Halfwit Republican Senate Candidate Running In Minnesota Says ‘It’s Embarrassing’ To Be Minnesotan

I’m proudly Minnesotan. Born and raised in Long Prairie, Minnesota, I’m a big fan of the state’s hunting and fishing, neighborly culture, and leadership in progressive politics.

However, the Republican candidate for Minnesota’s open U.S. Senate seat doesn’t think I should be proud of where I’m from. Here’s her full quote that she had the courage to voice on Fox News so that I can’t be accused of failing to include context:

Minnesotans are exhausted, and John, quite frankly, they’re embarrassed. I have talked to hundreds of voters in Minnesota who have told me, ‘Gosh, I went on vacation this summer. I didn’t want to tell people where I was from because it’s embarrassing.’ And it’s true.

Now, I suppose she was technically alleging that it wasn’t her saying this directly, it was hundreds of Minnesota voters who thought it was embarrassing to be from Minnesota because of its progressivism. But this is just the same “many people are saying” crap that Trump is always pulling to put just a little distance between himself and his most heinous statements. Anyhow, then she stated right after that that she thought it was true, thereby ruining this tactic for herself.

Well, I think I speak for thousands of Minnesota voters when I say, “F*ck right off, Michele Tafoya.” With this kind of political savvy, it’s a small wonder she managed to win the GOP primary (though My Pillow guy says the GOP primary election was rigged, so who knows?).

Nobody has ever heard of Tafoya, yet we’ve entered an era in which being essentially unknown barely trumps being well known as an unhinged lunatic. Now Minnesota voters are getting to know her, though, and it’s not much of a prettier picture than Mike Lindell.

Going onto a vile propaganda network to belittle the sacrifices made by Renee Good, Alex Pretti, and the thousands of brave Minnesotans who, unlike Good and Pretti, escaped with their lives while resisting ICE’s 2026 siege of Minnesota is a profoundly stupid move politically. Huge majorities of Minnesota voters think these shootings — these murders — at the hands of federal agents were unjustified. The agents responsible have since been spirited away by the federal government and are yet to face any legal consequences whatsoever.

Unfortunately, my hometown of Long Prairie is filled with some of the dumbest voters in the state. They backed one of Tafoya’s competitors in the Senate primary (and overwhelmingly backed another losing horse by choosing the My Pillow guy to run for governor). Look, some people are a little slow, God bless ‘em.

One thing the Republicans of Long Prairie are not, though, is world travelers. Were hundreds of Minnesotans really going on all these out-of-state vacations over the summer, really being embarrassed about being from Minnesota, and then really telling Michele Tafoya the truth about it? Let me answer my own question with another question: Have you ever known an ardent MAGA supporter to be outwardly embarrassed about anything whatsoever?

I obviously can’t speak for all Minnesotans (only the sensible ones), but I can say that in the past 12 months, in addition to within Minnesota itself, I have traveled to Wisconsin, New York, North Dakota, Michigan, Washington, D.C., Poland, and Ukraine. Whenever it came up, I was not embarrassed in the least to tell people where I was from. On the country: I was very proud.

Republicans always say, “Love it or leave it,” when it comes to the United States of America. But most countries are just as reticent to accept immigrants as ours is, and in addition to that, there are all kinds of other barriers in the way of moving permanently to another country.

It’s much easier to move to another state though! If you’re embarrassed to be Minnesotan, I’m happy to report that there are two underpopulated Dakotas right at our western border, either of which would be happy to accept a few more right-wing dimwits.

Minnesota was the very first state to offer volunteer troops to fight for United States during the Civil War. Minnesota was the first governmental entity in America to offer any kind of subsidized housing when it spent $88,285.31 (about $3.5 million in today’s dollars at a time when housing was much more affordable than it is today) to build simple frame houses for those who’d lost their homes to the Great Hinckley Fire of 1894. Minnesota was the only state to vote for the Democrat over the protofascist Ronald Reagan in the 1984 presidential election. While its history is replete with instances of horrible things being done to native people like almost everywhere in America, at least Minnesota is giving some land back to the tribes these days, in addition to how it’s going to make history for American Indians when Peggy Flanagan mops the floor with Tafoya in November’s election.

You can vote Republican and still be a Minnesotan. You can’t be ashamed to be a Minnesotan, ignorant of its entire history, flying its old, long-since replaced flag, and a bootlicking MAGA zombie and still be a Minnesotan, at least not a real one. Seriously: the Dakotas are both right next door.

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Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at [email protected].