Congressional candidate Matt Little tried to turn the Minnesota fairgrounds into a handshake factory, chasing a world record for the most hands shaken in a day. Fair officials shut him down after he had already shaken a couple thousand hands, citing rules against bothering people
Good for the Fair. They should keep going, because Little isn’t the only one who stepped way over the line at the Fair this year. The Weird Left that now seems to call the political shots in this state seems intent on politicizing, dividing, and capturing the Fair to remake it into a smug protest against people they don’t like.
The in-your-face politicization of the Fair is as thick as the “adult-use cannabis” smoke that now hangs everywhere from Kiddie-rides to the horse barns, with a clear message for those who may not like it: “get out.”
The Minnesota State Fair should be the place you count on to escape for a day and mix with people of every background, hometown, age, size, shape, and color. Parents and grandparents melt into the nostalgia and predictability of the Great Minnesota Get-Together, with the things that never change becoming more important every year. The giant pig is the same. The musty smell of the Grandstand. Kids squeezing the last drops of fun out of summer, with school only days away.
This year, something is different. It’s not the crowds. It’s the politics.
8647
Crop art is a perennial favorite exhibit, especially for those who may have a crafty Aunt Betty-Ann who does that kind of thing or stitches a complicated folk-art quilt. But of course the Karens and the Fun Police had to remake the seed art into Important Political Statements, to force us poor rubes into confronting our racism, colonialism, and transphobia through the prophets and prophetesses who share their craft. One piece featured “8647,” which a sufficient majority of people interpret as a call to kill the current president — not a number ordinary fairgoers would glue in white corn, with a blood-like drip of red beans at the bottom. This and other inflammatory political pieces drew thousands of visitors. The two-hour line wrapped around the building, with somber, reverent liberals in a methodically slow procession to view the “speak truth to power” talismans.
These are the same buzzkills who got rid of the old Minnesota flag and replaced it with some strange woke thing nobody asked for. They want to fix the state and save it from the other 85 percent. Boy, have they taken a liking to the Fair, and they have come for it. The crabby, stern, makeup-free, oddly-bespectacled, closely-shorn, bearded, self-righteous, ghostly-pale liberals really want to go all in on the whole Minnesota kitsch thing at the Fair. Led by the Nebraskan governor in buffalo plaid, they pretend to like hotdish and lemon bars, fishing, hockey, and of course crop art. Is there anything more annoying to a real Minnesotan than the inauthenticity of a poser?
Outside the GOP booth, older protesters in matching yellow shirts stood grimly scolding Republicans with slogans about billionaires and pedophiles. They were there to scare off and tsk-tsk those who volunteer and visit the GOP booth. Not exactly neighborly fun. The Fair should not become a designated protest zone for whoever shows up in coordinated merch.
The same rule that rightly got Matt Little booted should have been used to run off the protesters who were harassing Republicans outside their booth. Clearly, the crabby old scolds were there to protest and take advantage of the license paid for by the Minnesota GOP, to dispirit the people working at and visiting the booth.
A Little odd
Matt Little is no stranger to publicity. In his campaign for Minnesota Senate, he reportedly attended 58 high school graduation parties in a single month, seeking invitations from high school students with the promise to post on his prolific social media accounts. This winter, Little claimed to be the victim of ICE agents he was following. He tracked the undercover agents, who led him back to his own home and said Little had risked the safety of their intended pursuit.
A hundred years ago, it would not have been at all strange to shake hands with a politician at the Fair’s beer garden on at the Grandstand.
But this is 2026, and you could very well settle in on an old park bench and find that the polka band you hoped to see has been replaced by a drag-queen troupe, as your hand is snatched by a sweaty political candidate bounding awkwardly toward the Skyride, chased by police.
