Republicans often point to New York and California as the cutting edge of progressive insanity. Leaders in these two blue states often embrace their opponents’ label and proudly advertise themselves as an example for others to follow. The process of left-wing laws and regulations spreading outward to other states is even known as the “California effect.” Yet despite his self-lauded leadership, Gov. Gavin Newsome’s California fails to live up to the liberal hellscape that is Minnesota.
Although Minnesota is a largely rural, Midwestern state, it has leaned decidedly blue for decades — since 1976, to be exact. Older Americans will remember that Minnesota was the only state to go for Walter Mondale in Ronald Reagan’s landslide victory of 1984, giving it the longest blue streak of any state in the nation. (RELATED: Transgender Inmate Settles With Minnesota Department Of Corrections, Will Transfer To Women’s Facility, Get Surgery)
Minnesota has a long history of labor organizing and social activism that solidified the left’s institutional foundation in the state. The merger between the state’s Democratic Party and its left-wing Farmer-Labor Party in the 1950’s led to a unified Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party that now holds every statewide office and majorities in both legislative chambers. Minnesota’s dense urban areas have a larger population than the rest of the state and there is consistently high voter turnout. A Republican has not been elected statewide since 2006, making Minnesota effectively a one-party state.
Given the left’s total control, it is unsurprising that Minnesota has passed some of the most radical legislation in the nation’s history. This year alone, the DFL passed legislation establishing a “fundamental right” to abortion, repealed protections for babies who survive abortion and defunded pregnancy centers that promote alternative options for women. Taxpayers now foot the bill for abortions as well.
It also declared the state a “refuge” for minors seeking sex changes. Minnesota will no longer comply with out-of-state requests pertaining to so-called transgender minors, allowing the state to overrule the parent. The state’s new “Take Pride Act” forces non-profits to cater to gender identity and initially even sought to remove anti-pedophile language from Minnesota’s Human Rights Act.
On the economic front, the DFL increased taxes while increasing spending on an array of progressive projects, including healthcare for illegal immigrants. (RELATED: Minnesota To Provide Illegal Immigrants With Free College Tuition)
The party also created an automatic voter registry, expanded early registration to minors and allowed felons to vote. These measures all but ensure that Democrats will never lose another election in the state.
Meanwhile, Columbus Day has been replaced with Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Juneteenth was made an official holiday. Perhaps most frighteningly of all, the DFL created a “hate speech database” to presumably track, intimidate and suppress anyone who challenges progressive orthodoxy.
I think wokeness may not be going into remission. I think it may not be an intra-elite signaling contest. I think it may be the blueprint for future Democratic party rule that is already successfully legislating its preferences where the party has control. https://t.co/d9ynSmSwyU
— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) May 26, 2023
It is worth noting that all of this occurred with just a one-seat majority in the Senate decided by just a few hundred votes. Even though the DFL technically had the raw power to ram through its agenda, it is hard to argue that they had a democratic mandate to do so. Sweeping changes to the letter and spirit of the law ought to arise from proportionally large majority support. Take for example FDR’s landslide victory that established the basis of support for the New Deal, a radical shift at the time.
Yet ramming through their agenda is precisely the point. The DFL knows its platform is wildly unpopular with average voters — that is why it must impose it swiftly and forcefully before the voters catch onto the real agenda. This is the same strategy the left hopes to accomplish at the national level while it has a non-threatening figurehead at the helm in the form of President Joe Biden. Minnesota now serves as a “success story” for the national left to point to. (RELATED: ‘Bonkers’: Minnesota Finishes Legislative Session With Sweeping Left-Wing Reforms)
The American Founders knew that the best way to establish a strong and enduring Union was to allow the states to experiment with the laws and customs that work best for their citizens. The national government has enumerated powers — all other powers not explicitly delegated to or prohibited by the Constitution fall to the states, per the Tenth Amendment.
This became the basis of Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis’ famous remark on the states as the laboratories of democracy. On the basis of the Tenth Amendment, “a state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country,” he said. Throughout much of our history, this has been a boon to American governance and innovation. Successful experimentation can and should be replicated at the national level.
Yet Minnesota distorts this proposition. States would not be following a successful policy; in fact, the success of the policy is immaterial. It is pre-determined that this is the road the left wants to travel.
The left does not care about the harm radical transgender policies do to children, the carnage fueled by encouraging the border crisis or the loss of trust in our electoral system. There is no way to argue that their policies are “successful,” unless one defines success as consolidating political power around the common ideology that underpins these issues. Rather than replicating a successful policy, they are replicating effective strategy toward this end.
In this way, Minnesota does not represent a laboratory of democracy, but rather a laboratory of despotism.