The Moral Panic Machine in Minnesota

A few weeks back, President Trump unleashed maybe the most expressly racist tirade of his political career (no small feat), calling Somali immigrants “garbage” who “we don’t want…in our country.”

Not long after that, presumably spurred to action by Trump’s rhetoric, Nick Shirley, a 23 year-old right-wing YouTuber, conducted a makeshift investigation of several Somali-run child care centers in Minneapolis and concluded that there was widespread fraud. His primary evidence was that some of the centers appeared to be empty during working hours, and that nearby citizens claimed not to have seen children entering the building. 

Shirley’s claims are across-the-board bullshit. Independent media inquiries found no indications of fraud, and when state officials investigated they found that the centers were “operating as expected.” To give you a sense of how dishonest the allegations were, one of the centers Shirley claimed was committing fraud based on the lack of activity at the center actually closed earlier this year.

The right-wing slander was, however, orbiting around a broad truth: there have been several high-profile instances of fraud involving what are largely Somali immigrant-run child care centers in Minnesota. These are not new – Minnesota’s legislative auditor published this report on the issue in 2019, and the largest prosecution, concerning misappropriated Covid funds, occurred under Joe Biden’s DOJ in 2021. Of course, that does nothing to bolster the case that any of the centers in Shirley’s video were committing fraud, other than serving as a basis for guilt by racial association. 

Nonetheless, the Trump administration seized the opportunity: when Shirley’s video picked up traction online, they announced their intention to crack down on ostensible fraud, and a few days ago they froze billions in federal child care payments to five blue states pending the provision of exhaustive documentation. FBI Director Kash Patel claimed to have “surged” investigative resources into the issue. Just yesterday the Department of Agriculture suspended federal funding to the state. The Republican base played their own role, jumping in to subject every Somali-run child care they could find to endless harassment.

It was also revealed that the Minnesota GOP had coordinated with Shirley, directing him toward certain sites and who knows what else. They achieved their goal – not only have Somalis been demonized, but Governor Tim Walz announced he would not seek reelection.

The Trump administration features a lot of these public-private partnerships, where it’s difficult to tell where the depraved MAGA base ends and the official machinations of our government begin. Even the most purportedly sacred government rituals take on a private character. When the administration published photos of its war room during the operation to capture Nicolas Maduro, Twitter was open in the background. The team no doubt enthralled with how the scenes would play to their ravenous base on social media.

Twenty years ago or so there was a material divide between the beliefs of the Republican establishment and its more radical base. The establishment, generally speaking, was characterized by what you might call “traditional” conservative views: fewer regulations on business, a strong and aggressive military. The base, fed by right-wing talk radio and television, was driven more by cultural grievance, nativistic anger, and conspiracism.

Maybe the most definitive element of the Trump era is the collapse of that divide. Trump, himself radicalized by gutter propaganda, functionally merged the Republican establishment with its base and relieved the accumulating tension between the camps.

Now, to the extent they are distinct at all, the groups are symbiotic. They engage in a sort of call and response, each alternately sending and receiving cues with the other. Trump goes on a racist rant about Somali immigrants, members of the base stir up some conspiracy theories, and the administration manifests some type of vindictive public policy.

They have created, in other words, a moral panic machine. They are a political operation that can arbitrarily identify targets, generate a media frenzy, and use it to justify draconian policies. This is especially useful because the modern Republican base doesn’t have much of a policy platform per se. What they have are grievances against perceived enemies. 

This is, ultimately, the essence of fascist politics. No policy agendas, just targets. They can be generated by the base and fed to the administration, or vice versa, but they circulate from one to the other, propelled by centrifugal force.

It’s fitting that it was also in Minneapolis that an ICE agent murdered Renee Good a few days ago. We got to see the same political operation spring into action, this time not to justify inflicting pain upon a chosen target but to justify pain that had already been inflicted. 

Jonathan Ross, the murderous agent, is an emblem of the collapsed divide between the base and the establishment; an agent of the state who thinks that his job is to actualize his violent fantasies, and who receives full-throated support from the party in return.

Moreover, Nick Shirley’s “investigation” could be the very reason that ICE was so active in Minneapolis - the administration surged ICE’s presence in the city in response to the fraud scandal. The brutal murder of a citizen by the government may well be traceable to a halfwit’s YouTube video.

The Republican Party as it is currently constructed is less of a traditional party than it is a vessel through which the Nick Shirley’s and Jonathan Ross’s of the world can materialize their various bigotries. If you are a hate-filled right-wing dipshit, you can now call the institutional power of the conservative political movement to your back. It was only a few weeks ago that we saw an Oklahoma University student escalate her failing grade to an issue of national import. 

To his followers, this has always been the promise of Trump. Whatever bitterness you harbor in the recesses of your heart, you can hold it forward and be embraced. But these days it’s more than just social acceptance. You can enact vengeance on your chosen enemies in the real world. There’s an audience for your fearmongering and a protectorate for your prejudice.