This article was submitted to amerikaner.org by Grant Norman. If you would like to contribute articles, media, podcasts, art, or anything else to the website, please send an email to amerikanercontributions@proton.me
About two years ago, I wrote an article which for this site entitled “Minneapolis is Not My Home”, written in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, and the riots and crime which hollowed out that city.
The death of one career criminal changed Minneapolis, but it also parted the veil on a lot of the changes which had been taking place under the surface. In a similar way, I would like to use the occasion of last week’s elections to reflect once more. This article does not hope to be an out-and-out analysis of the election, but instead a piece which will capture the mood of one man and the state he lives in.
First, to pull the bandage off and talk about the elections. The Republican Party here in Minnesota had high hopes for last Tuesday’s election and they were thoroughly dashed. Going into November 8th, Minnesota had Democratic politicians in every state-wide office. The state legislature stands divided, with Republicans controlling the Minnesota Senate and Democrats controlling the House.
The state’s Republicans, leadership and rank-and-file, believed that this was their year. Control of the legislature falling into unified Republican hands was taken for granted, and there were hopes that, even if Governor Tim Walz got himself reelected, a Republican could oust Attorney General and rabid Antifa supporter Keith Ellison from his post.
The polls looked good; concerns about a lack of vision being offered to voters brushed off with the conventional wisdom that the party of the sitting president always loses in the midterms. Well, instead of close elections, what Minnesota’s Republicans got instead were blowouts.
Not only did Republicans lose every statewide race, but they also lost control of the State Senate, leading to only the second time that one party has controlled all branches of government in Minnesota in thirty years. Republicans had gambled on crime, inflation, and dissatisfaction with Biden and got trounced.
Once the initial shock had worn off, Republicans began the same old blame game. Donald Trump’s bad reputation was the cause of this loss! Or was it abortion? The losing governor candidate declared that restricting abortion was a big-government policy that was at odds with his message about “liberty” and “personal choice”.
While the losers work themselves up, the winners have already unveiled their plans for next year’s legislative session: legalization of marijuana, codification of abortion into state statute, and red flag laws.
Republicans did not fail in Minnesota because their messaging wasn’t slick enough or they were outspent. The truth is, my state’s conservatives are not familiar with the people that they were running to represent. Minnesotans are not natural conservatives. They are liberals. The Republican assumption was that the voters who put Democrats into power in Minnesota had gotten hoodwinked somehow, and that they had not expected the resulting explosions in crime and economic distress.
As last week showed, they didn’t care enough to punish the figures who let businesses and police stations burned to the ground, who opened snitch lines for Minnesotans to rat out their neighbors for ignoring COVID restrictions, and who turned the state into a mecca in the region for women looking to kill their unborn children.
Now, Republicans in Minnesota are back to their party’s familiar playbook. Losing was the best thing that could have happened, because now the Democrats will overreach! They will overstep and the voters will punish them for it! But they won’t. The voters don’t care.
That’s the view from the top-down, and it might sound a little too much like lamenting the Republican loss for our circles. I know that the conservatives would have been twice as disappointing in power as they are out of it, but it’s the environment which produces such lopsided results which has left me disheartened, even looking for an exit.
My foremost duty is to my family, and already, discussions with my wife have turned to exploring moving away from Minnesota for the sake of raising our family away from whatever diabolical agenda will get pushed down the pipeline next.
Minnesota already was restricting access to COVID vaccines to White people on the basis of our European heritage. Minnesota already was the first state to legalize homosexual marriage by voting. What will things be like when our children come of age? What treacherous waters will they have to navigate that we cannot yet fathom?
This may sound like fleeing instead of fighting, and there is a case for not taking that next exit down the highway. On the one hand, my people have stuck it out in far worse circumstances than mine: the Irish under the English, the Poles under the Russians, and the Germans in Sudetenland. Am I dishonoring them by looking for a way out? Am I worthy of living up to their legacy?
On the other hand, my more direct ancestors did not stay in Europe. They came to America, risking a new, unfamiliar land, and an untamed wilderness because they hoped it was better than what they were leaving behind.
In the homelands in Europe, this dilemma may not be so pronoucned, but here in America we are born of the seekers. I cannot speak for our brothers out east, but here in the Midwest, my roots are not as deep. We lack the ruins and history, the castles and plantations of the lands settled earlier.
Here, the old is eagerly wiped away for new development, housing complexes and businesses built where farms and families once thrived. Where would I go? I don’t know. But I see myself increasingly as an alien in my home state. How much it hurts to consider leaving this beautiful land. The rivers and lakes, the woods and the mountains. There is more beauty here in Minnesota than any outsider could ever be aware of, but there is also such a rotten heart beating that threatens to poison it all in the name of diversity and progress.
What diversity?
What progress?
It is a vision that hates me and mine, and would see us broken, abused, and killed. Being White is not enough. Minnesota was well over 90 percent White in the 1960’s. Massachusetts and Oregon have elected openly paraphiliac governors despite their demographics.
There is a path to victory and survival for our people. I don’t know what it is. But I cannot believe that it lies in offering our offspring up as frontline soldiers in some sort of demented Children’s Crusade against the evil which threatens us.
I’m not finished fighting for my family and for my people, but I want it to do so prudently. That suggests a strategy of redoubt or construction, not taking the undue risks that living in Minnesota currently entail for my family.
Redoubt where? Construction, where? That is the question. And I have a feeling many others are asking the same.
I am a Minnesotan whose family has been in the state for generations. I also understand your feelings of despair following the election results and have been there before myself. However, I think it is a hasty decision to move completely out of state. I would like to offer up the following comments on the sub-topics you brought up in your heartfelt, introspective essay before you decide to uproot the life you’ve built for your family so far.
1. “Minnesotans are not natural conservatives.”
As in each of the other 49 states, the same rule applies: urban areas and inner ring suburbs are liberal and rural areas and outer ring suburbs are conservative. The same pattern holds as true for Texas as it does for here. If you talk to people in Republican voting areas of the state, you’ll find they hold many socially conservative views. Don’t go full “power level” and make IRL fed posts, of course, but if you discuss the problems refugees, the transgender agenda, etc. can bring to a community (even better if you can bring up examples of news stories on your phone as evidence!), then you’ll find out you’re far more likely to meet someone who agrees than disagrees. Also, most of the state’s counties shifted further to the right this election, and 8 even flipped for the GOP. The DFL flipped no counties. Don’t believe me? Read it here: https://www.startribune.com/many-of-minnesotas-counties-shifted-right-why-that-wasnt-enough-for-jensen-to-beat-walz/600224371/?refresh=true
The main difficulty in Minnesota is the state’s two largest cities are right next to each other. This is fairly unusual nationwide. As a thought experiment, think of what the state of elections in Wisconsin would be if Milwaukee and Madison were right next to each other, or in Texas if Houston and San Antonio were next to each other, or in Pennsylvania if Pittsburgh and Philadelphia were near each other instead of on opposite ends of the state. Easy access to fundraising capital and networking in a large metro changes the electoral dynamics of a state. The outlying areas are still as conservative as ever.
2. “I know that the conservatives would have been twice as disappointing in power as they are out of it”
A good thing to keep in mind as you consider whether or not the grass is greener. A mistake many people, including myself, tend to make is assuming red states are red at every level of their existence. Ask someone from Alabama if the state’s public schools teach a positive view of the Confederacy and watch them laugh. Voters in Kansas voted against an abortion ban. Voters in Missouri voted to legalize marijuana this mid-term. Your joy in a Republican victory would eventually turn into disappointment over their lack of putting things their supporters want into action. Personally, I think Scott Jensen is a good man, but the most likely Republican leaders of the house and senate would’ve obstructed him in a similar way those at the federal level tried to trip up Trump. There have been sincere politicians who wanted to get a handle on illegal immigration in Texas and Arizona who’ve been snared in traps as well. Additionally, typically blue state reactions are increasingly happening outside of them. The Amerikaner podcast from November 8th on the October 2022 Midwest news roundup highlights two parents in Indiana who lost custody over their child for denying gender identity (re: objecting to their kid’s claim to be transgender), and the leftist in North Dakota who ran over and killed an 18 year old for being a Republican is now free on bail.
3. “the winners have already unveiled their plans for next year’s legislative session… codification of abortion into state statute”
The reality of how American voters view abortion could be its own book, but the summary is that few people fit into the categories of wanting to ban it completely or wanting it legal until 10 minutes before birth. Most people want it legal in certain circumstances (rape, fatal birth defects) or illegal past a certain point of gestation (like 10 or 12 weeks). The false dichotomy offered by the two far ends who’ve monopolized the megaphone has also skewed what people think the other side thinks. The ballot initiatives that would’ve banned or restricted abortion in Kansas, Montana, and Kentucky all failed due to the mass of moderates showing they want a turn at the megaphone. A person who votes for a candidate who wants to keep abortion legal isn’t necessarily a left-wing extremist. They could be shocked by the idea of an abortion for convenience’s sake, but even more shocked by the idea of a teenage rape victim being forced to give birth.
4. “How much it hurts to consider leaving this beautiful land. The rivers and lakes, the woods and the mountains.”
And those are still there, and will be there, ready to be enjoyed beyond any election results. Visit festivals and events in smaller cities and towns to see the true heart of the state and enjoy the scenery on the way to and from there. No matter what the left says or does at the national, state, or local level they CANNOT take your heritage away from you. The stories of the pioneers who built this state are waiting for anyone who flips through their pages in a book. Charles Lindbergh’s home still stands proud in Little Falls. Find the places your ancestors lived in the state, and visit their homes and graves with your children. A sense of rootedness is crucial in a world that worships the new, and it will be tough to replace for you and your children if you move to some place like Montana or Florida because the electoral results map makes it the color red. Many people can see the regime that governs America is slowly crumbling from the weakness of its elite and the ever-growing distrust from the public. Endless liberal dominion? Unlikely.
My final advice: give some time to let the frazzled emotions of a recent election calm down, consider moving to a more rural area of Minnesota if you aren’t already in one, and find some friends locally who share some of your views and who you can form community bonds with. If you want someone who can be quickly accessed to talk or rant about Minnesota related issues there’s always other Minnesotan Amerikaner listeners or, well, me.
First of all, thank you very much for your thoughtful comments on my piece. So many times it feels like shouting into the void, so your attention and insight are greatly appreciated. I’d like to respond to some of your points as well.
1. Regarding the liberal or conservative orientation of Minnesota and its population, I think that there is an undercurrent to the state which makes the state as a whole more liberal or progressive than conservative. (Not that those labels are perfect, but they provide a rough idea of the conflict at play.) When one looks at Minnesota politics, it is amazing how empty the right side of the political ledger is. In that column one can place the impressive Charles Lindbergh as a high-profile name, while on the other side such well-known names as Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Eugene McCarthy, Harold Stassen, and Paul Wellstone. Republicans in the state have had to be liberal in order to win. U.S. Senator (((Rudy Boschwitz))) was a more natural fit electorally than conservative Governor Tim Pawlenty years later, who benefitted from a strong third-party showing. The trouble, I surmise, is that Minnesota is baked in liberalism to the extent where that is the state’s tradition. Ours was founded in large part by the dreamers and radicals shunted off after the failed European revolutions of 1848 and it was the first state to rally to Abraham Lincoln’s banner in the American Civil War. Following the First World War, the Trotskyist Socialist Labor Party was primarily located in New York and in Minneapolis for crying out loud! It requires a kind of dual-mind to preach conservatism when the object of your affection is rooted in inherently unsettling ideologies.
You make a good point with the domination that the Twin Cities have over the rest of the state, with that eclipsing a more naturally conservative rural and small-town folk, but I see this is as another cause for retreat. In states such as Texas and Florida, there exist large metropolitan areas, and those areas are certainly more liberal than the exurbs and towns. But, for the reasons of geography that you pointed out, the cities in those states do not seem to dominate the little people to the extent that Minneapolis-St. Paul. In any case, when Ron DeSantis, for all of his problems, can win Miami-Dade County there is something deeper at work, I think, than only a rural-urban divide. If we look at culture, I think that Minneapolis-St. Paul are more in line with Minnesotans than say a liberal in Montgomery is with Alabama, and Alabamians’ sense of identity.
2. I agree wholeheartedly with your points here. I do not wish to glorify red states because they are red. The two-party political system is a rotten one. Earlier this week, Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa voted in favor of homosexual marriage despite Republicans winning every U.S. Congressional seat in Iowa. It isn’t electioneering that makes so many Republican politicians tilt to the left, that is what they actually believe. The real pretending is in appealing to the right. With all of that being said, there is still something temperamentally different in Alabama than in Minnesota, traits that the blue state-red state divide hint at more than explain fully. Moving to a Republican-dominated state is not the final solution (lol), but as a tactical calculation. States which tend to produce those political outcomes seem to have a culture which is less meddling, domineering, and ideological than in a liberal state. While public schools in Alabama may not be celebrating Robert E. Lee any more, the state and local governments there and in other Republican-leaning states seem to be less likely to break into my home and destroy my family. With how closely Minnesota liberals like to mimic California, it is deeply alarming to see the Californian legislature turning their state into a haven for child trafficking and mutilation. To return to your earlier point, the people in rural Minnesota may be more sympathetic and understanding of my family and our values, but they would lack the ability or the will to stop the leviathan in St. Paul should it turn its attentions on us. That seems to be an unnecessary vulnerability.
3. What alarms me most about the subject of abortion in Minnesota is that it is being given a prime place at the table, for both voters and government. When voters are motivated to turn out and vote by the allure of abortion, in a state where there are no restrictions and constitutionally cannot be any restrictions, and where politicians give it higher priority than crime, rising prices, or a thousand other issues, that does not just suggest to me bad policy but a diseased way of thinking. I have my opinions on the merit of the question, but to have it elevated above issues which exist outside of fevered dreams in Minnesota suggests to me an underlying issue with the state’s culture. Inquiring with a few churches in our area, I was surprised at how many of them shut down their pro-life work not just this year but in years past, citing a lack of interest and involvement. Again, these people may be kind and sympathetic toward me and mine, but they will not put up a fight to protect us.
4. How hard must it have been to leave behind the beauties of Europe! While my ancestors have worked and died in this country, their predecessors built castles, churches, and kingdoms in the Old World! Yet, they did not stay but instead crossed into a new world to build a new home, with new memories and traditions and landmarks.
This system is crumbling – “their world is dying while ours is being born”, and all, but it is still a question of when. I hope and pray that I live to see the chaos, not for my own selfish aggrandizement, but so that I can marshal my family through it, so that I may suffer the worst of it rather than pass the cup to their lips.
What I wrote in this article was the product of an initial despair, and I hope time and reflection will temper that feeling into resolute decision and action. But I think that there are underlying issues of culture and character which go deeper than the outcomes of elections. With a centralized power structure driven by ideologues who hate me, I still need to consider, more soberly and more deeply, a retreat.
Thank you again, North Star Anon, for the taking the time to comment, and I’d greatly welcome the chance to talk more.
Grant
My paragraph breaks for spacing for my comment don’t seem to be working in the previews… I have no idea what the issue is, but if someone with moderating abilities is able to edit the comment that would be great. There should be paragraph breaks between “built for your family so far.” and numbered point 1. The Star Tribune URL and “The main difficulty in Minnesota” are also separated by paragraph breaks. Numbered points 2., 3., and 4. are also separated by breaks. The sentence towards the bottom that’s labeled “My final advice:” should be preceded by a paragraph break. This comment doesn’t need to be published. I am sorry for the complications, but I really want to get my reply to Grant Norman without it looking like a massive wall of text. Thank you.
It went through with paragraph breaks without any editing, its still a big ol wall of text though 😉
Comment previews can be finicky creatures, can’t they? Thanks for checking it over for me. This was a thoughtful essay about a serious issue (whether or not to move away from home), so I thought it warranted a detailed response since I had been through this fork in the road myself. Hopefully, the length won’t intimidate anyone too much.