Shaping public opinion isn't just a matter of pushing propaganda or using censorship. To do it right, you have to create what amounts to an alternate reality in which The Narrative™ is reinforced to such an extent that people, when confronted with reality, actually have their minds blown.
The two metaphors often used are The Matrix and The Truman Show.
We are a long way off from being able to pull off a Matrix-like control of reality, and even the Truman Show is beyond the capacity of our media. Still, we are getting much closer to the latter for people who live in comfortable bubbles where their affluence shields them from the gritty realities of life. Their information feedback flow is carefully controlled, and there is relatively little in their day-to-day lives that appears to contradict what they are told by Pravda. And, frankly, when they see the contradictions, the cost of acknowledging reality is so high that they ignore it.
Examples abound, but the current "shock" over the Somali-led welfare fraud in Minnesota is a superb example. The relatively few of us in Minnesota who both live in the real world here in Minnesota and have had occasion to become aware of welfare fraud have been trying to get attention (mostly at the state level, although Minnesota's Republican Congressmen surely knew) for almost a decade.
Total gaslighting. https://t.co/PMkB7GE8rN
— David Strom (@DavidStrom) December 30, 2025
And, to be fair, there has been a little success. While state law enforcement has largely ignored this well-known problem, the United States Attorney in Minnesota has been, with far too few resources, plugging away at prosecuting fraud and has been ringing the alarm bells for several years. The evidence has been public; federal law enforcement, even under Biden, was on the case (although the priority should have been much higher), and any of the "new" reporting you have seen over the past couple of weeks was easy enough to do, and one or two reporters here in Minnesota, such as Jay Kolls, even tried to blow the whistle.
INSANE 🚨 The amount stolen in the fraudulent Medicaid programs in Minnesota isn’t hundreds of millions, it isn’t $1 billion, it’s $9 BILLION DOLLARS
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) December 19, 2025
HALF of the money in all 14 Medicaid programs WAS FRAUD
Minnesota News reporter got out of a conference with the lead prosecutor… pic.twitter.com/H4HlCnf9Ji
When you have a fraud scheme so large that it swallows fully HALF of all Medicaid spending, to the tune of $9 billion or more, plus the Feeding Our Future scam, plus the autism scam, plus the transportation scam, it doesn't take a genius to put together a compelling story.
So why are so many people shocked?
Why isn’t the Minnesota Star Tribune covering the Somalia fraudster under Tim Walz?
— C3 (@C_3C_3) December 29, 2025
Meet Steve Grove…
CEO and Publisher of the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Enemy of the People… pic.twitter.com/AiUE4UZExZ
Easy: Pravda covered it up. They, in fact, have been "debunking" and attacking this story for years, both at the local level, where the state's largest newspaper is run by a friend and former appointee of Tim Walz, and the national media, which has been beating the drum that all talk of Somali-led fraud is racism and white supremacy, just as Tim Walz claims.
Still no coverage in NYT, WaPo, CNN, or Minneapolis Star-Tribune of massive fraud being uncovered in Minnesota. The media's willingness to ignore stories that hurt Democrats is truly astonishing. pic.twitter.com/xZcZcbUSm9
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) December 29, 2025
If you only hear rumblings every once in a while about something, and the authorities you trust reassure you that there is nothing to see here, you go on with your life. You may assume some normal level of bureaucratic incompetence, but nothing like HALF of all Medicaid spending being stolen. The idea is, you have to admit, almost absurd on its face. Fraud on that level would require the people you voted for to be in on it, and that doesn't bear thinking of.
“Minnesota Somalis are as Minnesotan as tater-tot hotdish,” @CNN (Dec 7) pic.twitter.com/Ddg5RDMZ2L
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 28, 2025
You've been reading The Star-Tribune for decades, and watching CNN for about as long. If The New York Times and The Washington Post are uninterested in it, then why should you be? After all, we all know Republicans are racist and hate poor people, so that is a comfortable explanation.
The idea that your trusted reality-creators are liars doesn't bear thinking. Is everything a lie?
Trump’s attempt to combat fraud is depicted by @NBCNews as “xenophobic.”
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 28, 2025
No mention of the multibillion dollar scam the community was perpetrating. pic.twitter.com/KjoRw2QaZN
Yes. Reality as you know it is a series of hoaxes. Did you believe that the Steele Dossier was real? How about the "fine people" hoax? Russia collusion? "Safe and effective?" Masks work. Stand six feet apart.
There are still people wearing masks. Think about that.
Fulton County just admitted in court that they certified over 300,000 illegal votes because nobody signed off on the vote totals, or that the voting machines were zeroed out before counting. An entire criminal case intended to destroy President Trump was built on the lie that everything was on the up and up, and half the country believed it because of Pravda propaganda.
Imagine thinking Fani Willis was a crusader for truth. Really?
Rather than focus on the evidence we had of fraud in Minnesota in their “everything we know” piece, @Newsweek decided to highlight quotes about how Minnesota is “a well-run state” and how @GovTimWalz has supposedly “taken measures” to combat fraud. pic.twitter.com/g7uDvuMhDw
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 28, 2025
My wife works for a State Senator who has been ringing the alarm bells for years on the fraud, and who has been fighting Ilhan Omar and her fraud for as long. He has been vilified for telling the truth. He has been slandered as a right-wing conspiracy theorist for saying what is now known to everybody on X, if not the readers of The Washington Post.
Even in reporting meant to expose the fraud in Minnesota, @nytimes couldn’t help but focus on how “challenging” this has all been for Somalian immigrants.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) December 28, 2025
How about how bad this has been for American taxpayers? pic.twitter.com/Dj26ixWmrv
What nobody has focused on yet is that Somalis didn't come to Minnesota knowing how to bilk the system. It's not like they had extensive experience in manipulating bureaucracies before they came. They were TAUGHT how to do this by state-funded NGOs. How to get every single dime they could get from the welfare system.
Here is what people need to be asking:
— Ian McKelvey (@ian_mckelvey) December 30, 2025
Who instructed these Somalis on how to game the system to the extent they have? Nobody immigrates to an entirely different country, with an entirely different culture, with complicated social services systems, and immediately figures out… https://t.co/kRkPtIWPwS
Who instructed these Somalis on how to game the system to the extent they have? Nobody immigrates to an entirely different country, with an entirely different culture, with complicated social services systems, and immediately figures out how to start defrauding a government to the tune of billions of dollars.
This fraud required pretty extensive knowledge of the system, and while almost everybody who has so far been convicted of stealing taxpayer money has been Somali, one name stands out—a politically connected white woman named Aimee Bock, who was the ringleader. She knew the system, made the connections, and helped get the ball rolling.
A decade ago in Minneapolis, Somali daycare centers were revealed to have defrauded taxpayers. Somali parents would bring their children in to check-in & then leave right away. The center would bill the state for the whole day & split the cash. pic.twitter.com/FOqz0ZSbYz
— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) December 30, 2025
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, too, worked hard to keep the scam going. He was even recorded promising to help keep the money flowing, and being promised campaign contributions for doing so (he danced around accepting the bribe explicitly, but the quid pro quo was pretty clear), and he got those contributions.
"The Somali community is critical. In my own election I wouldn't be in office without the help of the Somali community. Somali voters came out in very large numbers and were able to register people to vote. Very recently several thousand Somalis were naturalized as U.S.… https://t.co/08pvXRmTL2
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 29, 2025
"The Somali community is critical. In my own election I wouldn't be in office without the help of the Somali community. Somali voters came out in very large numbers and were able to register people to vote. Very recently several thousand Somalis were naturalized as U.S. citizens." - MN AG Keith Ellison
The media knew all this. It was out in the public. Citizen journalists had been working on the story for years, and the response from Pravda was silence, or when they couldn't ignore it, "debunking" and accusations of racism.
Let me get this straight
— Arthur MacWaters (@ArthurMacwaters) December 28, 2025
1. Somali immigrants get billions in taxpayer dollars for *free* for fraudulent daycares
2. in exchange, they fund democratic candidates with the free money
3. democratic politicians (Walz, Omar, etc) ensure fraudulent payments continue
—-
How is… https://t.co/O3oDuntRym pic.twitter.com/c8Mzgtkp6i
It's not wrong to focus on the Somali side of the problem, but it's also not correct to think that the problem is Somalis alone.
the strange world of Quantum Learing Centers pic.twitter.com/P6pcogJ0K4
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) December 30, 2025
The entire Democrat/Media establishment either knew, or had reason to know and ignored the obvious, and they covered it up and slandered the people pointing out the truth. It was conscious, coordinated, and they are all still trying to downplay it. Tim Walz is screaming racism, and Pravda is echoing it.
TIM WALZ: “The majority of crime is committed by White Men. It’s crime in general. We need to be educating the population…Medicaid fraud will stretch across ALL racial demographics and ethnic groups. I think you can’t blame the Somali community.”
— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) December 29, 2025
WOW.
pic.twitter.com/lB9b7ZszyQ
If you get your news from the conservative or independent media, you know a lot about this. But the people inside the liberal bubble still, for the most part, do not. There has been, if not quite a blackout, something close to it. A story appears here or there, with the "Somalis hit worst" slant, and they say "we covered it."
But compared to the multi-day outragefest aimed at the Covington kids, which again was a hoax? It isn't even close. The Steele Dossier, an obvious hoax, generated years of stories, a near-impeachment, and a Pulitzer Prize.
Half of all Medicaid money? Meh.
It's narrative shaping, and it works with a large fraction of the population. If you don't hear much about something, it doesn't penetrate into your consciousness. And that is how they want it.
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