BY ED FELIEN
We were very disappointed to read of Tim Walz’s endorsement of Jacob Frey for Mayor. Besides opening up a can of worms about their past collaboration, it’s a big political mistake.
During the riots and burnings that took place on Lake Street in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin and the MPD, there was civil disorder. Frey had just fired Chauvin and the three other officers involved in the murder. There were unrelenting demonstrations. Frey didn’t go and talk to the demonstrators. Chief Arradondo didn’t show up. The cops at the Third Precinct were determined to save their station house. Then Frey told them to abandon the fort because he was afraid there might be bloodshed.
Jacob Frey and Tim Walz
Chaos erupted soon after. Did Frey’s efforts to quiet the demonstrators embolden them to burn down Lake Street, or did right-wing agent provocateurs pretending to be demonstrators cause the damage? That question has never been settled. We know the first act of destruction was The Umbrella Man smashing the windows of Auto Zone and spray painting “Free Shit” on the building. We know The Umbrella Man was a member of a White Nationalist motorcycle gang made up of ex-cons. We can easily assume that Arradondo was no longer in charge of the police, and that many of the MPD would be much more inclined to follow the leadership of the President of their Police Federation, Bob Kroll, who was also the leader of a White Nationalist motorcycle gang of active police officers in the Twin Cities metropolitan area.
Frey panicked. He called Walz to bring out the National Guard to help restore order. It took forever to activate the Guard. In the meantime, historic landmarks on Lake Street burned to the ground. They blamed each other. After it was over they just wanted to forget about it.
There should have been a thorough criminal investigation, but nobody wanted it, especially Frey and Walz.
There is a five-year Statute of Limitations on criminal cases of arson. That expired in June of 2025. No one will be held accountable, and questions will go unanswered.
Walz’s endorsement will help Frey in November, but it will hurt Walz in 2026. The left activists in Minneapolis will not forget, and Walz needs a big voter turnout in the Twin Cities when he runs for Governor next year to overcome conservative voter turnout outstate.
The DFL City Endorsing Convention had a lot of problems. It started an hour and fifteen minutes late. The first ballot took two hours to count. They had to rush balloting at the end to adjourn on time. But the results were plain and inevitable after the first ballot: Fateh got 44%, Frey got 34% and Davis got almost 20%. 44 and 20 equals 64. 60% was needed for endorsement. Davis’s people were committed to vote against Frey. Frey’s campaign thought their best bet would be to deny a quorum, so they told their supporters to leave. This might have been a mistake. All they needed was 41% to deny endorsement. They could have contested the vote total on the second vote, demanded a paper ballot and run out the clock. But they decided to walk out.
Almost as soon as Humphrey merged the Minnesota Democratic Party with the Farmer Labor Party in 1944, he started an organization called Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), whose sole purpose was to keep socialists and progressives from getting elected. He welcomed the left with one hand and stabbed them in the back with the other. He also sponsored and supported every piece of anti-communist legislation that came before him. Two books that detail Humphrey’s perfidy are Drugstore Liberal by Robert Sherill and Them and Us by U E (United Electrical Workers).
Walz is doing the same thing. He’s trying to delegitimize the democratic process that endorsed Fateh. There may be more money in that action from fat-cat donors, but (like with Humphrey when he ran for President in 1968 or Hillary Clinton when she ran in 2016) there could be hell to pay on election day.
