Minnesota Report
While Republicans Challenge the Premise of One Minnesota, that we’re all in on boat concept of the 2018 Tim Walz for Governor Campaign, we see signs of a seething hostility that exists between Greater Minnesota and the Twin Cities. This has been evident for decades, but there is a distinct difference from then to now, and that is the temperature is rising in the out-state area.
This was Trumpland, where red MAGA hats covered people’s brows, Trump flags flew on the backs of pick-up trucks, next to American flags and conspiracy theories took root.
A look at the electoral map of 2016 and 2020 discussed in the following article shows the changes well. The xenophobic, isolationism of the nation is not just a component of life nationally, but regionally here as well. The embrace of Donald J Trump (R) is just the most evident sign of it.
In the 1980s when President Ronald Reagan (R) called for Morning in America, he actually was calling for the devastation and decimation of rural communities. During the time of the movie Wallstreet when “Greed is Good” helped foster rural decay, the Farm Crisis, and the start of the depopulation of the “Greater” sized part of our state.
The idea of you can’t keep them on the farm became the rule, not the exception, but the idea of the return of the prodigal son remained a glimmering thought. Today, the kids leave may be to go to college, or for work and don’t come back. It used to be when people moved from somewhere else in Minnesota to the “Cities” they lived in a suburb on the same side as whence they came, because they didn’t want to “drive through the cities to go home.” Now, they are spread throughout the Twin Cities seven-county metro area and are as likely to live on the opposite side of the urban cluster or worse yet out-of-state.
This means there is a constant brain drain, youth vacuum, and what remains is people who realize nothing but loss, and their anger builds. As schools are more consolidated and communities have to develop a regional identity rather than that of their city, town, or township they experience the lack of a sense of place.
These are the constituent’s Republican officeholders listen to and it is reflected in their legislative perspectives, they see it as us versus them, not a one Minnesota, and they clutch their guns, stockpile their ammunition, and gird for the conflict they see coming.
The hate factor is higher and the anger index is greater the further one travels outside of the seven-county metro area and it played right into Trump’s hands and his message resonated with those seeking to gain back what they think they have lost.