Minnesota in 2020 has endured trauma in ways that were beyond Gov. Tim Walz’s imagination. There is something else, however, that is entirely within his imagination: 2021 could easily be worse.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — As the state where George Floyd died with a Minneapolis police officer’s knee on his neck, Minnesota in 2020 has endured trauma in ways that were beyond Gov. Tim Walz’s imagination.
The governor’s reference to “trying to be out there” in “conversations” with critics is the essence of the Walz political style. The Democrat, a former teacher and member of Congress who won the governorship in 2018, believes he is a reasonable guy who, if he has a chance to sit down and chat with most folks, he can persuade them to be reasonable, too.
On the surface, Walz’s words seem like a perfectly sensible approach for sensible Minnesota — a place that in its own mythology is uncommonly peaceful and progressive, a culturally centered place in the center of the nation. What happened in 2020 is a collision between that pleasant myth and starkly unpleasant reality. In 2020, the state has been violent, not peaceful. It may still tilt progressive, but there are agitated voices, rising steadily in volume, on both the left and right.
— The budget fallout from the coronavirus pandemic is likely to shadow his entire term in office, and beyond. Walz noted a paradox in which both the coronavirus crisis and the Minneapolis protests have highlighted deep inequalities, especially in education, at precisely the moment when state resources are most scarce.
— is the inequities that America has and kind of the systemic racisms. It's just here, it’s just the absolute epitome. What that ends up causing is you have a state that ranks first in educational attainment in public schools if you’re white, last if you’re not. But Walz said the emergence of Covid-19 — which some initially predicted would transcend partisan divisions — has created a more polarized environment with GOP legislators fearing that Walz would use the crisis to amass power or shut down too much of the economy.
Minnesota Gov. Walz photographed Sept. 4, 2020 at the Governor’s Residence in St. Paul, Minn. | Chris McDuffieThere’s — even if it’s at a low burn — anxiety still from George Floyd’s death, the fallout of that. And I think trying to understand how Minnesotans see this … there is a Minnesota exceptionalism that we espouse and we think we can back it up with some numbers, but hidden under that, which we all knew, were those achievements gaps, those racial gaps.
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