One has to come to a full stop in order to appreciate how astonishing it was to see them disappear in real time. It's hard to imagine what life was like before the mid-March declaration that we had "fifteen days to slow the spread." Since then, the spread of the Wuhan virus has indeed been slowed but the spread of power grabs and petty fascism engaged in by both Democrat & some Republican governors in America was fast and disturbingly permanent.
Gov. Tim Walz, the personification of everything that's mediocre about Minnesota, was no exception. Invoking "peacetime emergency" powers, thirty days at a time, he badly bungled the state's response to the virus. From criminally wrong "models" of deaths & ICU hospitalizations, to the hysterical overreaction in buying a seven million dollar morgue (now used as a closet, as one local outlet put it), to allowing virus patients to be placed in nursing homes and long term care facilities making Minnesota the third highest ranking state in killing its elderly, to a useless mask mandate issued five months after the "pandemic" began solely because he didn't get a bonding bill, Walz demonstrated the poverty of actual governing talent that plagues modern politics.
Local media supported and covered for him every step of the way, of course, echoing his preposterous talking points, joining in his deflection by blaming President Trump for Walz's shortcomings and failures, and refusing to ask any serious, probing questions about both the hypotheticals generated by a model whose code was kept hidden for months, as well as demonstrable failures in what had been done to date. Remember the "moonshot" that never happened?
The traction of this approach could never last because it became clear to Americans that how various parts of the country succeeded, or not, was largely a function of a state's governor and not the Leviathan of the federal government. Women took the lead in the Minnesota Department of Health and women reporters did most of the covering of them. The result was predictably awful, like women cops or firefighters.
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The pandemic torpor was suddenly and violently replaced Memorial Day Weekend with the death of criminal and porn star auteur George Floyd. Instead of being released promptly, Islamofascist Attorney General Keith Ellison kept the police body camera footage hidden from the public, allowing the false narrative that Floyd dindu nuthin to take hold, resulting in arson, looting and rioting breaking out across the country. There's no length people like Ellison won't go to destroy America. When the Daily Mail published surreptitiously recorded video of the footage, the narrative collapsed almost at once. But the damage had been done and damage and division was always the goal.
The Minneapolis City Council, which resembles an outtake from the "Star Wars" cantina scene, rushed headlong into defunding city police. It also embodies a concept known as "bioleninism," about which I'll write in the near future, along with anarcho-tyranny. More recently, it has climbed off the ledge upon which it sanctimoniously climbed when confronted with an unsurprising crime wave.
As a side observation, the huge spike in crime in Minneapolis, as well as in St. Paul to a lesser but still disturbing degree, is overwhelmingly caused by Blacks, Hispanics, Somalis and Native Americans. Despite race being all, don't look for that angle in your local news coverage.
Minnesotans are already marking their calendars for a reprise of this mindless violence next year when some or all of the officers charged in Floyd's death are acquitted. With real life having been reduced to a series of interchangeable stage sets, it doesn't take much to see the future. Think of it as kabuki but without the aesthetics.
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Once Minnesota got past its costly spasm of destruction things reverted, somewhat, back to the suffocating conditions Gov. Walz had imposed. It didn't go unnoticed, however, that for weeks on end, sometimes seemingly endlessly so, the virus—mirabile dictu!—disappeared as thousands, even tens of thousands, of people around the country gathered to protest, commit crimes, whine about imaginary grievances, and engage in public displays of pathological narcissism, all encouraged & fawned over by our corrupt and dishonest media who saw in this behavior a chance to finally defeat Donald Trump.
When the contradiction between virus hysteria and "protesting" became too great to ignore, the Cathedral promptly promulgated the notion that waycism was important enough to disregard the heretofore sacrosanct edits that deprived citizens of their most meaningful freedoms. In no small part, this led to many Americans realizing that everything had been politicized by the elites in 2020 (remember impeachment?) in order to defeat Trump in November. The thing about illusions is that once shattered, they're never repaired. This is as true in politics as it is in life and love.
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Minnesota Republicans can be forgiven for being as disoriented as the rest of us in March and much of April. But even then there were signs that the pandemic wasn't going to be as disastrous as advertised. By May a great deal was already known about the virus, given the worldwide crash research into it, how it functioned, the best practices in treatment for those afflicted.
During this time there was no counter narrative from Republicans, no response to the regular briefings from girl bureaucrats in the MDH, demonstrably over their heads. As a result the narratives that Democrats wanted, and which could be reliably amplified by a complicit local media delirious to do their own small potatoes thing to help get rid of Orange Man, shaped most public opinion.
It rarely occurs to Minnesota Republicans to go on offense and this has never been more true than in 2020. Every state that borders us is freer, more open, and with substantially lower death totals. Leave it to the MNGOPe to refuse to look around and use the best comparative evidence available. Provincialism is a bipartisan affair in Minnesota.
In their defense (and it's always defense with this group), they'll say they refused a bonding bill, something the parasitical Walz was keen to get. True enough but how low must the bar be set before it can be said they passed it? While it's true that it would have been political malpractice for them to have agreed to one, they commit such malpractice frequently enough that I suppose we should be glad they didn't this time. Not all low expectations are bigotry.
Slightly better was the Republican led Senate in refusing to confirm two of Walz's commissioners. It was something but a bit on the too little, too late side. I'm dubious that it creates any real barriers to the Governor getting done what he wants and on his terms. Of course, they didn't have the testicular fortitude to take out the manifestly incompetent head of the MDH, Jan Malcolm. "You're killing people" the Leftist freaks would shout and they would cower, not knowing how to respond because they rarely do.
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Last week Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg died because of course she did, is this still not 2020? It seems all but certain that her replacement will be nominated and confirmed before the November 3rd election. This has had a profoundly dispiriting effect on the Regressive Left and I can't get enough of it.
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It seems likely that Trump will win unless the election is rigged post-voting and I wouldn't be surprised if Republicans not only keep the Senate but take back the House. A mighty backlash is coming after a year of nonsense and insanity. A similar backlash occurred in India when Narendra Modi won his second term as Prime Minister. The opposition Congress Party was destroyed. I want a Modi level landslide. The American people are patient, at least the ones who aren't low impulse. They've bided their time and now that time is coming soon.
Friends and acquaintances of mine, staffer types, lobbyist types, knaves & rogues, apparently are being taken in all over again by polling. They think, once more, I don't know what I'm talking about despite being right about 2016. Of course, being right then is no guarantee I'm right now. You'd think they'd be less gullible about polling, though, but you'd be wrong. We'll see soon enough.
If the results are good for Republicans, then in Minnesota we have to go on offense and take advantage of the situation. This requires new thinking from our sclerotic Republican class and I'm not at all sure they are up to it. But they can't coast going forward in the next two years. It would help if they could decide whether or not they actually believe in anything.
I'm obligated to mention the 2022 gubernatorial race because that's all the political class will be talking about after November 4th. Minnesota politics really is boring.
That said, Mike Lindell cannot defeat Tim Walz despite what Republican Party chair & sociopath Jeniffer Carnahan intimated on Twitter recently about him being the nominee. It's not that I don't believe his approval is low in greater Minnesota and deservedly so. It's that two years is a long time and simply not being Tim Walz isn't a path to the mansion on Summit Avenue.
Republicans will have to want to win for a change, really want to win, if they are to make Tim Walz the one term governor he should be. But it will take more than the old thinking which has led to 14 years without a GOP statewide win. Most organizations would reassess strategy, tactics and messaging with a loss record like that but not Minnesota Republicans because the same people get jobs and make money regardless.
A message of economic populism and nationalism would find a receptive electorate in this state. Who could be that messenger? It remains to be seen but the apparatchiks are terrified about anything that is not Chamber of Commerce, the enemy of the American people, approved. The closer to Trump, the further away they move.
Remember, in the 2016 Minnesota presidential caucus, these people gave little Marco one of his rare wins. He couldn't win his home state of Florida but the chuckleheads here found him to be as unthreatening, insubstantial and tapioca as they are. Rubio now seems dated, stale, bought & sold, yesterday's man, a strap hanger in a subway car going in a very different direction then when he boarded. He's only along for the ride, just like them.
If these people determine our nominee for 2022, he or she will lose. If mindless and talentless cheerleaders like Carnahan do, the same result will obtain but for a different reason.
Apple-like, those who determine our nominee will have to "think different."
Thinking would be a good start. There's still enough time to get to the different part.
