest in Minneapolis Ends With 50+ Arrests
One demonstrator said they attended the phallic protest, at which people pelted federal agents' vehicles with sex toys, "because ICE likes to bend over for Daddy Trump."
Feb 08, 2026
Demonstrators hurled insults and sex toys at federal agents outside a Minneapolis government building on Saturday to protest the Trump administration's deadly Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown on undocumented immigrants and their supporters, with state and local police arresting more than 50 people.
Dubbed "Operation Dildo Blitz," the protest outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building saw demonstrators place sex toys in a chain link fence while others handed out rubber phalluses to protesters who threw them at passing federal and local law enforcement vehicles.
Demonstrators shouted "Eat a dick!" and "Fuck ICE!" as they pelted the vehicles with dildos. A local sheriff's deputy was reportedly struck upside the head.
Activist Russell Ellis, who posted video of the demonstration on Instagram, said the protesters "showed real balls."
"Dildos coming your way! Dildos! Dildos!" Ellis barked as the toys rained down on vehicles, landing with rubbery thwunks. "It's raining dicks!"
Anti-ICE activist William Kelly—who was arrested last month after taking part in a protest inside a St. Paul church—said at Saturday's demonstration: "The community here at Whipple today is, you know, doing the right thing and handing out the dicks. People are able to do whatever they want with the dicks, it's their choice."
One protester told VisuNews that they were attending the demonstration "because ICE likes to bend over for Daddy Trump."
Minneapolis Dispatch: Jake Lang's U-Haul and Operation Dildo Blitz by Zach D Roberts
Minnesota law enforcement can't handle it, so they arrest dozens.
Read on SubstackAsked what inspired her to show up with a literal "bag of dicks," another protester said she was motivated by last month's fatal shooting of legal observer Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis. The protest marked one month since Good's killing.
"The number one thing that you need to do right now is build community," the woman said. "You need to talk to your neighbors. You need to start organizing. The local police are not going to help you. They are not your friend... so we rely upon each other."
Later in the afternoon, police declared the protest an unlawful assembly before rushing in to arrest 54 demonstrators.
Far-right influencer and pardoned January 6, 2021 insurrectionist Jake Lang—who was arrested the previous day and charged with vandalizing an anti-ICE sculpture—crashed Saturday's demonstration. Limitless Media reported that Lang and others arrived in a U-Haul truck carrying a wooden cross and firing pepper balls and chemical agents at anti-ICE protesters before leaving the scene.
Hundreds of people also showed up for an Indigenous-led Saturday gathering in Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis to remember Good and Alex Pretti, who was also shot dead by federal immigration enforcers last month in the Minnesota city.
Rest in peace Renee Good. Thank you for supporting our immigrant neighbors. You’ll always be our hero. 🕊️ 💜
[image or embed]
— Jason Chavez (@jchavezmpls.bsky.social) February 7, 2026 at 11:56 AM
“This is a generational burden that we carry, and we're seeing that burden again today,” said Gaby Strong, vice president of the NDN Collective, who called Good “the example of what it means to be a good relative, to be a good neighbor, to stand up for people beside you.”
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Thousands Take to Milan Streets to Protest Olympics' Environmental and Social Harms, ICE
"I’m here because these Olympics are unsustainable—economically, socially, and environmentally," said one elderly protester.
Feb 08, 2026
Around 10,000 demonstrators rallied in Milan Saturday to protest the economic, social, and environmental impacts of the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, the presence of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the games, genocidal Israel's participation, and other issues.
The union and activist network Comitato Insostenibili Olimpiadi, or Unsustainable Olympics Committee, organized the demonstration, which it called "a popular gathering of social opposition, bringing together grassroots and community sports organizations, civic and environmental movements, territorial committees and student collectives."
The coalition said it is "fighting for the right to housing and for militant trade unions, movements that have stood alongside the Palestinian people, and the Global Sumud Flotilla," the seaborne campaign to break Israel's blockade of Gaza.
Protesters also decried Decree Law 1660, which empowers police to preemptively detain people for up to 12 hours if they believe they may act disruptively, as well as "state racism against migrants and racialized people, and transfeminist anger against social and institutional patriarchy."
At the vanguard of the protest march were about 50 people carrying cardboard trees representing larches they said were cut down to construct the new bobsleigh track in Cortina d'Ampezzo. They held a banner reading, "Century-old trees, survivors of two wars, sacrificed for 90 seconds of competition on a bobsleigh track costing €124 million."
Stefano Nutini, a 71-year-old protester, told Reuters that "I’m here because these Olympics are unsustainable—economically, socially, and environmentally."
"These Olympic Games are against nature and against people." Thousands of people marched through Milan to protest housing costs and urban affordability on the first day of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics. pic.twitter.com/iPcpXwuvQN
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) February 7, 2026
One healthcare worker at the protest told Euronews: "It's public money that has been spent on a display window. It may be interesting to have these showcase events, but at a time when there is not enough money for essential things, it makes no sense to spend it in this way."
Another demonstrator said that the Olympics "have not brought any wealth to the city of Milan and Lombardy."
"They have taken money away from social welfare, public schools, and healthcare," he added. "This money has literally been burned, and not a single lira will go to Italian citizens, particularly those in Lombardy, so these are bogus Olympics."
Other demonstrators held signs reading "ICE Out" to protest US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's presence in Italy to provide security support for American athletes and officials. The agency is at the center of the Trump administration's deadly crackdown on unauthorized immigrants and their defenders in the US. On Friday, hundreds of protesters also rallied against ICE in Milan.
The protests took place as US Vice President JD Vance was in Milan as head of his country's Olympic delegation. Vance was loudly booed at Friday's opening ceremony in San Siro stadium.
While Saturday's demonstration was mostly peaceful, a small breakaway group reportedly threw firecrackers and other objects at police, who responded with brutal force, firing a water cannon, deploying chemical agents, and beating protesters with batons. A young woman suffered a head injury and a young man's arm was broken, according to il Manifesto, which reported six arrests.
Further afield, railway infrastructure was reportedly sabotaged around Bologna in Emilia-Romagna and Pesaro in coastal Marche.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni—whose right-wing government was a common subject of protesters' ire—condemned the demonstration and voiced "solidarity... with the police, the city of Milan, and all those who will see their work undermined by these gangs of criminals."
More anti-Olympics protests were set to take place in Milan on Sunday.
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