While Washington Looked Away
A Lament on Forgotten Towns and Fragile Democracy
Winona
Some time back I was in Winona, Minnesota in the dead of winter. Winona’s a pretty town on the Mississippi River maybe 110 or so miles southeast of Minneapolis. I was visiting a knitting factory that had been in business for 60 years and employed 150 people and was about to close. Red brick, tall windows. I walked the floor of the plant—looms that would be abandoned, inventory of yarn and half-finished sweaters that would never be completed. That afternoon I sat with their designer over a cup of coffee at a local coffee shop. She was worried. Not many jobs for designers in Winona. She’d have to leave town, just as her daughter was finishing high school.
The Rage
Most days I want to scream. I want to scream at the pickup truck with the Trump banner or the guy with the MAGA hat on the TSA line behind me. I want to grab people by the shoulders and shake them and say wake the fuck up. I want to scream at Sean Hannity who deliberately distorts the news to pump up ratings and keep the base enraged.
I want to scream at Chuck Schumer, Cory Booker, and Bernie Sanders for obsessing over Donald Trump as an existential threat to democracy while Winona disappeared. I want to scream at Joe Biden for being selfish and for staying too long at the fair. I want to scream at Jill Biden for not being honest with her husband—and with us. President Biden was too old, too tired, and not up to the task. I want to scream at Kamala Harris for not being able to answer what she would have done differently than Biden.
I want to scream at all of them for overlooking Winona Knitting Mills. I want to scream at all of them for allowing St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chippewa Falls to close. I want to scream remembering the homeless encampment near the statues of General Pershing and Pancho Villa around the corner from the Hotel Del Paso in El Paso.
I want to tell them all to shut up and lead. I want to tell them all to govern.
Hold democracy like an egg—it’s fragile and can break.
What Remains
I know how this sounds. Futile. Like shouting into the wind.
But I keep writing. I keep proposing solutions—broadband, apprenticeships, accountability frameworks. I show the math. I make the case. Most days I don’t know if anyone’s listening.
But the alternative is giving up. Letting Winona and places like it disappear. Watching the egg crack.
So I’ll keep screaming. Join me.