The Banality of Minnesota Fraud

With each passing day, the public fraud uncovered in Minnesota—mainly involving Medicaid, childcare, and other public assistance programs—seems to grow. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson estimates $9 billion or more of taxpayer money may have been lost to fraud. The number is mindboggling for a state of Minnesota’s size. As a rule, I am skeptical of conspiracy theories, not because people are not evil—as a Presbyterian I doubt my view of human nature could be much lower—but because people are not very smart. The plausibility of many conspiracy theories depends on numerous factors aligning perfectly, a high degree of coordination, and life rarely works that way. But the fraud in Minnesota has persisted, and it has persisted for some time. 

I am and continue to be shocked at how extensive it is. You see, the Minnesota I grew up in—moderate governors, fiscal discipline, nonpartisan and highly effective government—is how I still remember the state. Yes, it has always leaned left, but it was not culturally left. That state is now gone, and in its place is something wholly different. 

Trust is vital to the functioning of a society, and we feel its absence palpably in cities and regions that lack it. When I grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, we rarely locked our front door. The thought that someone would randomly come into our house to steal or hurt us was not on the menu of possibilities. Likewise, Minnesotans have historically had high trust in government because it was effective and transparent. 

Broken public trust is not easy to fix, but the real damage of fraud is that it corrodes the ability of government to do what it should. Progressives, who have an expansive view of government’s role in our lives, stand to lose the most from declining trust in government, yet they also appear to be the least concerned.

The uncovered fraud is not the work of Machiavellian masterminds. Quite the opposite: It was occurring in broad daylight. How was it permitted? Hannah Arendt, drawing on the Augustinian idea of evil as privation, argued that many of the evil actors in the Nazi regime had motives that were banal, that is, that the actors who carried out the evil deeds of Auschwitz were not driven by sinister motives but rather more mundane ones. Adolf Eichmann, the focus of Arendt’s book, was a shallow character. His head was filled with cliched slogans, and he seems to have been mostly concerned about career advancement. Arendt’s frightening conclusion is that Eichmann acted more like a bureaucrat than a demon.

The cast of political leaders who seemingly enabled the massive fraud in Minnesota are, likewise, shallow caricatures of the actual virtues they pretend to possess. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Gov. Tim Walz, and Rep. Ilhan Omar crusade in the name of justice, compassion, and diversity, but behind their transparently thin facade are operators who have learned how to use guilt, fear, and power to manipulate Minnesotans to advance their own interests while the state continues to slide toward dysfunction. 

Minnesota was a state ripe for corruption because it is a state where progressive ideology and politics have become deeply rooted in the past couple decades, though primarily in the Twin Cities metro area. Historically, the Minnesota Democratic Party, called the Democratic Farmer Labor Party, performed well in rural areas and in the mining country of Northern Minnesota. Tim Walz is a master of evoking the aesthetics of the old DFL, with his talk of fixing cars and pheasant hunting. But most Minnesotans don’t buy it, which is why the DFL is now an urban party in a sea of red. 

Still, even in the red parts of Minnesota there is a communitarian ethos of taking care of all members of society, a part of the Lutheran-Scandinavian DNA of the state that persists.  This humanitarian and compassionate concern, while one of the great strengths of the state, can easily be exploited. Thinking the best of everyone and having a general desire to benefit all its members can easily lapse into naivete. 

On top of that, and perhaps more powerfully, in a white state like Minnesota, concerns about racism are particularly acute. If your ideology emphasizes diversity and acceptance, but you live in a homogeneous society, there is a not-so-latent guilt that makes one vulnerable to race-grifters. Democratic politicians and the Somali community have exploited that vulnerability to great effect. 

Progressives argue for an extensive and ever-expanding welfare state that addresses all issues from cradle to grave. They are fiercely opposed to borders and believe in a universal, cosmopolitan vision of all humanity flourishing together. When it comes to Democratic leadership in Minnesota, however, their community-oriented rhetoric functions as a mask for naked self-interest and corruption. They resist the investigations currently underway not because of some high-minded principle, but because it is a threat to their stranglehold on Minnesota government.

The dirty little secret is that for all their talk of the public good, progressives do not have a conception of the common good, because their conception of justice is rooted in a hierarchy of victimhood. When one pulls back the rhetorical layers of leftist ideologues one finds a constellation of ideas that are wholly anathema to public good of cities, states, or nation. If politics is about cultivating and maintaining those public goods that are essential for the thriving of a political community, the political policies of Minnesota Democrats have only undermined that basic principle. Identity politics focuses only on difference, what sets us apart, and not on what binds us together.

Walz and Democratic leaders in the state refuse to take any responsibility for the massive fraud that is being uncovered. Instead, they accuse Trump and the U.S. attorneys of some malicious plot to attack Minnesota, portraying themselves as victims. Even as the evidence mounts against Minnesota Democratic leaders, they seem intent on making their banality clear for all to see.