I started college intending to major in biology.
That lasted about a semester.
But one of the things I learned in Bio 101 - or re-learned from high school biology - was the Krebs Cycle, the natural cycle by which photosynthetic (i.e. green) plants convert light and water to stored sugar for energy to keep the plant alive.
And watching how things are going in MInneapolis (and, soon ernough, whatever blue city you're in) are going, it occurred to me - there's a cycle in effect there, too; one that takes input of events, and yields (if everything goes to plan) modern progressivism's lifeblood, money and power.
The cycle goes like this.
1. A "progressive" politician or government gets into trouble.
In this case, let's look at the Minnesota DFL's little fraud problem:
There’s so much fraud in Minnesota state government these days, we had to update our Scandal Tracker. Sad!
Originally created during the eight-year term of Gov. Mark Dayton (see below), the Scandal Tracker has been updated to account for the growing government scandals of the current administration run by Gov. Tim Walz.
Social service fraud has been endemic in Minnesota for over a decade - but the state's indulgent welfare system was easy pickings for all that federal Covid money in 2020; the DFL "trifecta" pumped billions more into a system that was comically easy to defraud...
...because that was how it was designed.
And that was starting to cause the DFL problems.
2. Big Left gins up a controversy to deflect from that trouble.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement had been operating way back last fall, and the local protest movement was already agitating merrily away well before Christmas.
But then the Nick Shirley video came out. And suddenly, ICE in Minneapolis because a George Floyd-level crisis, occupying the local media's entire bandwidth.
Why, the timing was almost too perfect.
I wasn't the only one to notice.
🚨NEW: Joe Rogan calls Minneapolis protests one of "MOST OBVIOUS DISTRACTIONS YOU'VE EVER SEEN"🚨
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) March 10, 2026
"These are NOT organic protests. It's not organic that it just happened to be taking place in the very same place where you found hundreds of millions of dollars in FRAUD!" pic.twitter.com/SFYeXOK6Ab
And those protests came with a lot of turmoil and fearmongering, not to mention a couple of supremely performative "general strikes" that shut down a lot of of businesses in the core metro area - meaning a lot of people weren't working or getting paid.
3. The inevitable consequences of that deflection get weaponized to Big Left's benefit
People skipped out on their rent and other bills.
The Twin Cities' exceptionally well-organized Left blamed this on ICE; others noted that casual, money-spending visitors to the city didn't want to deal with the crowds of whistle-blowing ninnies and the occasional headline-grabbing violent incident.
Either way - there was economic dislocation.
4. Big Left uses the system to make the problem, deflection and consequences pay off in terms of money and power.
And the state - and all those layers of administrators - are going to make sure that the consequendes of all that self-imposed terror. The Democrat-controlled Minnesota Senate voted to spend $40 million on "rental assistance" for people who skipped their rent out of, we are told, fear that they'd be caught up in the ICE dragnet:
The Minnesota Senate on Wednesday voted 35-32 to send one-time money out to counties and tribal governments to help Minnesotans cover their rent.
The proposal would redirect unused funds from a court settlement dealing with tax-forfeited lands. The state created a fund after the United States Supreme Court sided with a 94-year old Minneapolis woman who said her home was improperly seized because she owed taxes on it. The state fund was designated to compensate other people who lost property in similar circumstances.
Democrats said roughly $40 million of that funding could help cover rent costs for people who were afraid to leave home during the surge of federal immigration enforcement actions over the last several months, as well as those struggling with higher prices. It could also help those affected by cuts to nutrition assistance and supportive housing. One Republican — Sen. Jim Abeler, of Anoka, voted with Democrats.
Don't care to acquiesce? Then you're the bad guy:
We have a housing crisis, and instead of doing anything about it, the GOP is blaming people for 'choosing to stay home' while ICE was terrorizing our communities.
— Zack Stephenson (@zackstephenson) March 12, 2026
It would be laughable if it wasn't so offensive. pic.twitter.com/dWMSlC7FtS
Just like the Krebs cycle feeds plants, this cyle feeds the DFL's social service, fraud and political PR machines until the next deflection from the fraud problem is needed.
Sometime before the election, I figure...
