The Issue that Breaks the Blue Narrative
Editor's Note
We are living through a cold civil war over who controls the American state and what it is for. Industrial-scale welfare fraud in blue states, and the left’s increasingly theatrical efforts to delegitimize federal enforcement, are not separate stories. They are two fronts in the same conflict: whether the regime will be run as an instrument of law and national cohesion, or as a patronage machine protected by moral spectacle. In this essay, Peachy Keenan explains how Minnesota has become a case study in that struggle.
Blue state Democrats, stung by a series of political setbacks and scandals that have discredited their preferred narratives, are now throwing themselves into active anti-ICE protests and symbolic confrontations; this is not to stop deportations, but for the TikTok footage they can use to try to regain the moral high ground they’ve lost.
In the wake of repeated federal immigration enforcement actions in Minneapolis — including two fatal shootings by federal agents, fierce criticism from local leaders, and dueling claims over who holds the moral high ground — Democrats are desperately trying to frame themselves as defenders of civil rights rather than the party on the defensive.
Don’t get distracted. The reason Democratic politicians are going all-in on ICE disruptions (and the escalating protests after the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good) is that they’re fully aware that the Minnesota fraud issue is electoral kryptonite to them.
They need to turn the page. If a few liberals need to put themselves in harm’s way to help change the subject, their leaders will simply say: “Ah well!”
What most Americans are only now discovering has been common knowledge in Minnesota for years: organized fraud inside public programs, centered largely in the Twin Cities, with losses now estimated by federal prosecutors to reach into the billions.
Congratulations, Republicans. You’ve been handed a winning issue — maybe the only issue that might let you keep the House next November. You must handle it the right way.
After the massive fraud infrastructure spent decades in shadow, it’s been wild to see it come into view so suddenly. Defendants in the Feeding Our Future case continue to be convicted and ordered to forfeit millions. Federal prosecutors say Minnesota is “drowning in fraud.” The same schemes used to loot pandemic food programs are now being uncovered inside Medicaid housing services, autism services, and disability programs — often through companies that exist for no other purpose than to bill the state.
Republicans can’t continue to ignore it (and even aid and abet it). Tweets, posts, Congressional hearings, and wrist-slaps will not be enough. Weakly offering lip service and failing to throw your full support behind those trying to fix this will not be enough.
The GOP should be focused on winning a cold civil war that is on the precipice of turning hot. That means abandoning symbolic opposition and embracing an enforcement-first governing posture. Not only do we need to bring something like DOGE back to D.C., we need a “DOGE 250” in all fifty states. Teams of auditors, investigators, prosecutors, and most importantly: ICE deportation teams.
All scammers and their families need to be swiftly denaturalized and removed from the homeland. In addition, their property and assets should be seized as restitution, cars repossessed, businesses shut.
The issue at hand isn’t about ordinary immigrants looking to fully embrace the American promise. It’s about tightly networked fraud ecosystems that took root in Minnesota’s unusually permissive welfare and charity environment and were allowed to metastasize for decades. The real action is happening in the back rooms, where activist nonprofits broker bodies for rehab scams, worker’s-comp cases drain companies with bogus injury claims, and public-school systems employ armies of useless six-figure DEI bureaucrats.
Blue states like Minnesota and California have become breeding grounds for massive fraud in public programs. Driven by expansive welfare policies, unchecked spending, and a culture of entitlement fostered under Democratic leadership, these states are hemorrhaging untold billions of our money. They’re taking it from people who work like dogs to pay their taxes and avoid welfare. Then, that money is handed over to new arrivals who hate us and are happy to get every member of their family in on the welfare-subsidized loan scam.
While Americans work to create business out of nothing, these illegal immigrants are setting up hundreds, thousands of fake businesses to siphon our cash away. And blue state Democrats are the political managers of the environment that made these criminal cartels possible.
Minnesota went from being a largely Scandinavian state to home of the largest Somali population in North America after the State Department directed thousands of refugees there in the early 1990s. Immigration never meaningfully slowed, and Minnesota’s famously generous welfare state made it an especially attractive destination. Over time, well-organized networks learned how to exploit nearly every available public program.
Somali fraud in Minnesota isn’t just a few bucks skimmed off the top. The infamous Feeding Our Future scandal that involved a fake nonprofit exploiting COVID-19 relief is the country’s largest pandemic-related fraud scam. Seventy-eight defendants have now been charged. Dozens have pleaded guilty. The scheme alone accounted for roughly $300 million.
What’s more, it opened the door to something worse: Investigators now believe similar methods were used to siphon money from multiple Medicaid programs, where total payouts since 2018 exceed $18 billion. As much as half may be fraudulent.
This fraud didn’t happen in a vacuum; Minnesota’s Democratic administration relaxed oversight during the pandemic in the name of equity and speed. As a result, the state became a “hub of fraudulent money,” with billions vanishing into thin air. Federal prosecutors say these are not classic overbilling cases. Many of the companies are entirely fictitious — created solely to defraud the system. One U.S. attorney summed it up nicely: “Every day we look under a rock and find a new $50 million fraud scheme.”
Governor Walz, often touted as a progressive hero, has applauded recent fraud charges, but his administration’s lax policies enabled this mess in the first place. So did Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose office chose to side against state education officials who tried to slow payments to Feeding Our Future in 2020. So, too, did Rep. Ilhan Omar, who sponsored legislation that expanded the very food programs later looted at industrial scale — inside her own congressional district.
Fraud is a winning issue also in the election that matters most: 2028, when J.D. Vance will have to face Governor Greaseball Newsom. California’s fraud dwarfs Minnesota’s, and is, thus, Gavin’s Achilles Heel. If you can expose it properly and thoroughly, it might cripple his campaign before it has a chance to stagger out of the barn.
Here in California, the unemployment system lost an estimated $20 billion to $30 billion in COVID-related fraud. The Employment Development Department (EDD) itself admitted that 10% of all benefits paid out were fraudulent!
To cover these payouts, California borrowed $20 billion from the federal government. Interest payments are almost toward $1 billion a year — in case you were wondering why they’re about to tax billionaires to death and eventually start seizing valuable property. Since 2020, total government benefits fraud in America surged an unreal 242%!
In the end, this is a tailor-made winning midterm campaign for Republicans. Elections are in 11 months. They have the opportunity to use Fraudmaggeddon to keep the House, destroy the corrupt Left, and actually end 40 years of devastating theft from honest people. They’re fools to do anything else.