Is Minnesota in trouble?

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On May 7, Minnesota came in at No. 4 on U.S. News and World Report’s comprehensive ranking of the “Best States” in the country. That’s one spot higher than on last year’s list. Minnesota has been a Top 5 state each of the six years the list has been produced.

So, one could assume things are well in the North Star State. And it may seem like catastrophizing, then — or at least being nitpicky — to focus on the problems.

Yet Minnesotans being honest can tell that something is wrong.

Cases of unprecedented crime; echoes of the recent riots; more residents than ever feeling disillusioned with the political process, and a tension replacing the usual spark and pride of being Minnesotan. Overall, there’s a sense of fragility in the bedrock of our society.

Less than two weeks after our state finished in the Top 5, the Minnesota House erupted in disjointed cries of “Point of order!” and “Follow the rules!” Republicans were livid that members of the Democratic majority added several last-minute amendments to an omnibus bill then moved to bypass all debate. All of the amendments were passed into law.

Accusations of DFL underhandedness came from the political right. From the left were justifications in light of Republicans’ delaying tactics (filibustering). Regardless, it’s all part of the bigger picture: A state government growing more partisan and childish; urban centers suffering more unrest, and a broader society less unified and satisfied — leading many to take the ultimate statement of dissatisfaction by no longer being Minnesotans at all.

Sure, we’re considered a top state. But we’ve been so for decades. The question is: Are we on the edge of losing this status so long enjoyed? Have we been coasting on the equity and infrastructure built by generations past? Or might this be just a rough patch in the wake of era-defining technologies and social movements?

Just as we take care not to gloss over the problems, so, too, can we avoid an overreaction by scaling back for a broader view. To do so, let’s start with those generations past — why the Minnesota they built succeeded and why this society is struggling today, and then use this to address what we might do to rediscover (or even recreate) our state’s greatness for the decades to come.

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For centuries, this territory was home to various Indigenous peoples, most recently the Dakota and Ojibwe, who began trading with the first Europeans — the French — starting in the 1600s. By the 1800s, European influx led to conflict with the Native Americans, who ceded the lands to the newly established national and state governments. This made way for the defining waves of Europeans and what would become nation-high concentrations of Scandinavians and Germans. In a familiar climate, these groups thrived under the cross of Lutheran churches — building farms, businesses, communities, cities and a state defined by a culture of competence, hard work, economic development and social responsibility.

Climbing into another Top 5 (Fortune 500 companies per capita), Minnesotans over the decades have erected pillars of civilization — global-leading institutions in education, medicine, art and business. It was never sexy (no Hollywood, no Wall Street). It was grain, lumber, materials, research, retail and charity, and pragmatic politics.

Eventually the success was too much to ignore.

In 1973, Time magazine encapsulated Minnesota with an iconic cover photo: Then-Gov. Wendell “Wendy” Anderson standing on a dock, wearing a plaid shirt and a big grin, holding up a northern pike. Next to the governor, in bold yellow print, read “The Good Life in Minnesota” for this edition published 51 years ago Aug. 13. Not holding back in this “nice guy finishing first” feel-good cover story, Time wrote:

“If the American good life has anywhere survived in some intelligent equilibrium, it may be in Minnesota.”

“Politics is almost unnaturally clean … .”

“Minnesotans are remarkably civil; their crime rate is the third lowest in the nation.”

“By a combination of political and cultural tradition … Minnesota nurtures an extraordinarily successful society.”

What’s happened to that “unnaturally clean” politics and third-lowest crime rate (now 18th)?

Well, much has changed since 1973 — both in the world and in our state. The taboo theory is that Minnesota has lost unity under that cultural tradition due to a drastic increase of outsiders bringing their own. However, it’s what’s behind this clash and other challenges today — both in the context of who we are as Minnesotans and what’s happened globally — that lies at the heart of why our state is struggling.

Starting with who we are: This whole time, alongside our many strengths, Minnesota culture has had drawbacks that in simpler times just weren’t so evident or as collectively harmful. Today they’re exploited.

We all know these less-desirable traits: indirect, nonconfrontational and guarded — especially toward those outside one’s group. I lost count of how many grad students and young professional transplants I got to know in my 20s who shared with me how hard it was to make friends here.

Minnesotans being closed-off is more than just a stereotype.

“Openness” happens to be one of the “Big Five” — one of the best-replicated, well-established findings in all of psychology. The Big Five traits outline the main categories for personality, forming the acronym OCEAN. Minnesota as a state scores among the lowest in the nation on that first parameter.

But what about the other stereotype — “Minnesota Nice” — described abundantly in that Time story? A newcomer to our state was quoted, “People are so nice here that for a while I thought they were putting me on.”

Well, extroversion and agreeableness are two of the other factors in the Big Five, and Minnesotans score above average on them. (The final two are conscientiousness and neuroticism.) Altogether, this paradoxical, welcoming-but-distant blend was described as “friendly & conventional” in a landmark 2013 study that put the Big Five on the map. Peter J. Rentfrow and colleagues from the University of Cambridge crunched an extensive amount of Big Five data to summarize their influence across the United States.

Minnesota wasn’t the only state with this label, but it did happen to be right in the center of the region that did, illustrated with a blue color-graded map of the country. Shades of blue darken around the Upper Midwest, with Minnesota the deepest blue of all.

Here’s the kicker: If you overlay this map on one measuring racial achievement gaps across the country, you’ll see strong overlap. WalletHub’s 2024 rankings of the states with the highest racial wealth gaps saw five of the top six being states in the Upper Midwest (Minnesota being at No. 6).

Before this millennium, difficulty integrating outsiders didn’t impede our state’s overall success because a homogeneous Minnesota (98% white in 1973) limited the instances of differences to overcome — either as hurdles to integration/coexistence (our lack of openness) or legitimate threats to confront (overly agreeable and nonconfrontational).

What’s happened globally since then: We’ve entered an era of radically increased fluidity and diversity. Plus, we stand out from the rest of our border states in progressive ideals, making the following dysfunctional pattern stand out all the more: Eager to welcome newcomers, difficulty interacting and coexisting with them, then struggling with the inevitable conflicts as a result (including our indirect attempts to address systemic issues).

And just like the socially awkward person whose actions draw dreaded attention to him/herself, so has Minnesota found itself the center of national attention again 50 years later. This time, it’s for the highest-profile, cross-ethnic, police-related tragedies on one hand, while weakness with the other has enabled egregious violations committed against us.

To illustrate, and in another bizarro twist from 1973, we have another image of a Minnesota governor.

This time it’s a screenshot of a video from summer 2021: Current Gov. Tim Walz, wearing a blue suit, orange tie and a big, proud grin, leaning in toward the recipient of the “Outstanding Refugee Award.” This recipient is now a defendant in the $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud case. Just as she was allegedly conducting this massive theft of public money, our state leader congratulated her for being an exemplary newcomer.

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The Minnesota temperament struggles with the dynamic nature of today’s world. While this precedes ethno-cultural clashes, this era’s most pernicious threats of all — radical ideas — supersede such clashes. Just ask the Black leaders of crime-stricken north Minneapolis, who were outraged in 2020 by the City Council president’s call for “ending the Minneapolis Police Department.” Or just earlier this year, Muslim families in St. Louis Park demanded their children not be subject to the district’s LGBTQ curriculum for elementary students.

Today, Minnesota’s leading political ideology is veering the state out of balance, with other examples such as climate policy discouraging highway infrastructure and even the use of automobiles, inconsistent law enforcement (easy on violent crime yet suing small businesses staying open during COVID lockdowns), and a surge in government spending from a state that is already one of the highest taxed in the nation.

This model of higher costs and enhanced regulations and services — historically accompanying great economic success and high quality of living in our state — is a formula that, too, was compatible with a more static, secure, bygone era. In an increasingly mobile world, why do business where it’s more expensive, especially when services are no longer premium? Education in Minnesota joins crime as a descending metric, seeing our national ranking drop from sixth in 2014, to 10th in 2019, to now coming in at 19th in 2024, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Whether it’s the conservative longing for cultural uniformity or the liberal following the script of bigger government to solve problems, we’re no longer in a time aligned with either reality. Not recognizing this, attempts at progress are less effective. And now, whether economic or social, conditions have led to more Minnesota taxpayers leaving, a trend rising over the past decade.

Signifying the fragmentation within, we now even effectively have two state flags.

“The new flag is the DFL flag,” one connection of mine on Facebook commented when I recently asked about the issue there. In this time of peak partisanship and one-party rule, he was one of dozens expressing their strong dislike for the change.

So now, many Minnesotans are buying and flying the old flag. It’s hard to imagine a clearer signal of a house divided and the need to adjust course.

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The course correction for Minnesota starts with rediscovering a balance — returning to a state more purple than blue, adopting an attitude (and electing lawmakers) prioritizing unification and the well-being of all Minnesotans over the trend of partisanship.

With this, we could discover a better way to deal with social challenges of this new era by being humble in recognizing our inherent shortcomings and receiving other ideas for overcoming them. This is an openness serving as an antidote for our usual lack thereof. It’s also a way of using trends to our advantage: While the fluidity and dynamism of modern times have been rocking the boat of our historically calm Minnesota social waters, we can go with the flow by importing not rash, radical ideas but ones that can enlighten our approach to coexistence and conflict resolution.

One voice representing an immigrant community recently raised his for us to hear.

Kayseh Magan, formerly an investigator in the Minnesota Attorney General‘s Office, wrote on July 17 for the Minnesota Reformer his concerns of further disunity and impairment in the state, begat by the recent string of high-profile fraud cases. After calling on his Somali community to follow the law and standards of our society, he called on Minnesotan political leaders to “muster the courage to address ... systemic fraud.”

According to state officials, “the threat of legal consequences and negative media attention” influenced them to withdraw their challenge after detecting the Feeding Our Future scam. Thus, it continued for the better part of a year until federal law enforcement stepped in — perhaps a valid comparison to the need for outside forces to quell the 2020 riots.

Yet in a democracy, leadership reflects the will of the voters. One individual is embracing another modern disruptor — technology — to help fellow Minnesotans come back together and collaborate.

Brandon Klein, formerly chief collaboration officer for UnitedHealth Group, is now a founder in the AI space. His project “United We Transform” was a first-of-its-kind conference, held in downtown St. Paul on May 21. Helping more than 900 attendees connect and discuss the social issues afflicting our state, the event leveraged AI to arrange breakout groups (based on interests attendees had provided), shape discussion topics and send follow-up messages to facilitate follow-through action.

“We have confirmed over 25 new jobs coming out of the day, at least one funded startup company, and representatives from two international companies who are now discussing moving operations to Minnesota,” said Klein.

This increasingly mobile world can also be the catalyst for attracting more business to our state. We just have to learn to embrace the characteristics of this new era, discover the necessary backbone in navigating it, and open up to the ideas and people who can help us do so.

In the meantime, the trend toward dysfunction and divisiveness continues to rise. Our governor, now a candidate for U.S. vice president, and his flaws are on blast nationally. At the same time, his denigration of Minnesotan conservatives’ chosen candidate for president puts them off even more. This year’s “Great Minnesota Get-Together” featured, on one hand, a general excitement throughout the fair for Walz’s candidacy; while on the other, we had a bustling “Never Walz” booth featuring a caricature image of the governor atop and games and merchandise for which fairgoers lined up.

Other U.S. states embody a heartier resolve and more flexibility toward these brash times. As some of them see their national rankings rise, Minnesota does not. That plateau’s edge I worry is imminent is revealing itself with our worsening performance in key areas — as well as overall well-being. In WalletHub’s own comprehensive ranking of “Best States to Live in” the previous four years, Minnesota has dropped from number No. 2, to 5, to 9, and to 10.

On Aug. 12 of this year, their 2024 list saw Minnesota sink to No. 13.

Brandon Ferdig creates human-interest stories and social commentary. He lives in the Twin Cities and can be reached at brandon@theperiphery.com.