Thoughts on Lileks’ Carjacking

As probably most of you are aware, Ricochet's James Lileks was carjacked several weeks ago.

Now, I wanted to refresh my memory on what was written about the carjacking when it first happened, but search as I might using the Ricochet “search” feature, I couldn't find anything. You would think with search words like "James Lileks" and "carjacked," it would have been easy. But the results were a bunch of random, unrelated stuff going back years - and not even in chronological order.

So I'm going off of memory here, though the minute details are unimportant. My point is this. When I first saw the news on Ricochet about what happened to James, my mind went immediately to a piece I had written about Minneapolis back in April 2021 entitled “Minneapolis: Nice No More.” The gist was that because of George Floyd, as well as its far-left Democrat leadership, Minneapolis had become a fallen city essentially owned by the BLM mob and thus had a very dark future. In the comments section, James took issue with my assessment of his hometown and described the previous year or so as a “rough patch.”

We had a bit of polite back-and-forth, and it seemed to me that he just couldn’t bring himself to believe that his presumably beloved hometown was on an irreversibly negative trajectory. Now, let me be very clear, this is not meant to be an I-told-you-so post, and I don’t want it to come off that way.

It was just so striking to me that of all people to be carjacked, it happened to our James Lileks, with whom I had once rhetorically sparred over the future viability of Minneapolis as a decent place to live. The odds of any particular individual being carjacked, no matter how crime-ridden the city, must be vanishingly small. And so for it to have happened to James is kind of mind-blowing to me, especially after our exchange of comments four years ago.

Nevertheless, it happened, and he addressed it with considerable humorous bravado, as I recall. But humorous bravado ain’t gonna turn that place around. And since I first read about the carjacking, I’ve seen something else in the news that drove that home all the more, which I’ll get to in a moment.

Now, the only thing that could possibly turn that city around would be good leadership, but that’s not in the cards — wasn’t then and isn’t now. In my article four years ago, I said: “If there’s one thing you can bank on, it’s this. In the next election cycle, the majority of Minneapolitans will keep right on voting for the destruction of their own city by electing and reelecting BLM-loving, police-defunding, neo-Marxist Democrats.”

And in the comments, James said: “The next city election will be interesting, and revelatory.”

Well, seven months later, Minneapolitans reelected the useless leftist Jacob Frey, who had presided over the post-George Floyd anarchy. Am I a genius for having predicted that? Hardly. It could not have been more clear that the majority of people in that very liberal city were part of an ideology that indiscriminately exalts people of color, places thugs like George Floyd on a pedestal, and believes that white people must atone for their very whiteness until the end of time. That attitude is at the root of everything and has the power to destroy this or any other city.

Interestingly, carjackings in Minneapolis went up 537% in 2020 and another 40% the following year. An article in MPR News from late 2021, in total befuddlement, posed the following titular question: “Why has a wave of carjackings hit the Twin Cities?”

Further down in the article, it said: “A wave has hit the Twin Cities . . . that much is clear. But there’s a big question no one has been able to answer: Why?”

LOL! LMAO! DOIL! (Doubled over in laughter.)

Why, they asked, why, why, why? Total stupefaction on the part of MPR News and, presumably, the rest of legacy media. It’s a criminological and sociological Rubik’s Cube! To them, anyway.

But for the rest of us it’s as as obvious as the nose on Jimmy Durante’s face. If you exalt thugs because they are black; and if you insist that all white cops are racist; and if you recommend defunding or even getting rid of the police; and if you do away with cash bail because it’s racist; and if you talk about doing away with prison; and if there’s a part of mainstream black culture (rap/hip-hop) that already romanticizes and glorifies thuggery, then what do you suppose might happen? Do you suppose that criminals might be emboldened, including carjackers, who seem to be overwhelmingly black?

Sorry to say, this is the mentality/ideology that rules Minneapolis.

Now granted, carjackings and other violent crimes have come down from their peak during the post-Floyd lawlessness. (Unfortunately, that didn’t help Lileks.) But the voters reelected Jacob Frey in 2021 at the absolute peak of that lawlessness. And guess what? There’s another mayoral election in a few months, and it looks like the ante of stupid will be raised even higher this time.

Jacob Frey is running again, but he has a serious challenger — from the left, no less — who appears to be favored by the still clueless citizenry. Therefore, as of now and by all accounts, it looks like their choice for the next mayor is very likely to be . . . drum roll, please . . .

Omar Fateh — a Somali pirate!

Well, he’s not exactly a pirate. But he is Somali, and he looks so much like the Somali pirate from the Tom Hanks movie, Captain Phillips, that it really threw me. He calls himself a democratic socialist, and how far is that, really, from being a pirate? A socialist is someone who takes as much as he can from society’s most productive to give to the least productive. Hmm . . . a Somali Robin Hood, maybe?

In any case, the United States is home to the largest Somali population outside of East Africa, and Minnesota has the largest group in the country. Somalis are a tribal people. Their home country is a primitive, failed state of squabbling tribes. Their religion, Islam, is incompatible with Western civilization. Shall I go on?

While it’s true that anyone, theoretically, can be Americanized, do you think that Minneapolis would dare ask Somalis to assimilate? Of course not. Why? Because to do so would be to infer that American culture is superior to Somali culture and that is unthinkable to those who promote multiculturalism, which basically says that any culture is just as good as any other. They would rather sit back, virtue signal and let Minneapolis be turned into Mogadishu than to so much as even hint that Somalis should assimilate.

Somalis as a group — and there can be individual exceptions — are not about truth, justice and the American way, E Pluribus Unum, or anything of the sort. Somalis are about Somalis, Somali culture and Somali religion. Minneapolis is effectively “colonized” by Somalis, and yet, it couldn’t be happier or prouder. If it elects a Somali for mayor, I predict, without any claim to brilliance or keen insight, that no non-Somali will be subsequently elected to that office for any foreseeable future.

I wonder if a Somali mayor will want to bring in more people from the miserable, failed Islamic homeland in order to further colonize Minneapolis with diversity? Yeah, without a doubt. If anyone can make an argument for how that will be beneficial to the city, I’m listening . . .

Getting back to James Lileks . . .

I said I didn’t want this to be an I-told-you-so. So what is it, exactly? I’m not even really sure. Maybe it’s just dismay over seeing another great American city destroy itself because of the incredibly tenacious woke mind virus, in the grip of which Minneapolis clearly is.

In my article four years ago, I concluded that Minneapolis was lost and conservatives would be better off if they made their way to a better place. Lileks disagreed, and this time I’m certainly not going to advise him to leave his hometown. Given that he tried to stop the carjacker and got dragged down the street a bit, it’s obvious he has a fighting spirit and isn’t just going to cut and run. More power to him, and thank goodness he wasn’t badly hurt.

But this is more than just a “rough patch.” Minneapolis is clearly mapping out its future — and it’s going to be multicultural unicorns and rainbows all the way, while common sense and pragmatism are left in the dust.

Old Somali proverb: “Talo xumo tog baas bay kaa riddaa.” ~Bad counsel may cause you to fall into an abyss.