The Twitter (X) account @DataRepublican goes a long way to explaining the sudden collapse of Minnesota in this long post on X. As they say, read the whole thing.
@DataRepublican uses the language of systems theory to explain the phenomenon, which should serve as a cautionary tale for the rest of America.
In a nutshell,
Minnesota as a Systems Failure: How NGOs process dissent until reality no longer matters.
“NGOs” here refer to the Minnesota nonprofit-industrial complex that runs the state on behalf of the ruling Democratic party. These nonprofits receive the bulk of their funding from taxpayer grants and are overseen (or not) by the state Attorney General, Keith Ellison.
The argument in a nutshell: the system (Democrats, nonprofits, activists) no longer responds to adverse inputs with course corrections. Adverse data are ignored or explained away.
By any objective measure, GDP per capita, student test scores, outbound migration, Minnesota is failing.
The state is failing in the sense that the system is no longer producing positive outcomes for a majority of its citizens. But the system is still working extremely well for the people in charge.
Many misinterpret (perhaps willfully) the concept of failure. Yes, there are still nice restaurants where you can enjoy a lovely meal. There are still majestic landscapes to gaze upon (Lake Superior). You are almost certain, on any given day, to drive the length of East Lake Street from I-35W to Hiawatha Ave. without being carjacked.
Minnesota is a top 10 state for business! In reality, Minnesota is in terminal decline.
From @DataRepublican,
Feedback loops close. Contradictions are absorbed. External signals stop producing corrective changes in internal behavior.
At that point, the system is no longer adaptive relative to its original purpose. It becomes self-referential. It is capable of internally justified expansion without reference to external success.
The purpose of a system is what it does. And that “internally justified expansion”?
The output is always the same:
More NGOs
More taxpayer dollars
More institutional capture
More managed disorder
This is equilibrium.
To be clear, “managed disorder” refers to both crime in the streets and the violent resistance to the federal government. Both are tools to maintain “equilibrium” to the ruling system.
In the end stage, @DataRepublican notes,
And it increasingly trades competence for survival. Truth itself becomes a liability if it threatens institutional coherence.
This is why a single individual with a phone was able to outperform an entire legacy media ecosystem.
Nick Shirley succeeded because he was outside the system. He could respond directly to reality. The system could only respond to itself.
In my previous Power Line post, I noted how the multi-billion-dollar fraud crisis had become an existential threat to the system in Minnesota. The system reacted by forcing Tim Walz to drop his re-election bid.
Now the system believes that it has reacquired equilibrium and will cruise to victory in November, preserving the system.
Only internal system equilibrium was maintained. Without solving the fraud crisis itself, external equilibrium is still out of whack and threatens the entire enterprise.
But the system itself cannot recognize that reality.
