How right-wing influencers are bending reality in Minneapolis

In the hours and days after news and videos spread of the ICE shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis last week, a small army of right-wing, pro-Trump creators, journalists, and influencers descended on the city and flooded social media. How right-wing influencers are bending reality in Minneapolis The MAGA media system is going into overdrive. Christian Paz is a correspondent at Vox, where he covers the Democratic Party. He joined Vox in 2022 after reporting on national and international politics for the Atlantic’s politics, global, and ideas teams, including the role of Latino voters in the 2020 election. They filmed protests; rode along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection; documented - and at times seemingly instigated - confrontations with protesters; and worked a competing, ICE- and Trump-friendly narrative out of what was happening in Minneapolis. From the ground, they churned out content painting protesters as lawless, demonstrations as riots, and anti-ICE activists as extremists or criminals. Outside of the state, right-wing influencers and large social media accounts amplified these videos, posts, and descriptions to reach much wider audiences. Key takeaways Right-wing content creators, influencers, and journalists have descended on Minneapolis in the wake of the death of Renee Good by an ICE officer. Social media tracking shows that the right has rapidly tried to flood internet platforms with pro-ICE, Trump-friendly coverage. Their content has largely received more views than left-leaning content. These trends show how effective right-leaning content creators have been in muddying online discourse. Left-leaning creators and critics are at a disadvantage online in competing with this flood of content. So far, this effort appears to have muddied the conversation around Good’s killing and Minneapolis residents’ response to President Donald Trump’s ICE surge - at least among right-leaning audiences. (Polling this week shows the videos and shooting have broken through to an overwhelming share of Americans , and majorities of Americans do not believe the shooting was justified , or think the ICE agent who shot Good should be criminally charged .) But social media analytics show that these right-wing influencers have been effective in flooding the zone - producing large volumes of content and drawing viewers. To log onto social media platforms now is to not only see the videos and outrage, but also constant counter-narratives, attempts to justify Good’s killing, and arguments that ICE’s presence in Minneapolis is warranted. And that reveals a deeper imbalance in American politics and media in 2026: While witness video, mainstream and traditional news, and liberal commentators have shaped part of the debate over ICE and Trump’s domestic immigration agenda, these critical voices and activists lack the same kind of distribution machine to push their narrative that those on the right have used to some effect. In that sense, the Minneapolis shooting’s disjointed online realities fit into a familiar problem for liberals, the American left, and the broader anti-Trump coalition since 2020 - just as they lacked their own version of a Joe Rogan or Charlie Kirk to...

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