If you happen to be tuning into this alleged blockbuster revelation of childcare fraud in Minnesota, you are probably missing a lot of important context. It is, as you might have guessed, another MAGA outrage fest designed to create more racist, culture war animosity. Dave Weigel posted this the other day on BlueSky:
I feel like “attention hacking” is most of politics now. The Minnesota aid fraud story is becoming a perfect example.
Recap: In 2022, the Biden DOJ filed the first charges against dozens of fraudsters, many of them Somali-American, who’d fleeced a state food aid program.
This happened right as early voting began in state elections; voters re-elected Gov. Walz and gave Democrats a trifecta. It was a damaging scandal, but hardly covered up. Rs whacked at it when Walz became VP nominee, but it didn’t become a decisive issue.
I actually agree w conservatives who think this insane scandal didn’t become a huge national story in 2022 because of newsroom choices, desire not to inflame racial tensions, etc. But the Biden-era DOJ was all over it.
The Minnesota press did cover it extensively and Walz was re-elected easily in spite of it, mainly because people didn’t blame him for the problem.
Let’s face it. This is only now a big story because of Trump’s new racist, xenophobic jihad against Somali immigrants largely based upon his and his base’s hatred for Ilhan Omar. (You’ll notice that the most vociferous, grotesque attacks on immigrants have been against those who happen to be Black — Haitians and now Somalis.) The right wing media is running with it and the MSM follows. We’ve been here before.
Naturally the Trump administration is responding by pulling all federal funding for child care in Minnesota. That’s how we do things now. All children must suffer so that Trump and his cult can take onanistic pleasure in their suffering.