Only One Lie

I almost never know what to make of the Star Tribune's relatively new business columnist, Evan Ramstad. He's such a come-down from the retired Neal St. Anthony, who he replaced in 2023. 

Today's column, Two lies the state cannot afford, is a good example. It starts out setting up two falsehoods he says underlie the human services fraud cases we've had here in Minnesota since Covid.

As he describes the first lie — which I agree is a vile lie — I could hear the false equivalence being set up for the second lie, but I couldn't figure out what the second lie would be. Here's the first one:

The first lie is that most immigrants to Minnesota, who are mainly people of color, take more from the state — or nation — economically than they add to it. It’s mostly people on the political right who say this.

(It's not mostly people on the right who say it, Evan. It's only people on the right - or maybe people who say they're independents, but who won't admit they're on the right.)

But what's his equivalent "left" lie, since he has to have one?

The second lie is that most white people in Minnesota don’t want people of color to get ahead. It’s mostly people on the political left who say this.

“Injustice!” they cry. They see racism everywhere and, in trying to level the playing field or diminish white guilt, they try to reduce the harmful effects of competition and creative destruction. They risk eroding ambition and drive in Minnesota when it is most needed to overcome the growth problem that affects everyone.

I read that three times, maybe four, trying to figure out what he's talking about. 

Is he saying that thinking there's such as thing as racism, that racism and white supremacy are a systemic part of U.S. society from its founding, is as simple as saying white people "don't want people of color to get ahead"? 

I guess that is what he is saying. 

I don't imagine, if you surveyed even the most overtly racist white person, that they would fess up to admitting they don't want people of color to "get ahead." That's just simplistic thinking and beneath a person who has been awarded a newspaper column.

In his next paragraph, I imagine Evan is thinking of that equity illustration people were sharing five years ago in the year after George Floyd was murdered, of the three kids trying to look over the fence:



At least as I remember seeing it evolve over time, it started out with equity as the goal, and then someone added the fourth one image, where there is no fence. It appears that in Evan's view, working for a level playing field (however rendered in the crude illustration) is "eroding ambition and drive." 

Nepo babies rejoice!

Note that Evan never explains in the rest of his column how the second "lie" is implicated in our recent human services fraud, by the way. He just set up the straw man as if it's obviously as strong as the clearly true first lie.  

But that's how false equivalencies work. No surprise.