Jacob Frey

In the heartland of America, an inflection point has come to pass. Minneapolis was once immortalized in the 1970s television series The Mary Tyler Moore Show, when Mary Richards made her bright-eyed and optimistic journey there in search of opportunity and a new life. But now it is a relic; worn away, gritty and unwelcoming – with more empty storefronts than warm smiles. Of course, the decay didn’t happen overnight. The failed policies of a series of Democratic leaders and a progressive city council have left the biggest city in the Minnesota Nice State a shadow of its former self. Minneapolis has had a Democrat mayor (Democrat-Farmer-Labor in this neck of the woods) every term since 1976 and hasn’t had a Republican mayor since Richard Erdall served one day on December 31, 1973.

Americans head to the polls today, with gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey and mayoral elections in New York City and Minneapolis. The races are being talked of as an early test for Trump, a bellwether for the public mood after a breakneck ten months back in the Oval. A qualifying remark. Each of these races are taking place in traditionally blue cities and states – Virginia has not voted for a GOP presidential candidate since 2004; New Jersey since 1988; Minnesota since 1972. Still, these places – even New York – trended strongly purple at the last election; in this sense, today’s elections will be a test of the so-called “vibe-shift" and its extent.

What happens after an unspeakable tragedy? One that comes on an idyllic late August day in Minneapolis that signaled the end of a barefoot summer and the beginning of back-to-school activities, reacquainting with friends, and easing back into a school schedule? For two families, it is the end of any normal life they had known. For countless other families whose children attended Annunciation Catholic School in a peaceful, leafy-treed neighborhood of the city, it marks a new life of contradiction: of being blessed that they are reunited with their loved ones and overwhelming grief at an inhuman, violent targeting of innocent life at its most sacred – within the walls of a church while at prayer.

​For the second time in two years, a deranged assassin has committed a mass shooting at a Christian school in America. Like Audrey Hale, Robin Westman identified as transgender and once attended the school he attacked. In Minneapolis on Wednesday, Westman murdered two children and injured seventeen more people in a terrifying attack on the Annunciation Catholic School. Westman chose to target the children’s morning mass before turning a weapon on himself to commit suicide. ​Before his attack on the children of Annunciation Catholic School, Westman posted YouTube videos showcasing firearms, ammunition, and a manifesto. Weapons bore handwritten messages reading “Kill Donald Trump,” “Where is your God?

It’s not fair that all the Great American mayoral discussion revolves around the coasts. Sure, Los Angeles has the one who oversaw the burning down of the nation’s second most populous city from halfway across the world. And New York City has been bleeding money as if it were the star of a sequel to “Brewster’s Millions,” but without the promise of a massive payday at the end. Right in the middle of the nation, tucked into the banks and headwaters of the mighty Mississippi River, is Minneapolis: the little city that could, chugging its way full speed ahead – right off the cliff of Midwest sensibility, prudence and normalcy. Woke came to town, and it’s got a bone to pick with common sense.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar may have to eat her words after declaring last year that Donald Trump will 'never win Minnesota'. A new Emerson College poll released Tuesday shows the President trailing Joe Biden by just three percentage points. The poll has Trump within the margin of error, meaning the state is effectively a toss-up at this point. The President is reportedly planning to visit the state on Monday in an attempt to provide counter-programming for the Democratic National Convention, which was meant to take place across the state line in Wisconsin, and to capitalize on his recent gains in the polls. The prospect of winning Minnesota is certainly giddying for Trump, who frequently laments that he just barely lost the state in 2016. Hillary Clinton carried the state by a mere 1.