A lot of Minnesotans are still wiping away tears from the loss of young children at the hands of a Minneapolis monster. But not as many as those whose first response in the wake of the tragedy was to rally around the “trans community” and more gun control laws.
It seems official now, Minnesota is flatlining.
My mother was born in the NorthStar state. It was where we raised our family and spent most of my broadcasting career. I represented Minnesota’s 2nd district in Congress.
But there’s a reason I live in Florida now. And it’s the same reason so many folks from New York, Massachusetts, Illinois and California do as well. Their home states are growing increasingly uninhabitable.
Minnesota is a product of its culture — whether epic riots, gang shootings, violence at the once-tranquil State Fair or the taking of young Catholic life perpetrated by an evildoer seen as “marginalized” by Minnesota politicians, media and business institutions.
This is my third summer in the Sunshine State but the “rainy season” is always a good time to trek back “up North” to lake country, a place that still holds so many wonderful memories for me and my family.
If you’re lucky, you can enjoy the hospitality of good friends, reminisce a bit — as most transplants to the South do — and gauge the pace of decline in places that used to be considered quite livable.
This summer’s trip down memory lane was no different.
If anything, worse — starting with the commute past medians un-mowed for months from MSP airport toward St. Paul. From there to George Floyd Square in Minneapolis where business activity is absent and the streets dangerous, especially at night. The flailing Minnesota Twins (whose owners did so much to promote the current state of affairs) have more day games and 6:00 o’clock starts.
Minnesota deserves a special dishonorable mention because it had the “good life” and let it go. One could argue the state’s long-time liberalism finally caught up with it once LBJ’s Great Society began subsidizing transplants — foreign and domestic. But it was also homegrown by a host of lily-white, self-loathing Lutherans who think they’ve got it coming.
During the riots of 2020, Minnesota First Lady Gwen Walz said she could proudly “smell the burning tires. That was a very real thing, and I kept the windows open as long as I could because I felt like that was such a touchstone of what was happening.”
Indeed, it was the one-two punch of the George Floyd riots and the bizarre COVID lockdowns engineered by Gwen’s “partner” (husband and wife is a bit too patriarchal for Minnesota) that finally turned the Twin Cities into a place my mother would no longer recognize.
But despite the carnage, the dominant population centers ignored warnings from the sane among them and doubled-down on crazy in the subsequent years. They are doing it again today amid a quisling opposition that only expedites the downward trajectory.
Downtown is vacant as Target and the rest of the Minnesota Business Partnership hang on to what’s left of their DEI departments.
Media outlets, especially the Star Tribune (where the CEO and publisher is Walz’s former economic development commissioner), are little more than “house organs” for Minnesota Democrats.
The Minnesota Vikings hire a “male” cheerleader in the shortest of shorts to prance around the taxpayer funded US Bank stadium.
But of course those most responsible for the chaos remain the state’s political leaders. The nation saw how bizarre Gov. Tim Walz was in 2024, what they didn’t see was his Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan who wears a “protect trans kids” tee-shirt emblazoned with a very large knife.
Nor Minnesota’s congressional delegation, save for Ilhan Omar who gets attention for her brazen anti-Americanism. Liberal Democrat Amy Klobuchar is the darling of the “business community” and its media mouthpieces. And heaven forbid if folks knew of radical abortionist Senator Tina Smith, along with her would-be replacement, trans-rights activist Rep. Angie Craig.
They are Minnesota’s own Thelma and Louise vying to do for the country what they’ve done for the state — take it over the proverbial cliff. Altogether and it’s the greatest collection of misfits since the bar scene in “Star Wars.”
And yet, there are places in Greater Minnesota where the original state flag flies and the Carlsons and Andersens still reside. Communities not yet ravaged by the perversity of the Twin Cities metro. But they are woefully outnumbered by the state’s one, large metropolitan area — though its residents are fleeing.
For all the optimists who say things are about to turn the corner, there are many more who say, “Let me know when the city councils of Minneapolis and St. Paul change hands. Not in your lifetime.”
For those folks, “up North” is now a summer destination for a few days a year. It saddens me to say, I’m one of ‘em.
Former Minnesota Congressman Jason Lewis, now a resident of Fort Myers, writes at Substack and is the author of “Party Animal, The Truth About President Trump, Power Politics & the Partisan Press.“
This article first appeared in The News-Press.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not represent an official position of Alpha News.
Jason Lewis
Jason Lewis is a former Minnesota congressman and broadcast veteran. Prior to serving in the 115th Congress, Lewis hosted a talk radio program for over 25 years and has authored two books, Power Divided is Power Checked (2010) and Party Animal (2022).
