to consider myself a Minnesotan right now.
Minnesotans hugely pride themselves on their way of life, which includes having competent and responsible government even if it comes with high taxes. I may not agree with that entirely, though that's certainly the case for most residents.
The last few days have seen Minneapolis (and St. Paul) tear itself apart and the curtain pulled back on the supposed utopia locals believe in. It started with the horrific killing of George Floyd. Then Black Lives Matter style protests. Those protests spun out of control into wonton looting and destruction over the last two days. The police station where this all originated was abandoned and overtaken last night. Hundreds of buildings have been raided or set on fire and smoke covers the Twin Cities. Remaining businesses all over have locked and boarded their doors. My mom said cinderblocks were being thrown from overpasses on I-94. Clearly the police don't have a handle on the situation. We have, however, seen retaliatory actions in random pepper spraying of crowds, firing of crowd-dispersal bullets (not sure what to call them) on innocents, and even the idiotic arrest of a black CNN reporter this morning.
Leadership appears to be completely MIA. I know both Mayor Frey and Governor Walz have commiserated with the anger of the protests, and I (can try to) understand the raw emotion of the community, but they can't simply let this continue. Frey appeared to be completely unprepared for a simple question: 'What's the plan?' Walz called out the National Guard, though at this point can we really consider 200 guardsmen and 200 state troopers to be enough? Plus it was state troopers, not city cops, who arrested the CNN reporter and crew. Two days in and no upcoming actions were announced at a presser this morning with both Governor and Mayor. We can probably safely dispel the notion of any competency. I feel for our friends that live in the city and fear that this will continue to get worse.
This isn't a D vs R thing for me. I don't think there are many, or any, Republican politicians in the state that would've handled this situation better. What a mess.
Of course the media, national and local, are being largely unhelpful. Some local reporters at least need to be given credit for documenting what's happening. National reporters are worthless as always, often comically so.
I've come around on some of the tenets of Black Lives Matter. The officer who killed Floyd should be prosecuted and hopefully convicted. There's clearly a nationwide problem with how law enforcement handles people of color. I don't know the solution, but I do know it'll involve taking on police unions and question if either Republicans (law and order) or Democrats (labor supporters) have the stomach for that fight, even if sorely needed. I certainly don't agree with justifying wholesale destruction of a community. Many of these businesses won't come back, hollowing out the city in some respect with long-lasting effect, especially considering the conditions already imposed by COVID.
So yes, I'm saddened and embarrassed by all this. It also has me thinking...
If the weather is miserable most of the year and it's not a nice place to live for other reasons, why should we move back? I never thought I could reasonably compare Baltimore (our closest major city, though 45 minutes away) and Minneapolis. Today I can. Our politics have created a system where far too often there are no adults in the room (I'm including Trump).
I want to include a bunch of pictures, but that'd just be just saving and re-posting from Twitter. So instead I'll just link a couple of accounts already doing a great job and will likely continue to have updates.
Ashley Zilka (reporter for KSTP)
Alpha News MN (fairly recently created local news org)
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