[image_credit]REUTERS/Lucas Jackson[/image_credit][image_caption]The poll found 59 percent of Greater Minnesota residents who responded to the poll had an unfavorable view of Walz. It was nearly the opposite in Minneapolis-St. Paul, where 55 percent of voters polled had a positive view of the DFL governor.[/image_caption]
Now, eight months into Joe Biden’s presidency, Minnesota’s geographic divide remains stark.
An Aug. 28-31 MinnPost poll of 1,945 Minnesota voters found that rural and urban voters in Minnesota split sharply on everything from their views of Gov. Tim Walz and the state’s response to COVID-19 to the results of the 2020 election. Suburban voters, who are typically key to elections in Minnesota, often fell somewhere in the middle of the two voting blocs.
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And while there are at least a few issues where Greater Minnesota and the Twin Cities are more closely aligned, the state’s polarization now extends even to views on people with a history of bridging some political divides.
“You see a lot of the same things carrying forward that you saw in the 2020 election, and the 2018 election and the 2016 election,” said Cynthia Rugeley, a professor and head of the political science department at the University of Minnesota Duluth. “You do have this partisan divide between the urban areas and the non-urban areas in the city.”
Polarized views on politicians
The poll, conducted by Change Research, found 59 percent of Greater Minnesota residents who responded to the poll had an unfavorable view of Walz. It was nearly the opposite in Minneapolis-St. Paul, where 55 percent of voters polled had a positive view of the DFL governor. Suburban residents of the seven-county metro area, meanwhile, were split exactly evenly on Walz.
Overall, 44 percent of all people who responded had a favorable view of the governor, compared to 48 percent who had an unfavorable view.
[image_credit]MinnPost photo by Craig Lassig[/image_credit][image_caption]Sen. Amy Klobuchar[/image_caption]
Klobuchar did worse in Greater Minnesota in the 2018 race compared to her 2012 victory — when she won 85 of the state’s 87 counties — and Rugeley said it’s not unexpected that Klobuchar could slip in rural areas amid growing political polarization. “There is less support for her and other Democrats in the more Republican areas,” Rugeley said.
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But Rugeley cautioned against reading into the results of a single poll, saying more evidence is needed to determine if Klobuchar’s popularity is really down in Minnesota.
[image_credit]REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst[/image_credit][image_caption]President Joe Biden[/image_caption]
Rugeley said “you sense some frustration with the fact that COVID hasn’t gone away” in the strong opposition among Greater Minnesota voters to Democratic politicians and more modest support in the Twin Cities and surrounding suburbs.
Some DFL voters are perhaps even lashing out over issues like the Line 3 pipeline, Rugeley said, even though a majority of people agree with Walz and other Democrats on key pandemic and environmental issues. And while she said generally she wants to see more data before the 2022 election, Walz isn’t likely to do as well in Greater Minnesota as he did when he first won office in 2018 as a rural Democrat who had served southern Minnesota in Congress.
“The midterm election is often a referendum on the party of the incumbent president,” said Patrick Donnay, a political science professor at Bemidji State University. “These poll results show that trend is likely to play itself out again – higher motivation and disapproval of Democrat policies from Republicans.”
Donnay said, however, the poll was taken during “an especially bad week for the Biden Presidency” as Taliban fighters captured Kabul during a chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the war in Afghanistan. The topic, Donnay said, “likely will not loom so large a year from now.”
“This may have tamped down Democrat support and amped up disapproval,” Donnay said.
Lawmakers are also still working to draw new legislative and congressional districts based on the results of the 2020 census. Donnay said population shifts could reduce the number of rural legislative districts and increase the number of suburban and urban ones. “So how rural dissatisfaction translates to legislative seats is probably not as important as suburban,” Donnay said.
In 2016, there were almost as many votes in the Twin Cities suburbs as in all 80 counties outside the metro area. And there were nearly four times as many votes for president in the suburbs as in Minneapolis and St. Paul. In the metro area counties, excluding Minneapolis-St. Paul, 50 percent of respondents said they would vote for Walz over a generic Republican candidate, while 39 percent said they would pick the GOP and 10 percent said they weren’t sure. Overall, Walz held a 46-44 advantage in the question, with 10 percent not sure.
Rugeley said the state leans towards Democrats, especially with the political shift in the suburbs. Despite backlash against DFLers, “when it comes down to ‘who are you going to vote for,’ they go back home” and often choose Democrats.
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Former president Donald Trump was generally well liked in Greater Minnesota, where 53 percent of respondents had favorable views of the Republican. But he was also the most unpopular politician among respondents of the poll. In the metro suburbs, 36 percent said they had favorable views of Trump; and just 28 percent in the Twin Cities had favorable views toward the former president. Overall, across the state, 41 percent said they had a favorable view of Trump while 53 percent had an unfavorable view of the twice-impeached Republican.
Greater Minnesota, Twin Cities split on COVID, election results
The poll also found Minnesota voters to be divided by geography over COVID-19 issues. It found that 56 percent of Greater Minnesota respondents strongly opposed — or somewhat opposed — mask mandates for unvaccinated students in K-12 schools, while 67 percent of those who responded in Minneapolis-St. Paul supported such mask requirements. In the metro-area suburbs, 58 percent of voters in the poll said they support mask mandates for unvaccinated students.
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While 51 percent of those polled in Greater Minnesota said businesses should not be able to require employees to be vaccinated, 69 percent in the Twin Cities said businesses should require workers to be vaccinated or at least be allowed to require employees to be vaccinated.
[image_credit]REUTERS/Brendan McDermid[/image_credit][image_caption]A syringe filled with a dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine.[/image_caption]
Not total disagreement
There are issues, however, with more agreement across geographic lines even if there is still a gap in views. The poll found 76 percent of voters in Greater Minnesota either strongly disapproved or somewhat disapproved of people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. In the Twin Cities, 88 percent said they disapproved of the riot.
Roughly 75 percent of Minneapolis-St. Paul voters in the poll said they strongly or somewhat support Minnesota accepting several dozen Afghan refugees who have been granted special visas for directly helping the U.S. Military. In Greater Minnesota, 60 percent supported taking those refugees.
[image_credit]U.S. Marine Corps/Sgt. Samuel Ruiz/Handout via REUTERS[/image_credit][image_caption]Afghan refugees boarding a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III transport plane during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Afghanistan.[/image_caption]
The poll also found 77 percent of respondents in Greater Minnesota have a favorable view of police officers, compared to 68 percent in the metro suburbs and 58 percent in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
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Respondents were somewhat aligned on one economic question: the cost of living. About 66 percent of Greater Minnesota voters polled said their income was falling behind the cost of living while 26 percent said it was “staying about even” with the cost of living. Only 3 percent said their income was going up faster than the cost of living. Roughly 64 percent of metro suburban voters said their income was falling behind the cost of living, while 28 percent said it was staying even.
In the Twin Cities, 55 percent of respondents said their income was falling behind the cost of living, while 35 percent said income was steady but not rising faster than the cost of living.
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Methodology
The poll was conducted from August 28 to 31 and respondents included 1,945 registered voters. Change Research’s online polling methodology uses targeted social media ads and text messages to recruit respondents. The organization has a B- pollster rating from FiveThirtyEight.
The company uses a “modeled” margin of error, which it says accounts for the effects of weighting the poll (or making adjustments to better reflect the state’s demographics). The results were weighted on age, gender, race/ethnicity, 2020 vote, education, and region. The modeled margin of error for the statewide sample was +/- 2.5 percentage points. The margin of error for women is +/- 3.3 percentage points. For men it is +/- 3.7 percentage points. The margin of error for Democrats and leaners is +/- 3.7 percentage points. For Republicans and leaners it is +/- 3.7 percentage points. The margin of error for geographies are rural: +/- 3.8 percentage points, suburban: +/- 4.2 percentage points; urban: +/- 5 percentage points. The margin of error for regions are Twin Cities: +/- 4.5 percent points; metro area: +/- 5.7 percentage points; Greater Minnesota: +/- 3.3 percentage points.
Rural/suburban/urban distinctions are based on GreatData classifications, however Greater Minnesota, metro area and Twin Cities distinctions are based on those geographic regions.
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More information on the methodology can be found here.
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This is an elite vs. working folk split.
I assume you are referring to the fact that working folk in the metro heavily subsidize people in outstate Minnesota. They are “elite” in the sense that they won’r acknowledge that the taxes of hard-working people in the metro pay for their lifestyle.
So Mr. Terry, what is your point? One cannot exist without the other.
My point is that people and politicians should stop demonizing the metro. That they should stop with nonsense about working folk and elites.
I don’t mind subsidizing rural Minnesota. I don’t mind that people in the metro have a bigger share of their taxes directed outstate.
What I do mind is the lack of acknowledgment of that, and the deliberate falsification of that reality.
The point is pretty obvious. He’s objecting to the tired trope of rural conservatives being portrayed as “working people” and everyone else as “elites”.
Or maybe Ms. Wicklow has a point. I *do* feel a little guilty sitting here in my shiny city doing no work and living off the labor of all the salt-of-the-earth types in “Greater” Minnesota.
And if one cannot exist without the other, why are rural politicians constantly attacking and demonizing the Metro? You just don’t hear Metro politicians demonizing rural folks.
What rock have you been hiding under?
How much is the metro supporting
GMO crops, copper mining, Line 3 and wolf hunts?
How do metro elites talk about Trump supporters?
They tell the truth about them. These are people who support a man who has been a loser and a failure his whole life. A man who inherited a fortune and squandered it on one business failure after another. A man who lies constantly, including about the fact that he lost an election. A man who led the country into the worst economy since the depression and causes the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of people through his mishandling of Covid.
The idea metro subsidizes outstate sounds like crap, if you’ll pardon my French. Highways? Sure, there’s more highways in outstate. But the last time I checked we all use them. Maybe you want to pay at the gate the next time you head to the cabin. Better yet, show some guts, and tell a local what you think of them (you won’t).
It may sound like crap to you, but its absolutely true. The metro pays far more in taxes than it gets back in spending, while the opposite is true in rural areas. Its far more than highways. And that isn’t just true in Minnesota – its rural and metro areas everywhere. And its blue states subsidizing red states.
Tell a local what you think of them? It has nothing to do with what I think of them. Its just a fact. And you have just told me that rural people are working folk while people in the metro are elite. I don’t have anything against rural people and I don’t mind working extra hard so my taxes can subsidize them. All I want is the rural resentment of the metro – which is based on falsehoods – to stop, along with nonsense like the false working folk/elites distinction.
You’ll have to show me how they pay more, not just tell me. For instance, I’m sure per mile expenditures make the metro appear generous to outstate taxpayers– on paper. But what about the thousands, the tens of thousands of DOT workers based in the Metro? How about the tens of thousands of Human Services and other state workers based in the metro? These live in Mpls./St. Paul. Outstate gets a hugely reduced economic benefit. What about light rail. All the destruction of stste property from the riots?
Like I said, it sounds like partisan crap. As for “falsehoods” and “nonsense”, stick a corncob in it. I’m willing to bet, per taxpayer, in any real analysis, they pay too much.
According to a report from the Minneapolis Chamber, “In 2017, Minneapolis had a balance of payments of -$1.43 billion, having paid out $1.97 billion in taxes while receiving $536 million in aids from the State – a ratio of approximately 3.5 to 1.
This negative balance of payments for Minneapolis is closely mirrored by negative balances of payments in 2016 for the seven county Metro region (-$3.46 billion) and for Hennepin County (-$2.45 billion). This report finds that these lopsided contributions have been consistent every year since at least 2004.”
https://mcusercontent.com/083a5cdd0cae95800d2f87d46/files/294d4724-0d8d-4497-b721-56d901b59ee2/Minneapolis_Regional_Chamber_Balance_of_Payments_Analysis.pdf
You’d 100% lose that bet. There aren’t even any odds on it because what you believe is simply NOT true. But, I’m happy to take your money. It’ll be the first time *I* get anything back as one of those educated, successful professionals who supposedly doesn’t work. /s I guess I just worked my rear end off through school to do nothing. I totally didn’t earn any of my degrees or my current salary. /s
Give it a rest. You don’t get to demonize people who made a better lives for themselves by getting an education. And you don’t get to claim the truth is the opposite of reality and expect anyone to respect it.
I can demonize all I want. Professionals have easier jobs, get paid more, and enjoy much better job security, health benefits, and retirements. They do not deserve these things. Not as long as others who work harder, are paid less, etc. etc. don’t have it.
You want to feel good. I understand that. But sometimes the truth does not make this possible. You can feel good by ignoring the truth. It’s one way to live. As a matter of fact, it’s the way many live. It enables them to feel good, and moral, even though they have no intention of sharing in any meaningful way.
Union laborers have pretty good pay and benefits. Maybe you should join a union.
My union neighbor just got laid off. Very common. I’m sorry, but you can’t compare the pay, benefits, security, conditions. There is no comparison.
Although the idea of a union is moving in the right direction. We should have a national union for all laborers. It would approximate the benefits of the teacher union here in MN. Things would improve dramatically for all of us.
Easier jobs? Can you do my job? It isn’t easy. And you can’t do it. I invested a lot into being able to do my job, from an education to certification. I don’t disagree that we should ALL be paid a living wage, but the idea that if you sweat for your job you should be paid more than someone whose job doesn’t require sweat is ridiculous. Yes, demonize all you want, but no one should take you seriously. I would be on board if you were to propose that money earned by work (both labor and service) be taxed less than money made by simply changing hands, but you didn’t.
I doubt we’re disagreeing. Your job entitles you to better pay. It does not entitle you to enhanced human rights. Health care, child care, elder care, safe and affordable housing, a secure retirement are all human rights. Until the laborer gets the same health care, child care, etc. as the average, say, public school teacher, none of us should feel very good, or smug.
In addition, I’m a little surprised by the resistance in these postings to admitting the professional doesn’t work as hard as the laborer. We don’t, and it’s that simple. If you’ve spent any time touring a production facility, you know what hard work is. And you return to your desk, humble and thankful.
I find it absolutely bizarre that you think that only physical labor constitutes work. What is this, the 1600s?
Why don’t I deserve these things? I went to school for a long time to become a lawyer. Do you know why I make a lot of money? Because of the free market. Because my services are in demand.
Umm, what exactly do you think pays for things like sewage treatment, medical care, drinking water systems, etc… in areas where the population has been in unending decline for decades? Or are you under the impression that your “working folks” ONLY exist on small self-sufficient homesteads, with the population of small town rural Minnesota being lumped in with the “elites”? It’s like you’ve never heard of LGA or something.
That’s a rather poor reflection on working folks, don’t you think? Apparently in your mind “working folks” must by definition be uneducated, backwards, unsuccessful rubes as it seems your definition of “elite” is confined to those educated, professional, and successful. An odd choice for one who claims to champion the cause of those same “working folks”.
Ever see an “educated, professional, and successful” work? They aren’t working, at least nothing like the people in the plant. Using the same word is an insult.
Is your doctor not working?
Part time. He plans to stick the government (that’s you and me and the guy stocking the produce shelves) for about $200,000 in loans after ten years, when the balance gets forgiven.
Come on. We don’t have to argue. Let’s not compare the best paid, most secure people with laborers. There is no comparison.
Right out of the gate this report is flawed. Other numbers would dwarf those in this report. The real issue is taxes paid vs. economic benefit. Here’s where outstate really loses.
First and foremost, the vast army of public employees are largely metro-based. They ain’t buying houses or spending their money in Albert Lea. Outstate residents also pay the same as you for publicly-funded entities like the U of M, history and science museums, sports stadiums, LRT, the airport. But far less likely to use these, if at all.
Furthermore, I’m willing to bet the massive Health and Human Services budget, always in the tens of billions, tilts heavily to the metro. Why? The people who need it live there, or are forced to live there to get the services they require (and which I for one do not deny them). But the fact remains. Once more, outstate is paying, but not using.
There is far more to this story than partisan talking points. As a matter of fact, when a political party tells me to say something, I immediately resist. Why are they saying it? Are they telling me the whole story? More often than not, they aren’t.
Apparently you’ve never heard of the U extension office, or realize that many of the students AT the U come from these areas (like yours truly, rural WI but same difference). Never minding the health care support major population centers provide for rural hospitals and the aforementioned LGA support that literally allows rural communities (and all those rural “laborers”) to exist, when they would have otherwise folded decades ago. A higher percentage of rural folks live in poverty, and avail themselves of HHS services than do those on metropolitan areas, many of them being the elderly. You quite literally haven’t any idea what you are talking about.
And you quite literally ignore my point. It’s the jobs and venues the metro provides, and economic benefits raining down from these, that make it inequitable.
“Inequitable?” Or “that’s the way the ball bounces”?
There are more people in the cities, so there are more jobs, and a place for the kids to go when they realize that their economic prospects in Bugtussle aren’t all that good. This has been happening, like it or not, since humans started congregating in cities.
Perhaps you would like to take a break from the hard not-work of being a contrarian and tell us how this “inequity” might be addressed?
I’m not alone in this. Others feel we should spread state jobs more equitably. This will never happen. It takes jobs from the metro. We can’t have that.
Remember when they were going to build the airport in St. Cloud? That didn’t happen either.
State jobs are concentrated in the metro because it’s where the state capitol is, and it’s the population center of the state. Kind of makes more sense to have them here.
Relocating the MSP airport to St. Cloud likewise made no sense.
This is how the capitalist system works. Money is invested where money can be made. That *might* adjust somewhat with more opportunities to work from home, but you seem to think that the skills that might make a person marketable even when they live in the boonies are worthless. What you’re proposing is something different altogether — inefficiencies in the name of fairness. Ever read “Harrison Bergeron?” It’s a cautionary tale, not a roadmap.
And it would be far worse if the metro didn’t subsidize rural Minnesota.
Nope. And again, its not just in Minnesota. Rural people are being subsidized by hard-working people all over the country.
To use your own term, that’s crap (although a more apt term would be a portmanteau describing male bovine excreta). It’s a mixture of populism with sophistry that would get you laughed off the debate team at any high school in America.
A person who provides services for another in exchange for anticipated payment is “working.” It is not physical labor, but it is work nonetheless. In an increasingly automated and mechanized society, work is about hitting a keyboard as much as it is handling a shovel.
You get an A for understanding and using the word sophistry. However, it doesn’t apply to my argument. I simply see “work” in a different light. Like I don’t think of Kirk Cousins’ job as “working”.
How about providing equitable pay and benefits to labor. That would go a long way.
“You get an A for understanding and using the word sophistry. However, it doesn’t apply to my argument.”
Yes, I’m afraid it does.
“I simply see ‘work’ in a different light.”
A passage from a favorite book comes to mind:
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
There is work, which we agree on the definition. There is hard work, which we do not.
The great irony is that the people who do “hard work” in your worldview need to be subsidized by people who merely work. The “hard workers” are dependent on the mere workers.
Wow, I guess when I’m sweating my unmentionables off on a hot roof in the summer, my degree magically disappears? What a siloed sentiment, and a ridiculous one at that.
If you’re a laborer, your degree does disappear. Also your 401K, your fat pension, your generous health benefits, etc. What are we arguing about, anyway?
Wow, apparently you’ve not heard of these people, called tradesman, many of whom have education you label “elite”. Guess they don’t work either. What a facile and ridiculous argument.
There is such a thing as gradations. But I stand behind my point. Those working the hardest receive the least.
Doubling down on a bad argument doesn’t make it any more persuasive. Spite is an ugly sentiment, and it doesn’t really ever persuade.
Ms. Wicklow… what did YOU do again before you retired to Florida? Do you as a former multiple business owner and employer classify yourself as a “working stiff” of some kind? When you complain about taxes you’re an elite business owner but when you draw upon the savings you racked up as business owner you’re just hard working rural folk?
Again, there’s gradations. There’s highly talented pros. Not so talented pros, and bums. Same with labor. Except they seem to get punished whether good or not. Unlike the pros.
Is that supposed to be an answer to my question?
Hilarious, I grew up in a small Minnesota town and the elite ran things there and those folks sure as hell weren’t Democrats. Every little town in every county in this state is the same way, the local business owners and Large factory farmers run the show, everyone else is just along for the ride. Ask anyone who grew up in a small town and they can name the family or families that run their town.
That’s my point. The other 90% work, and work hard.
Except your point makes no sense, because those 90% are just as biased toward urban areas as the 10%. You’re trying to overlay YOUR worldview on people for whom it doesn’t apply.
Those in rural Minnesota and the Arrowhead want their freedom and distrust government. It’s time we hold them accountable for their views. The metro area needs to stop propping them up. They need to stand on their own two feet.
I recommend you boycott their products
I recommend they stop taking metro tax money.
Not at all hard to do. Most of our groceries come from everywhere but rural Minnesota and anyone with a lick of sense avoids ethanol all at all costs.
Nothing really surprising in this poll. I do wish that there would be a planned focus group discussion to flesh-out the reasons behind responses and if people are persuadable. These numbers show that the tricky part for the DFL is to maintain the support of the suburbs, which generally relies on appealing to data, science, nuance, schools, tolerance, etc. This becomes less possible to achieve in more rural counties when the base premise among so many is that Trump won the election (as an example). Certainly it would be a mistake for the DFL to run half-hearted races in rural Minnesota. But, running DFL candidates that are more aligned with ‘metro-issues’ is a sure formula to lose, and there is little incentive for metro-campaign money to be spent on rural races when the candidates cannot win and their issues are in opposition to winning issues in the seven county metro. It is highly likely that single-issue-voting on abortion-rights will be front and center at the 2022 caucuses and conventions. I cannot imaging very much money flowing from the metro area to a rural anti-choice DFL candidate in 2022.
To win in rural Minnesota, DFLers would have to mute the social and behavioral issues, figure out exactly what the needs and problems of their local area are, and propose common-sense solutions for them.
Whatever you say about the early 20th century Louisiana politician Huey Long, he hit upon a winning formula for bridging the urban-rural divide. In his career as a traveling salesman, he experienced the lack of paved roads in the state and continually met families whose children were not in school because they couldn’t afford to pay for textbooks. He realized that both poor infrastructure and illiteracy were holding his state back, so he campaigned largely on two issues: paved roads and free textbooks for public school children. As a documentary on his life mentioned, he was one of the few politicians of his time who didn’t incorporate racism into his campaign. (I doubt that Black people could vote in Louisiana in those days, but I suppose that a lot of politicians thought that pledges to uphold segregation would be appealing to the white people who could vote.)
So what are the comparable issues for rural Minnesota? I don’t know, but certainly some young and ambitious DFLers in the rural areas do know which economic issues would most appeal to their neighbors. Maybe they won’t win the first time around, but their ideas will have been put forth as a contrast to the Republicans’ fear-mongering, Trump worship, and catering to prejudice. Having seen a supposedly solidly Republican district in Oregon flip over three election cycles, I know it can be done.
Let’s be frank. If you believe Trump won the election despite all the hard evidence that proves otherwise, you get to get back to reality. Remember – voting for a losing candidate does not have to make you a loser. It happens to all of us. He was by far the worst candidate Republicans ever nominated. He won in the first place with a minority of the public vote and never was favorably viewed by most Americans.
Run a candidate in 2024 who is honest, hard working and works for all Americans (Trump rates a solid F on these criteria) and you might win. None of those running for Governor on your side meets these criteria, so it is not promising for you statewide in 2022.
I have to wonder how many of those with a less favorable view of Walz and Klobuchar are disaffected progressives.
“'[Y]ou sense some frustration with the fact that COVID hasn’t gone away’ in the strong opposition among Greater Minnesota voters to Democratic politicians and more modest support in the Twin Cities and surrounding suburbs.”
Okay, I think we’re all pretty frustrated that COVID is still with us, and is likely to be with us for a long time. That can be taken as a given.
At the same time, however, these disaffected rural voters are the ones who are opposing even the most basic measures to prevent the spread of COVID. No masks, no vaccine mandates, just kvetching about the urban elites who aren’t doing “enough” and who are trying to take away their “freedom.” Most of all, no hint of that much vaunted “personal responsibility” as it might have anything to do with stopping the spread of a virus.
It’s hard to take rural complaints seriously, with weak logic like that. There is no better explanation than a need to complain about something, so urban Minnesota is the convenient target.
The split between urban and rural political interests has always existed. It is in the nature of politics. I have been lately doin a course on English history much of which is always about the relationship of London and the rural rest of Britain. The course I took before that was all about how Paris couldn’t get along with provinces with the revolution as the result. What is different unique is how this division is handled by the politicians who have to deal with it.
“What is different unique is how this division is handled by the politicians who have to deal with it.”
What??? The rural-urban divide is in large part ginned up and exploited by politicians. Rural Republican politicians, to be exact. But the get plenty of help from the conservative echo chamber.
Whatever the validity of this poll, it confirms the irrefutably reality that, thanks to the “conservative” movement, the State of MN is now ungovernable and will be for as far out as one might imagine. Almost nothing can be accomplished with a legislature that arises from a hopeless population like this, which is the current state of affairs. A house divided into two separate realities cannot stand.
I suppose it’s possible that enough MN suburbanites opt for a Repub this time around based on some grievance or other and that the state goes Red by a whisker. But “conservative” government isn’t “government” at all, as we can see in closely divided “conservative” paradises like DeSantis’s FL and Abbott’s TX. A return to the halcyon days government shutdowns and paralysis, such as was common with that massive failure Pawlenty and his Repub cronies.
I live in a pretty Democratic district, so Republican candidates don’t often come to my door, but if one did, here is something I would ask: “It is said, and MinnPost has the polling that verifies it, that there is a divide between urban and rural Minneotans. If elected, would you work toward making urban and rural representatives adversaries or allies? Would you do this apart and independently from the positions of your party, if that is necessary?”
Well as before it looks like a divide between rational thinking folks and irrational thinking folks! As PT, MA and a few others have said or implied, facts are irrational to some and rational to others, sound about right?
There are plenty of rational criticisms that can be made of Democrats and Democratic policies. It comes with territory when you are member of the party that tries to govern, as opposed to being a member whod does nothing but gripe about the governing of others. Lots of mistakes have been made in the last couple of years, but is it rational to elect the Republican Party, the party whose most sacred commitment is not learning from experience?
Well, this “divide” was deliberately created by Republican/Fascist politicians who saw these divisions as a way to capture political power. If you don’t start with THAT historical/factual observation you’re not going to “resolve” these divisions.
The way you resolve these division is you confront Fascism. Rural folks aren’t Fascists, they just vote for Fascists because Democrats haven’t organized a response. It’s not actually difficult to defeat Fascists in the US, or rural MN, you just have to point out the fact that Fascist or “Libertarians” if you will, don’t believe in representing anyone else’s interests. The politics of individual selfishness and power convert elections into absurd theater.
Republican politics have been harming and attacking their erstwhile constituents for decades, yet Democrats have never organized a coherent narrative that illustrates that and offers alternatives. They just ask: “What’s wrong with Kansas” and stand back and admire the problem while dreaming of the centrist bi-partisan illusions of days gone by. Anyone who tries to organize an effective and popular response is classified as a “populist” and dropped into the same silo as Fascists. You put AOC and Sanders in the same box as Trump and then wonder why you lose rural elections?
When was the last time you saw the MDFL organize and promote an effective and compelling statewide campaign organized around a compelling and popular common agendas? When was the last time you saw all the local MDFL candidates plugged into a Party wide and Statewide narrative and agenda? Or to put it in terms contemporary consumers might understand… what exactly is the MDFL brand? If you can’t imagine such a thing… THAT’S the problem.
Look, if you’ve been paying attention to Ms. Wicklow’s antics for last several months you will have noticed that this person (who has by the way stopped bragging about how much more effectively Florida has dealt the pandemic than MN for obvious reasons) described herself as a Democrat turned independent. With Democrats like Wicklow… you don’t need Republicans. And it’s not just Wicklow, if you look at quite a few Party faithfuls here you will note that when it comes to defining a clear liberal alternative to Fascism or even Libertarianism they refuse to even try. They’d rather argue with you about whether or Trump is a Fascist than get behind liberal alternatives that are hugely popular with vast majorities of Americans.
Ms. Wicklow’s ignorance regarding tax policy and funding isn’t unique, in fact it’s rather wide spread because Democrats have done such a poor job of describing and framing policy and reality that even their own members are walking around with this anti-tax/anti-government garbage bouncing around betwixt their ears. And the more rural Democrats try to look like rural Republicans, the more elections they lose.
The only thing that might keep Walz in office is the fact that Republicans he’s running against are straight-up whack-a-doos. He’s fumbled so many times in so many ways that once again, voters won’t be enthusiastic about voting for him, they’ll feel like have no choice. So you say a “win” is a “win” but the problem is that Walz is the figurehead of his Party, so his lackluster presence gets transmitted down ballot. And now you’re back to admiring the divide instead of resolving it.
I agree completely. The Democrats pussyfoot around as if their number one job is not to offend the Republicans. Either they have the world’s worst PR team or their “opposition” is all theater.
What are the major problems of the rural areas? I haven’t been out of the metro for a while, but a longstanding problem in rural areas all over the world is that ambitious young people leave, because there are no jobs and nothing to do. Jobs won’t just show up in a community unless a local entrepreneur starts a successful business (the Marvin family’ s window company saved my father’s hometown, Warroad) or the community can provide the kind of environment that executives and outside hires from larger companies will want to live in.
You can’t just demand that the state arbitrarily place jobs in dying small towns, as Ms. Wicklow seems to demand, not beyond jobs like county agent, state park ranger, or DMV agents, because there is no reason for them to be there. It makes no sense to put the Department of This in Gibbon and the Department of That in Cosmos and the Department of The Other Stuff in Badger. It makes no sense to plunk a hospital down in a small town if no doctors want to live there because the schools are of poor quality.
I’d like to see what is on the rural wishlist that is FEASIBLE, not wishful thinking about state government departments being uprooted or companies locating in a small town out of the goodness of their hearts.
All the urban democrats seem to forget that they kicked all the farmers out of the DFL with their opposition to GMO crops.
Dude, it wasn’t Democrats that rejected GMO’s, it was consumers. And Organic non-GMO farmers stepped up to meet that demand… many of them MN farmers.
Divide? The biggest division has been driven by the identity politics that the Democrats started in the 1960’s. It is alive and well today. Religion, Race, Wealth, Education, etc. There are wedges being driven in everywhere.
Well, no, since most of the people on the other side of the sixties debate, they being the Boomer’s parents, are mostly dead now. The issue to which you refer were the wedges driven home by conservatives in the 80’s. It would be nice if the issues of those of us who will actually be around lead this country into the future would take precedence, it’s true, but unfortunately conservatives understand they have no place in that future, and as such resort to fighting for the lost causes of the past.
Robert, the problem with approaching everything like it’s a debate game is that you never really develop a clear understanding of the subject matter. Here again you’re using a concept that you have failed to understand, i.e. “personality politics”.
I would agree that Democrats embraced personality politics, although they didn’t invent it in the 60’s. I’ve actually claimed that their personality politics cost them the 2016 election because HRC ran the mother of all personality politics campaigns i.e. “I’m with Her”.
However, religion, education, race, wealth, etc. have nothing to do with identity politics per se, those are just basic elements of life in America. You can’t have a modern nation without religious people, education, wealth and poverty, race, etc.
Furthermore it is well documented that to the extent those issues have been converted into wedge issues, they were specifically and deliberately converted by Republicans and the religious right. In the early 70’s fundamentalists Christians in the US launched another Great Awakening that promoted racism in the form of pro segregation campaigns packaged as school choice, vouchers, charter schools etc. Attacks on evolution and other school curriculum in addition the segregation agenda turned education into a wedge issue (They called it: “Back to Basics” at the time). Attacks on the welfare system and tax policy turned poverty (hence wealth) into wedge issue. And of course it goes without saying that biggest religious warriors in the US for the last 60 years have been Christian/Republican fundamentalists.
Wedge issues and the creation of them have been at the core of Republican politics for decades, you can see that everywhere from this comment threads to FOX news and political attacks at every level of government in our country.
So, for example, passing the 1964 Civil Rights act was divisive? Banning racial discrimination in housing, employment, education, public accommodations, and etc., was divisive? Getting rid of “separate but equal” was divisive?
Would everything be better if people had simply decided, racial discrimination is fine?
The divide always exists everywhere. The other day, I read an article about how one of things that went wrong in Afghanistan was the people in the cities didn’t know what was going on in the countryside, a big problem when a country is mostly countryside. No doubt the local Taliban commanders told folks that their local legislator had gone Kabul.
Someone asked about progressive disenchantment with Walz and Klobuchar? I can’t tell you how many but yes there’s a significant amount of disenchantment among progressives. However, progressives almost never vote for Fascists or Republicans, so as far as the “divide” goes we would fall on liberal side issues. Many if not most of us voted for Walz and HRC for instance, but whether or not we’d do so again is an open question.
Of course one thing about this alleged Republican affinity for rural MN is the fact that the Party’s leaders are all from the metro area. Until recently Carnahan lived in my suburban paradise of St. Louis Park… not exactly a rural enclave. Maple Grove, Edina, etc. etc. Whatever. Once you become invested in dishonesty there’s no going back.
One difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats take responsibility and Republicans don’t. When asked if he is responsible for this or that, Biden’s reflexive answer is “yes” even if he finds a way to deflect a bit after that. Truman’s sign on his presidential desk “The buck stops here” is embedded in Democatic DNA.
Another great writing Walter, thank you.
Opps, Walker, sorry