The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Minnesota Insurrection Proves 'Blue State Model' Has Failed

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

Minnesota’s top officials are fanning the flames of unrest in their state. When are we going to call it like we see it? This is an insurrection. From Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, state and city leaders have repeatedly excused, enabled, and emboldened disorder. They’re only the latest links in a long Democrat chain of political indulgence toward radicalism, tracing back to the civil rights era. Victor Davis Hanson warns of the fractures this mindset brings on today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.” “ What we're seeing is a complete failure of the blue state model. And the failure is ironic because it's neo-Confederate. Just like the old Confederacy and the Antebellum South, these blue states are obsessed with race. This is where DEI comes from. This is where, if you're one-sixteenth of this, or you have DNA of that, you identify, primarily, by your ethnic or racial background and not your common humanity or your common American citizenship. Very similar to the South. “This is something that's disturbing, that it's a trademark of over 150 years that the Democratic Party has, maybe it feels that it's more a people's party, but they feel they can defy federal law at their own volition.” 00:00 Introduction 00:10 Minnesota's Insurrectionary Rhetoric 00:29 Impact on ICE and Law Enforcement 03:43 Historical Context of Defiance 05:53 Blue State Model and Neo-Confederate Comparison 08:45 Conclusion: The Future of Blue State Defiance 👉 The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: http://dailysignal.com/donate 👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest short videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1⁠  Also on Spotify: https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL9753340027  👉Want more VDH? Watch Victor’s weekly, hour-long podcast, “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” now! Subscribe to his YouTube channel, and enable notifications:  https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273?sub_confirmation=1 👉More exclusive content is available on Victor’s website: https://victorhanson.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I want to talk a little bit about the open defiance of the federal government. Is it new? The Democrats get very upset when you say you're the party of insurrection. When you collate everything that Attorney General of Minnesota, Keith Ellison has said, Governor Tim Walts, Mayor Fry of Minneapolis, it's unabashed, unapologetic, insurrectionary rhetoric. Do ICE? Get the f***ing Minneapolis. They're actually working hand and glove with people on the street.

They encourage them to take pictures, to harass, to block ICE law enforcement activity. And you get the impression that they feel there's no consequences. In other words, they're saying to the rest of us in Minnesota elected officials have the God-given right to pick and choose which federal laws that we're going to obey. Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hansson for the Daily Signal. I'm trying to make one of my haphazard appearances. depending how my energy level after all these medications they put me on after this lung cancer surgery. But I'm here on the farm and I'm doing my best.

I want to talk a little bit about the open defiance of the federal government. I've mentioned that earlier, but when you collate everything that Attorney General of Minnesota, Keith Ellison has said, Governor Tim Walts, mayor, Fry of Minneapolis. It's unabashed, unapologetic, insurrectionary rhetoric. It's not just that they've told ICE to leave. It's not just that they've told their own police forces and law enforcement, Minnesota in general, not to come to the aid of ICE. It's that they're actually working hand and glove with people on the street. In other words, they encourage them to take pictures, to harass, to block ICE law enforcement activity,

and you get the impression that they feel there's no consequences. In other words, they're saying to the rest of us, the 330 million people outside Minnesota, that we, Minnesota, elected officials, have the God-given right to pick and choose which federal laws that we're going to obey, and we're just not going to obey the enforcement of, federal immigration law. We don't we don't really care about 10,000 people coming across the border

during the Biden administration per day, but we do care about the federal government rectifying that lapse or that crime by trying to find out where and who and how to get these people out in Minnesota. Nor did they care that ICE, according to its own figures, has rounded up 4,000 people with various criminal misdemeanors and felonies record and got them out of Minnesota, and that has contributed to Minnesota's low crime rate. But the problem is this, that they understand that the Trump administration, if they were to enforce immigration law to the full letter of the law, that would include collateral people that when they're going after criminals, they say, or how about you, you're in the house, you're,

Could you have ID? And if they're not, they were going to deport them. They don't want any of that. And they don't want to turn over people, as I said, in the jails. And that is a model for what I would call the blue states. Is it new? I mean, the Democrats get very upset when you say you're the party of insurrection going back to the civil rights movement.

And before the Civil War, you know, April 12, 1861, when states' riders in South Carolina It said that we're not going to honor federal law within the confines of South Carolina, along with six other Confederate states at that time who had succeeded. And we don't think federal property belongs to you. So this is the tradition that Waltz, Fry, and Ellison are relying upon as well. And it's an unbroken tradition going all the way from John C. Calhoun, as I said, all the way to Orbel Fobbus, George Wallace, Lester Maddox, segregationists of the 1960s.

And the left has never really confronted that. They said, well, these were just Dixie Cracks or Southerners, and we were on the vanguard of civil rights. No, but when you look at the actual vote of the 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights Act, the Democratic Party voted 60 to 65 percent in the House and Senate, maybe a little higher, 67 in one case, to pass those legislations. But the Republicans had a much higher percentage, 80%. And the Senate in the House on the particular votes were for civil rights.

So this is something that's disturbing that it's a trademark of over 150 years that the Democratic Party has, maybe it feels that it's more a people's party, but they feel they can defy federal law at their own volition. And again, how do you respond to it? If you don't respond to it, then you set the precedent that states that are blue can arbitrarily pick and choose which federal laws they want, although, of course, they want federal monies to come back. And it's a very dangerous precedent because we've seen it in the 1860s where it led to. And finally, something else to keep in mind, it's symptomatic of a larger problem in the blue states.

And we've kind of flipped the blue-red state paradigm in which we're seeing three to four million people fleeing, for the most part, northern industrial, what we would call in the old days, Yankee blue states going to the south, which were traditionally. Traditionally, up until the 1960s, less dynamic societies, more rural, more pyramidal in their economic classes, small group of wealthy, large group of poor, very little middle class, dating back to the antebellum states. But what we're seeing is a complete failure of the blue state model. And the failure is ironic because it's neo-Confederate, just like the old Confederacy and the Antibelums. South, these blue states are obsessed with race. This is where DEI comes from. This is where if you're 116th of this or you have DNA of that, you identify primarily by your ethnic or racial background and not your common humanity or your common American citizenship. Very similar to the South. In these blue states, in California, from where I'm speaking, is a good example. There is no middle class. It's

disappearing. It either leaves or realizes that the high tax, highly unregulated, high crime paradigms and high deficits as well, high debt obligations in all of these places, a Chicago, a Minneapolis, or Washington, a Baltimore, it's not a very conducive atmosphere in Portland, Seattle, for the middle class. Their downtowns are dying, people are leaving. That's another trace that we see going back to the neo-confederate. period that there wasn't no middle class in the early south. By the way, it's very ironic that there is a middle class in the south. There is a dynamic economy and there's less emphasis on race. Of course, the main neo-confederate characteristic, all these states feel that they're unique,

they're chauvinistic, that Minnesotans or Californians or Oregonians are superior morally. And therefore, they have the moral, spiritual, the intellectual right to say, I'm not going to follow the federal government. If I decide not to. Now, of course, it's pick and choose. During the Obama period, they wanted the federal government to suppress state rights in cases where people question the federal government who were conservative. But for the larger part, they feel that they're a law and a culture onto their own. in conclusion, what's going to stop it? People have to identify this blue state model for what it is.

It's a desperate anger, sense of failure, frustration that they cannot create heaven on earth. The high tax, high regulation, green frenzies, woke ideology, DEI, anti-business, billionaires tax, all of this. is drying up the economy, the crime policies, the Soros, DAs, prosecutors, there's high crime areas, and people don't want to be there. And they understand that. And their reaction to it is to get more angrier, more chauvinistic and more defiant, especially of a federal government if they would relax and say, my gosh, Trump is going to send people in to lower our crime rate,

to get criminals off the street, to work with us. you think they would enjoy that? No, it's a nihilism, and it's spreading. And unfortunately, as I said earlier, in an earlier podcast, there's nothing in the Constitution about a state leaving the Constitution, the Constitution of the states. But there is something about how federal law, the supremacy clause, supersedes state law. So what I'm getting at is all of these states, and Minnesota now in particular, are openly defined the federal government in the tradition that led up to the Civil War and after the Civil War led to Jim Crow and the crisis and the confrontations of the 1960s. Final irony, this is all from left-wing liberal, progressive, enlightened people. and they have chosen a most unenlightened backward position because the common denominator is they feel that this is a source of power and continuity of their control of government.

Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis-Hanson for the Daily Signal. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like, share, and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website at victorhansson.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition.