“With malice toward none, with charity for all…let us strive…to bind up the nation’s wounds.” — Abraham Lincoln

After buying an Amtrak RailPass in February I spent a month criss-crossing America on trains, admiring my country: its tall mountains and broad plains, the great Mississippi and Columbia rivers, major cities like Chicago, St. Louis and L.A.

On a layover in Washington D.C. I walked the National Mall for hours to soak up the beauty, and felt grateful to be an American. But gazing up at the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, I also found myself grieving.

Under the misrule of Donald Trump, the nation I love looks less beautiful with each passing day: less free, less just and less democratic; more violent and more at odds with itself. His unprecedented mauling of democratic norms has been matched by a singular cruelty. In this White House, malice is in and charity is out.

Even so, more than a third of Americans still support Trump. This bodes ill for the liberal democracy that has guided our republic for more than two centuries, and speaks volumes about our increasingly heartless society.

During my walk around the Mall, I wondered what George Washington would think of a malignant, bullying ruler like Donald Trump. I left D.C. that night under a cloud of sorrow.

But when I stepped off the Empire Builder in Minneapolis two days later, I found hope. Despite the ugly and lethal “Operation Metro Surge” that left two American citizens dead, it was clear that in the Twin Cities, the America I believe in is still alive and well.

During my two-day stay with friends in Minneapolis I saw a generous, caring community where the abuses of this winter’s immigration crackdown have triggered a powerful grassroots pro-democracy movement.

“It felt like a direct attack on us, on our city,” my friend K said. “The people they were hauling off were not criminals, they were our neighbors and friends. It was as if the Gestapo had come to town. And what that did,” she added, “was bring people together.”

Even before the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Minnesotans had  banded together by the thousands to protest the Department of Homeland Security’s over-the-top enforcement tactics.

Block by block around the Twin Cities people formed mutual aid networks to support law-abiding, hardworking immigrant families living in fear of masked ICE and Border Patrol agents, whose violent and often illegal behavior was sanctioned by the White House.

Citizens showed up in the streets to document law-breaking by ICE agents. Churches distributed food and other resources to nonwhite residents  (many of whom were citizens) because they feared leaving their homes. Commuter pools formed to provide rides to and from school and work. Constitutional-rights trainings were held.

Though the surge has ended, ICE agents continue to operate in the Twin Cities–and citizens continue to support their immigrant neighbors with rides, rent drives and “patrons’ nights” designed to pump up business at immigrant-owned restaurants.

My friends are active in these efforts. K’s husband, a teachers’ aide, still provides daily transportation to a 13-year-old Latino student who remains shaken by the turmoil of the DHS occupation. The couple has also become “aunt and uncle” to a displaced Ukrainian schoolgirl.

This sort of community-minded activism was common even before ICE came to town, my friends tell me. That’s good to hear. America will never thrive unless we citizens understand that we are our neighbors’ keepers.

Like any large American city, Minneapolis-St. Paul is troubled by racism, poverty, homelessness and other ills. But its people seem willing to face those problems, pull together and seek solutions.

Before I got back on the Empire Builder, K took me downtown to the site where two Customs and Border Protection agents shot and killed Alex Pretti on January 24 while he lay face-down in the street, choking on pepper spray.

The memorial to Pretti on Nicolett Avenue is a sobering sight. Dozens of posters and paintings, photos of Pretti and Good, and other mementos decorate the impromptu shrine. Candles burn. Hundreds of handwritten messages cover every available surface.

Though the names of Alex Pretti and Renee Good have long since fallen out of the headlines, Minneapolis has not “moved on” from the killings.

Among the hundreds of heartfelt and moving tributes posted on Nicolett Avenue, one in particular captured my attention. It was addressed to Pretti, Good and to the city itself. It read:

“Thank you for standing up for us. You are the best of us. History will tell your story–but you are already the heroes.”

It was signed, “The Future of America“.