Not all crises are predictable. It’s true that some things just come out of the blue.
But many disasters are entirely predictable, and a good chunk of them could be prevented or mitigated if people made common-sense decisions based on clear cost/benefit calculations.
Yet time and again, policymakers will pretend that problems don’t exist or even pursue policies that will make things worse, even though they have every reason to know that when the crisis comes, it will be a disaster.
Sometimes that is because, in the short term, they or their friends benefit from the policies. Sometimes, because averting them will cause short-term pain, and they are too afraid or too worried about losing their jobs to do what is necessary. And sometimes they believe that “This time will be different,” or they are caught up in a mania.
Whatever the reason, it’s the people who warn about the looming disaster who are seen as the bad guys, and even when they are proven to be right, most of the time, they are resented.
Consider just a couple of examples:the welfare fraud that is finally being exposed, and the coming crash in gender ideology. In each of these cases, the people who had the power to avert the crisis went out of their way to make things worse for short-term gain, leaving a trail of victims and the entire society worse off.
I chose those three because there was no particular lack of foresight or credible warnings, and the policymakers chose to exacerbate them for political gain.
Still no coverage in NYT, WaPo, CNN, or Minneapolis Star-Tribune of massive fraud being uncovered in Minnesota. The media’s willingness to ignore stories that hurt Democrats is truly astonishing. pic.twitter.com/xZcZcbUSm9
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) December 29, 2025
Outside people who only pay attention to the Pravda Media, which still has failed to cover the Somali welfare fraud to any great extent, Americans are waking up to the fact that, at least in Minnesota, around half or even more of the money spent to help indigent people is stolen, and often with the implicit aid of policymakers.
I am very, very confident that Minnesota is the tip of the iceberg. I have little doubt that when all is said and done, tens or hundreds of billions of dollars will have flown out of our coffers to scammers, and I have about the same amount of doubt that high-level politicians and policymakers knew about much of the fraud.
Consider the Daycare fraud that goes on in Minnesota. Law enforcement has known about it to some extent at least for about 8 years, and even prosecuted a few cases back then.
This is from a 2018 Minnesota criminal prosecution against Somali daycare fraudsters.
In surveillance video, Somali parents would take their kids to the daycare, check them in, and then leave with them moments later.
The owners of the daycare would then bill the state for a… pic.twitter.com/oXgbl2qtYj
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) December 29, 2025
Walz: “This is what happens when they scapegoat and this is what they happens when they no longer hide the idea of white supremacy…”
Shirley: “Tim wants votes… There are entire apartment complexes where white people have been pushed out of these apartment complexes because Somalians have taken over.”
“If you have a hundred thousand people that will vote for you … you’re gonna enable and let this stuff happen.”
Everybody is “shocked” by Nick Shirley’s uncovering more than $100 million in likely fraud in just a day, but I wasn’t, and I am willing to bet that nobody at high levels of government is either. I know legislators who have been trying to fight this for years and who have been vilified for doing so.
Walz has known about this all along, and his administration has facilitated it for exactly the reasons Nick Shirley said. That was not a genius insight, with all due respect to Nick, but an obvious one. And even now, when the exposure of the fraud is an existential threat, many politicians are scared of the Somali vote, which has become so strong for the Democrats.
The Somali fraud complex is huge. Daycare fraud, autism centers, Feeding Our Future…The tab will grow past $10 billion in just a few years, and anybody who cares to know about it does.
But…for all involved, the incentives to keep it going were huge, even when they knew a cliff was at the end of the road. The incentive structure for maintaining the status quo was too great, and the problems were always in the future.
The same was true of gender ideology. Liberals wanted a new civil rights crusade, and the trans issue seemed to fit the bill after gay marriage passed. It appealed to the AWFLs and satisfied the big activist groups that give awards and money, and happened to make a lot of money for politically connected and wealthy doctors.
Some people got caught up in the mania, but many more secretly worried that this was a bad idea; but opposing it meant paying a very high political price and perhaps career suicide, so they jumped on the bandwagon.
It paid dividends, until it didn’t. Ask Kamala Harris about that, for instance, and take a look at the popularity of the Democratic Party. But even now, when the political price to be paid is high to stay on that bandwagon, the Democrats are staying because the true crash hasn’t come. Everybody can see it coming, but when Gavin Newsom and Seth Moulton tried to pull back, they were whipped into line.
It will take another massive loss at the ballot box, and one that is totally predictable, to break the spell.
We face countless crises that are totally predictable, and in many cases, the people who are charged with averting them know they are coming and will do nothing. Whether it is dealing with the national debt, military procurement practices, Social Security, Medicare, or massive fraud in government, the short-term costs of doing the right thing exceed, in their minds, the long-term benefit.
Trump was elected to break the stalemate, and at least he has the courage to attack the status quo. But as you can see, many Congressmen do not.
Can he succeed? Not in one term. Without a MAGA successor, it’s hard to see how things improve in the long run. So we better work hard to elect a successor who is willing to take on the status quo.
