Minnesota’s Tragedies and Scandals

You have to give my 40-year state of residence credit for one thing: We are proficient at getting on the cable news channels and going viral on social media. Maybe proficient is not the right word. Notorious might be more accurate.

Now, as I’m sure you know, most recently such infame results from a federal ICE agent killing one of our citizens, Renee Good, in the middle of Portland Avenue in Minneapolis on Wednesday. This was six blocks from where George Floyd died under the knee of a Minneapolis policeman in May of 2020 – the event that thrust Minneapolis onto the world’s front page like none other.

Because Principle Based Politics is focused on all things political, the latest tragedy forces me to think about all of the horrible and scandalous events that have “put us in the national news” again since the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing. Here is a list off the top of my head, ranked in order of their political significance. (Obviously, any death is a tragedy and thus equally significant in all other ways.)

8. Shooting of UnitedHealthcare executive Brian Thompson (December 4, 2024). This murder became political only when social media users began praising the shooter and then politicians began weighing in. This morphed into a “big guy bad, little guy good” story, but I will remember the national significance as being the tragedy of using murder to express personal distress.

7. DFL legislators not showing up at the Minnesota legislature (January 2025). Because they were one vote short of a majority at the state capitol, Democrats simply refused to participate in the legislative process while they negotiated for control. This scandal lasted weeks. (Note: the U.S. Government shutdown and federal legislators failing to work for 43 days last autumn was even more scandalous, but it doesn’t make this list of Minnesota-specific events.)

6. Minnesota Republican strife and change of management (December 2024). David Hann, the chair of Minnesota’s Republican Party – a party which has not won a statewide election since 2006 – was voted out as state party chair and replaced by Alex Plecash, following extreme disgruntlement (to put it mildly) within Minnesota GOP ranks. The party has been plagued by internal ideological differences and financial discrepancies.

5. Fraud and change of MN DFL management (January 5, 2026). Tim Walz, who was running for an unprecedented third term as Minnesota’s governor, was forced to drop out, following a worsening fraud scandal. This was not so much that the governor or his administration committed fraud themselves, but that they allowed it to happen, and for so long. In my view, however, the biggest failure was the creation of a welfare state that invited abuse and theft, especially when proper safeguards clearly were omitted. It was akin to leaving all state vehicles unlocked with the keys in them and the engines running, and then not even noticing when they were stolen.

4. Biden incompetence and elevation of Minnesotans in Democratic ranks (Summer 2024 to early 2025). We all know that President Joe Biden was failing physically and mentally while in office. But, his party scandalously covered it up until the whole world saw the truth live during a June 2024 presidential debate. The Minnesota angle was that Biden’s ouster from the Democratic ticket led to the hasty appointment of Kamala Harris as the nominee, and she selected none other than Tim Walz as her running mate. Minnesota’s Democratic party chair, Ken Martin, became national party leader following the Biden-Harris-Walz implosion.

3. Annunciation shooting (August 27, 2025). As a pure tragedy, this may have been the worst thing to happen in Minnesota in many years. Praying children were murdered in a church attached to their elementary school. Nevertheless, I rank it merely third on this particular list – only because it is a human tragedy more than a political one. Calls for new gun control legislation in Minnesota did emerge immediately. As with nearly all mass shootings, however, no legislation has been passed. Many think this is both scandalous and tragic.

2. Renee Nicole Good shot by ICE (January 7, 2026). The shooting itself, the chaotic statements by federal officials, and the pushing out of the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, severely diminishes trust in our federal government. Loss of trust is a big, big, big deal for a government. Like the George Floyd events, which provoked extreme distrust of Minneapolis police and doubts about the willingness of politicians to protect safety, the lasting consequences of Ms. Good’s death will be profound.

1. Melissa Hortman assassination (June 14, 2025). A Minnesota resident made a list of political targets and set out to murder them. He killed former Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman and her husband, seriously wounded State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, and pursued other Minnesota politicians before being apprehended. The evil of these political acts cannot be overstated.

What’s next? I bet I am not the only one who doesn’t want to find out.