In the spring of 1979, a someday-newspaper reporter received the title, “Most Pessimistic” member of his graduating class by a margin bigger than Richard Nixon topped South Dakota George McGovern seven years earlier.
They got it wrong, he argues to this day. Not pessimistic, just cynical. Maybe the two are too close to be anything but a distinction without a difference.
These days, there’s far too much stuff going on to eschew cynicism. If you believe what you’ve seen and likely heard about, we’ve been bombarded by news the state has been overrun by fraudsters. We’ve been led to believe the world, especially our little 1/50th of it, is tipping off its axis and there’s only one person who can save it.
Some of this news is coming from the folks ordered to pay $758 million for knowingly providing false election misinformation. Believe who you wish – that’s your call.
We have turned the page from 2025 to 2026. And while we all make resolutions, plans, goals and aspirations we hope to maintain as long as possible, here’s one we hopefully can all consider. It would make the world a little milder, benign place. We heard it several times last summer after the attempt on the president’s life and Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered and Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were shot at their homes.
Can we please tone down the rhetoric and think of one another as people worthy of respect and human dignity. It’s not too much to ask, is it?
The flow of misinformation and disinformation has overtaken our everyday reality. Last week, we received a press release announcing Republicans were calling for Gov. Walz’s resignation. All of them? We asked if our local state senators and representative were included in this. We were told two of them were potentially unaware of their party’s leadership calling for Walz to resign.
And yet, supposedly people were led to believe all Republican lawmakers wanted Walz to step down. We were also told 100 mayors signed a letter blaming Walz and DFL policies for local property tax increases. Turns out it’s 98 mayors. A check of the most recent election results shows the cities where the mayors who signed the letters, including New Prague interim Mayor Chuck Nickolay, are mostly GOP strongholds. The letter makes no reference to increases in local government aid, increases in the value of property’s impact on the levy and local spending decisions.
Tim Walz should not resign. Fortunately, Monday, Jan. 5, he announced his decision to withdraw from seeking re-election for a third term. Just as the party’s leaders did with Joe Biden, somebody must have had a tough conversation with the governor. Gov. Walz seeking re-election, based on what we know, may likely have led the DFL to defeat in the next round of statewide elections. It will be interesting to see who the Democrats select to run for the office. We said it before – Dems should have reduced taxes on income, property or both – before starting their $18 billion spending spree during the 2024-2025 and 2026-2027 biennial budgets.
Tim Walz arguably campaigned as a moderate but has governed like a progressive. The same argument has been made of former President Joe Biden. Donald Trump campaigned as a conservative and even with control of both houses of Congress, our government spent $1.8 trillion – with a T – more than the revenue it took in, according to the U.S. Treasury.
If voters favor change, that’s the way the process is supposed to work. Walz has won election and re-election because the GOP has not offered a candidate acceptable statewide since Tim Pawlenty was elected for the first of two terms in the fall of 2002. Who will the GOP select as its candidate this time around? Whoever the candidate is, we hope the election will be based on civil discussion with verifiable claims.
And if a change is made in Minnesota, Republicans will have the opportunity to lead. And in our world today, Dems, liberals, progressives – label them as you wish – will commence a choir of hymns bemoaning the flaws of GOP-led governance, just like Republicans do today. The pendulum swings back and forth.
We receive grumbles about editorial cartoons being supposedly too liberal. Did those same folks complain when the cartoons made fun of President Obama’s ears, the oversized toothy smile and liberal policies? Not that anybody in our office recalls. The cartoons are meant to inspire thought, consideration and, dare we say it, civil discourse. We respect people’s right to disagree. They could even write letters to the editor. We wish they would.
All we ask is, please share your ideas respectfully? Please.