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President Trump has made no secret of how much he hates the Somali people. But even for him, his latest tirade plumbs new depths of ugliness.
Make no mistake: his post from last Thursday is actively calling on white Minnesotans to engage in a race war, to attack their neighbors, to succumb to the xenophobic violence that is at the heart of the Trump regime.
But make no mistake about this either: Minnesotans aren’t going to take the bait.
That’s not just some puffery about how great or noble Minnesotans are. The state does indeed struggle with racism, with one of the largest education achievement gaps in the country, outrageous disparities in housing, and police disproportionately targeting Black people. But Trump already tried to get white Minnesotans to turn on the immigrant communities in the state, and he failed miserably.
Trump has, of course, attacked the Somali population for years. He’s been going after Rep. Ilhan Omar since at least 2019, gleefully ginning up death threats against her.
Last December, he ranted to reporters about how hundreds of thousands of Somali immigrants were “completely taking over the once great state of Minnesota.” And, of course, his hatred for Somali people formed the basis for the alleged fraud that became the justification for Metro Surge.
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But what Trump is doing now is next level. He’s not just attacking Somali residents. Rather, he’s calling for Minnesotans to attack them as well. And of course, it’s all based on absolute lies.
Let’s unpack Trump’s disgusting Truth Social post to see how little truth is in there.
Has the state been “taken over by Somali immigrants”? The state has about 5.8 million residents, 80 percent of whom are white. Roughly 102,000 Somalis live in the state, with about 83,000 in the Twin Cities metro area. That’s under 2 percent of the population.