Minnesota has been in the news a lot in recent years, and not in a good way. This essay is a wistful look back at the decline of a once great state.
I moved to Minnesota in 1975, partially inspired by the famous Time Magazine cover featuring Governor Wendall Anderson holding up a caught walleye, touting the “Good Life in Minnesota.” I came for the good life and the in-state college summer school rates offered by the University of Minnesota.
I ended up getting a job in Minneapolis, putting down roots, getting married, having three kids, eventually owning three businesses and owning four Minneapolis houses.
The good life narrative was mostly true. Minnesota was a low-crime, high–quality of life state for most of that time. Yes, the state had liberal tendencies but mostly the do-good, community caring type of liberalism in keeping with the state’s Scandinavian founding population and embodied by politicians such as Hubert Humphrey and Paul Wellstone.
Over the first three decades of my life in MN, the political environment was mixed but acceptable. Interspersed with elected Democrats were Republicans such as senators Dave Durenberger, Rudy Boschwitz, and Rod Grahams. Even as recently as 2011, the state benefited from two-term Republican governor Tim Pawlenty.
But in the last several years, things have changed radically. Democrat Governor Mark Dayton was no friend of freedom-seekers during his reign from 2011 to 2019. But things were to turn far worse. The election of Tim Walz in 2019 brought in an unprecedented level of wokism and oppressive state control. Tax hikes increased in the already overtaxed state. Tampon Tim earned the nickname featured in his hopelessly failed V.P. candidacy for mandating that menstrual products be available in public school boys’ bathrooms as young as fourth grade. Walz was one of the most draconian COVID lockdown governors in the U.S. It was widely reported that he had patrol officers shoot paintballs at citizens sitting on their front porches during the lockdowns.
Walz presided over the genesis of the George Floyd riots. He, his family, and his administration deified this lifelong criminal into a racial martyr, triggering riots all over the country that led to at least 18 deaths and up to $2 billion in property damage. He egregiously let the Minneapolis third police precinct burn, saying it was “only” property. He, along with jejune Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey, have blood on their hands for not quelling this riotous behavior before it metastasized.
Minnesota public schools have been a disaster. Governor Walz and the state Legislature have mandated racial equity education, starting in kindergarten in 2027. New and renewing Minnesota teachers must sign an LGBT affirmation pledge, starting in July of this year, to keep their licenses. Meanwhile, 68% of Minnesota public school fourth-graders are not proficient in reading according to the 2024 Data Book study.
During his ill fated V.P. campaign, Tim Walz and his stolen miliary valor scandals and other gross misrepresentations of his record came into public consciousness. His faux masculinity became a national joke.
Unfortunately, those of us residing here continue to live with his ongoing mal-governance. Minnesota may very well have the most criminal scandalous activity in the nation. For example, the recent Feeding Our Future scam revealed $250,000 in stolen money from needy families, with very little oversight, until a recent criminal conviction. The less said about Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison, the better (spoiler alert: It involves alleged corruption and domestic abuse as well as his befriending Louis Farrakhan).
I look at our state and largest city with sadness and disgust. Minnesota has the sixth highest overall taxes in the country. Ilhan Omar, an America-hating ingrate, is a mainstream media Squad fixture as Minneapolis’s congressional district representative. She is credibly accused of marrying her brother to flout immigration tax laws and gain access to the U.S. Other quality-of-life metrics are negative as well. Violent crime is up, and graffiti in Minneapolis is ubiquitous.
Minnesota is one of only a few states with a death tax significantly under the federal $14-million threshold. As an investment banker, who helps company owners exit from their companies, I can tell you that almost all of these exiting owners set up their post-exit lives in other states (such as Florida and Arizona) so as to not be subject to Minnesota taxes during life and absolutely not upon death. This wealth and brain flight from Minnesota will be devastating for the state in the long term.
Just last month, Minnesota again was featured in the national news because our Soros-funded D.A., Mary Moriarty, decided not to punish a Tesla car vandal who caused $21,000’s worth of damage, keying multiple Tesla cars. A “diversion” program was granted to this criminal even though state guidelines state that this is available only for offenders committing property damage under $5,000. Conveniently, this individual was a mid-level staffer in the Walz administration.
So is there any reason for optimism? Maybe a little.
Minnesota is home to one of the best regional center-right think-tanks in the country, The Center of the American Experiment. The organization publishes outstanding original research and hosts some of the most prominent and thoughtful conservative voices for its events. I continue to support this outstanding organization and encourage all open-minded Minnesotans to do so as well. (The organization is so effective that of course its headquarters was firebombed last year in a “mostly peaceful” gesture.)
Alpha News has sprung up as a font of courageous journalism, doing the job that the moribund legacy newspaper, the Star Tribune, will not do. I commend readers to their outstanding documentary, The Fall of Minneapolis, which covers the corruption and mob rule surrounding the conviction of Derek Chauvin in the George Floyd death case.
Outstate Minnesota is Trump country. When one travels 30 miles outside the Twin Cities Metro area, you are met with a sea of Trump signs and flags. The problem is the concentration of liberal population and Democrat machine politics in the metro area.
I have seen friends and colleagues successfully run for Minnesota school boards and challenge the insane woke and disordered sexual indoctrination happening in Minnesota schools.
All of this is just a start, but I am hopeful that the fever will break and that Minnesota and Minneapolis can once again reclaim the Good Life for which they were for so long praised.
Jeffrey Wright is a Minneapolis-based investment banker, entrepreneur, and concerned citizen.
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