Who really changed their stripes?

I’ve never been a card-carrying Democrat, and neither were my parents. I grew up in Two Harbors in a family of railroaders. We stayed out of politics, but we had front-row seats to working-class life. I’m 80 now, and I can still tell when a claim doesn’t add up.
Local politicians keep saying, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party — it left me.” Ronald Reagan made that line famous. Today it’s been dusted off and focus-group-tested along with “common sense” and “our way of life.” So, let’s check who actually moved.
Conservation. Republican Teddy Roosevelt created the Superior National Forest. Republican Richard Nixon created the EPA. This year, Republicans used a never-before-tried shortcut to strip protection from 225,000 acres of Boundary Waters watershed — for a mine owned by Antofagasta, a Chilean mining giant worth more than $40 billion. That isn’t conservative. It’s a giveaway.
Jobs. Twin Metals promises 650 jobs. I watched machines replace the track crews at the DM&IR, where Dad worked. The mines went the same way: Range taconite plants employed about 16,000 people in 1979 and roughly 4,000 today, mostly because of automation. By the time Twin Metals digs its first ton, with driverless trucks, remote-controlled drills, and AI running the mill, do you really think there’ll be 650 permanent jobs? Republicans used to be good at numbers.
And in an increasingly mechanized world, our woods and waters will only grow more precious. Is trading them for a handful of jobs “common sense?”
Fraud and corruption. The Feeding Our Future thieves deserved prosecution, and they got it. But instead of fighting fraud, the administration flooded the Twin Cities with immigration agents, and federal officers killed two Minnesotans. That’s theatrical tragedy, not law and order.
At the same time, the president’s family pocketed more than $1 billion from crypto, an industry he deregulated. Even Trump’s former White House lawyer called it the greatest onslaught of corruption in history. So, fraud is bad, but corruption is fine?
Prices. Reagan warned that tariffs punish workers. Today’s Republicans imposed the steepest tariffs since the 1930s and, with “51st state” taunts, drove away our Canadian visitors. Border businesses saw declines of up to 40 percent. Add a war with Iran that sent gas and diesel soaring.
Health care. Rep. Pete Stauber voted for the 2025 megabill that cuts nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid, in a district where a quarter of residents rely on it. Then Republican leaders let insurance subsidies lapse for 89,000 Minnesotans. Meanwhile, the richest one percent will pocket an average tax cut of about $66,000 this year alone.
National security. This administration threatened NATO ally Denmark over Greenland, blamed Ukraine for diesel fuel prices, and let Nvidia sell advanced AI chips to China for a cut of the sales. And it’s doing this while trying to override state AI laws and promoting giant data centers eyeing rural land, water, and power.
Where’s the pushback? On every one of these points, I haven’t heard a scintilla of opposition from our Republican congressman or our Republican state candidates. Republican policy, at all levels, now bends to whatever suits one man. And we’re supposed to believe that same one man understands “our way of life?”
Democrats on the Range still want what they always have: union wages, affordable health care, clean water, public land open to everyone, and honest government. That has been the heart of the Range’s labor tradition since miners stood up to the companies in 1907 and 1916. Before you decide the Democrats left you, ask which party really moved — and who it moved for.
Steve Anderson
Birch Lake