"America! Love it, or leave it!"
That was the slogan — in fact, or in myth, and 57 years later it's hard to tell how much of each — of the counter-counterculture in the 1960s, the blue-collar hard hats who'd fought in World War 2, whose kids weren't in parked in college for the draft deferment, and who had enough of the hippies that were sucking the oxygen out of the cultural room.
To the extent it existed, it's been used as a punchline, emblematic of the America-first jingoism the hippies claimed to be protesting against.
My, how the turntables have turned.
The DFL has spent the last eight years wrapping themselves in the slogan "One Minnesota"...
Gov. Tim Walz and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan formally announce they’re running for re-election. They posted video announcement on YouTube early this morning and will hold virtual meeting with supporters at 7 p.m. tonight. The theme is again “One Minnesota” and now “Goal Line Stand.” pic.twitter.com/yuClYBjMSn
— Tom Hauser (@thauserkstp) October 19, 2021
...which doesn't come across as the least bit Orwellian, nosireebob.
And naturally, like all Democrat feel-good sloganeering, it's platitudinous window-dressing:
🚨 BREAKING: Tim Walz continues to double down by calling Republican policies “Fascist.” pic.twitter.com/KISIC7WxDV
— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) August 25, 2025
This brings us up to last week. Sportscaster Michele Tafoya swept the GOP primary, and will go to the ballot in November against sitting Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan.
Now, Tafoya is a native of California, and she moved here about the same time I did (and, ironically, both of us did it to work in radio, at competing stations). And like a lot of people who moved here back in the day when Minnesota was a truly great place, we're a little frustrated with the complete toxic hash 16 years of DFL rule has made of the place.
And she's talked about that frustration:
Tafoya: I have talked to hundreds of voters in Minnesota who have told me: gosh come I went on vacation this summer. I didn't want to tell people where I was from because it's embarrassing. pic.twitter.com/DzyZYtXl5I
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 12, 2026
Among those of us who have to live outside the government/non-profit bubble, our government — Tim Walz's jazz hands, snitch lines, mayors sniveling in front of cameras as neighborhoods (like mine) burn, the fraud machine that seems too far-fetched for Hunter S. Thompson — is profoundly embarrassing.
Which brought out the Left's inner jingoistic progressive redneck hard-hats.
Matt Little is a state senator, the primary-endorsed candidate to replace Angie Craig in Minnesota's 2nd Congressional District and a wee little fellow. He came out first:
Tafoya isn’t from Minnesota. If she doesn’t like it here, SHE SHOULD GO BACK TO WHERE SHE CAME FROM!!!!!! https://t.co/iXVsYnbRm9
— Matt Little For Congress (MN-02) (@LittleCongress) August 14, 2026
Huh. That seems...direct and specific.
Maybe it's an anomaly?
If only.
Richard Carlbom is the chair of the Minnesota Democrat-Farmer-Labor party, and a man with a reputation for rhetoric as clever and nuanced as a German R&B band:
Why are you still here? You love Trump more than Minnesota, which is weird. https://t.co/JQaBP2S5Hj
— Richard Carlbom (@richardcarlbom) August 16, 2026
Which leads us to Tafoya's opponent, Lieutenant Governor Flanagan, who approaches the issue with, it must be said, a certain synchronicity:
This campaign belongs to Minnesotans. pic.twitter.com/wGaeeNIu4Q
— Peggy Flanagan (@peggyflanagan) August 15, 2026
Now, for those many of us who moved here voluntarily as adults — like Tafoya (California), and me (North Dakota), and Governor Walz (Nebraska) and Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (Somalia) and Angie Craig (Arkansas) and former Congressman and sitting attorney general Keith Ellison (Michigan), this seems counter to the whole "One Minnesota" schtick.
Have no fear — Minnesota is still...welcoming
WATCH: Minnesota AG Keith Ellison is raising eyebrows with a comment he made at last night's rally for Peggy Flanagan
— Alpha News (@AlphaNews) July 21, 2026
"There's a whole lot of people who were not naturalized citizens in the last election ... But you know what? We going to get them all this election." pic.twitter.com/yIiNXxGZJN
So the right people are welcome.
