;;Minnesota. The land of solid folks, sports chokes, and a political class we only wish were a joke.
I moved here from North Dakota after college - and while I've always maintained a bit of homer pride (go Bison), it's taken on a bit of an edge in the past decade or so; I've come to stress almost as a reflex that I'm not actually from this place that seems to breed such insanity.
But it's not the whole state, pinky swear.
Yes, I know - it's the state that legalized abortion until birth, and in some cases after, but earnestly debates whether wild rice has rights.
I wish I was joking:
Minnesota Democrats are debating whether Wild Rice has an inherent right to life.
— Mitchell Williamson (@MWilliamsonMN) March 10, 2026
Two years ago they voted for abortion to be legal up to the moment of birth. pic.twitter.com/P8h8rCut99
But pinky swear - it's mostly Minneapolis!
You may say, "Minneapolis and Saint Paul are twin cities - it's even in the name of the baseball team!" And you'd have a point, sort of. Saint Paul has more than its fair share of loonies, disproportionally concentrated in government, same as Minneapolis.
But during the George Floyd riots, as the violence spread across the river (to my neighborhood, as it happens), Saint Paul's police chief Todd Axtell was the single, solitary public official on either side of the river to not acquit himself like a clown or a blubbering ninny, telling the world that Saint Paul wasn't abandoning any precincts. We had one day of rioting in Saint Paul, as opposed to six days (and, if you've been by "George Floyd Square" at 38th and Chicago lately) six years of institutional thumbing of noses at civil order that bled fairly seamlessly into the ICE protests of this past few months.
Nah. It's Minneapolis.
It's a city whose commercial tax base is eroding faster than Cesar Chavez's public standing; according to Adam Platt, one of the single-digit number of solid mainstream journos in the Twin Cities:
The collapse of the commercial real estate market has been a constant in the news since 2020. It has driven a chain reaction of phenomena that portend deep problems for the core Twin Cities and even some suburbs. But it’s a slow-moving crisis whose depths and ultimate impact remain difficult to gauge.
Depending on who you talk to and which articles you read, the problem is work-from-home, the problem is leverage, the problem is vacancies, the problem is employers indifferent to the health of cities, the problem is bad landlords, or maybe there’s no problem at all other than capitalism.
And it's not just business; while crime is falling nationwide, it's not falling nearly as fast in Minneapolis. And the social service fraud you may have heard about? Overwhelmingly focused there and in its immediate suburbs.
So what does the city's government spend its time on?
The Minneapolis City Council just devolved into chaos after a disagreement over 2 resolutions urging normalization of relations with Cuba and divestment of European financial institutions from companies that enable ICE and DHS, with council members LaTrisha Vetaw and Aurin…
— Winter (@deenafaywinter) March 26, 2026
I'm not sure if there's a city in America that has more thoroughly "normalized relations" with Cuba's communist regime than Minneapolis.
It was even borderline too much for some on the council:
My colleagues shouldn't be focused on international affairs when we already have enough problems to solve locally. We need to increase police staffing, help our struggling small businesses, and build more affordable housing before we waste time pretending to be diplomats. https://t.co/82Tt3kigXQ
— LaTrisha Vetaw (@LaTrishaVetaw) March 26, 2026
That is, indeed, the big conflict in Minneapolis, a city no less single-party than Havana or Pyongyang; between councilmembers like Vetaw who are there to try to run a failing city, and others...
🚨 After a five-minute recess, Council Member Warren went on a five-minute rant about being a black woman in Minneapolis.
— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) March 26, 2026
She was clearly not happy they were wasting time on these resolutions.
She votes no on both resolutions. https://t.co/X2UQ5pp3SG pic.twitter.com/sMF7QU5rZK
...who seem to think they're on an international stage.
