Minnesota Governor Tim Walz used a sparsely attended No Kings rally at the state Capitol on Saturday to attack President Donald Trump and reaffirm his political alliance with the states Somali community.
The No Kings demonstrations, promoted as a nationwide show of resistance to perceived authoritarianism, were billed by organizers as a massive grassroots uprising, with claims that 9 million people would participate in more than 3,000 events across the US, according to Gateway Pundit. In reality, the events were a major flop, with crowds dominated by aging, white, liberal activists rather than the broad cross-section of Americans organizers had promised.
Speaking at the Minnesota Capitol, Walz leaned into progressive identity politics while deriding President Trump in language more suited to a campaign rally than a statesman. Well never leave the side of Somali Minnesotans. Heres our pledge to you: your great-grandchildren will be here when that orange clown is in the dustbin of history! Tim Walz shouted, drawing cheers from the left-leaning crowd.
Walz then escalated the rhetoric, declaring, Were damn sure about this. We need no damn kings! But we do need a boss, before bringing rock musician Bruce Springsteen on stage as a headliner. The spectacle underscored how the event, marketed as a civic protest, functioned more as a partisan performance aimed at energizing the Democratic base.
The governors fiery pledges to never leave the side of Somali Minnesotans come against the backdrop of serious corruption scandals tied to that same community. The Health and Human Services Department last year announced it is freezing all childcare payments to Minnesota amid allegations of widespread fraud, with Somali healthcare and daycare scammers suspected of stealing more than $9 billion in taxpayer funds.
Rather than confront these abuses head-on, Walz has previously tried to deflect responsibility by blaming white men for the widespread fraud in the Somali community. For many Minnesotans, the contrast between his combative rhetoric toward President Trump and his reluctance to hold favored constituencies accountable only reinforces concerns that the state narrowly avoided elevating him to national office.
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