Promotional poster for Minnesota Mao, screening Sunday, July 12, at the Angelika Film Center in Dallas.
Before they were the Dallas Stars, they were the Minnesota North Stars. Along I-35, people, businesses, and ideas have migrated south for decades. A new documentary, Minnesota Mao, explores how a state once known for “Minnesota Nice” became a testing ground for ideas about culture, power, and the future of America.
Minnesota. The very name once conjured images of America’s heartland.
It is where the mighty Mississippi begins its journey to the Gulf. It gave us Charles Schulz and the gentle wisdom of Peanuts. Garrison Keillor’s fictional Lake Wobegon, “where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” It was “Minnesota Nice.”
And for an entire generation, it was Mary Tyler Moore joyfully tossing her hat into the Minneapolis sky as the theme song declared, “Love is all around.”
That was the Minnesota America thought it knew.
A generation later, in that very same city, Minneapolis became associated with a very different kind of “love.” The “Summer of Love” came to evoke not smiles and optimism, but burning buildings, looted businesses, a police precinct overtaken, and neighborhoods left asking how quickly a city can change.
What happened?
Ideas happened.
Ideas do not stay confined to classrooms, books, or political meetings. They become slogans. Slogans become movements. Movements become policies. And policies eventually shape the culture we live in.
But history leaves us with another important question:
How do movements begin?
Do they rise organically from the hopes, frustrations, and beliefs of ordinary people? Or can they be influenced, cultivated, and accelerated by powerful forces capable of turning ideas into cultural movements?
The answer is often more complicated than either explanation alone. Movements may begin with genuine concerns and sincere beliefs, while also being shaped by individuals, institutions, organizations, and resources capable of amplifying certain ideas over others.
Understanding how movements form requires looking beyond slogans. It requires asking how ideas spread, who gives them momentum, and how they ultimately reshape society.
Every civilization is shaped not only by its geography, but by its beliefs.
Conservatism begins with the conviction that some things are timeless and worth preserving: faith, family, the Constitution, inalienable rights, local self-government, personal responsibility, and the accumulated wisdom of generations.
Progressivism begins with a different conviction: that society can be redesigned, that institutions can be transformed, and that a better future can be created by challenging structures inherited from the past.
Every generation faces the same question:
Do we learn from history, or do we attempt to reinvent ourselves by discarding it?
History is not merely a collection of dates and names. It is the record of ideas tested by human experience—our achievements, our failures, and the consequences of choices made before us.
Revolutionary movements throughout history have understood that controlling the future often requires controlling the past. Mao’s Cultural Revolution did not merely seek political change; it sought to break with traditions, institutions, and inherited culture. The past was not something to preserve—it was something to overcome.
And revolutionary movements rarely introduce themselves by promising repression.
They promise hope.
They promise equality.
They promise community.
They promise purpose.
They promise joy.
No twentieth-century leader understood the power of political emotion better than Mao Zedong. During China’s Cultural Revolution, Mao’s image became an object of devotion, and his writings were presented not merely as political instruction but as a source of personal and collective fulfillment. One slogan proclaimed:
“Mao’s words bring us joy.”
Political slogans matter because they do more than communicate ideas. They shape how people see themselves, their communities, and their future.
That is why the documentary Minnesota Mao examines an unusual and controversial chapter in Minnesota’s story: the influence of Maoist ideas and the experiences of people who encountered China firsthand—including Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s years of travel, teaching, and engagement with Chinese culture.
The film raises questions that extend beyond one person or one political party.
When Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and then-Vice President Kamala Harris built a national campaign around the phrase “the politics of joy,” supporters heard a message of optimism and hope. Critics heard echoes of a much older political tradition in which movements have used emotional connection, belonging, and moral purpose to inspire commitment.
Whether one sees that comparison as persuasive or not, history reminds us that political language is never just language. It reflects how movements seek to connect with people.
Minnesota itself has become a remarkable case study.
During the unrest of 2020, Americans watched disturbing video from Minneapolis showing officers shouting “Light ’em up!” before firing paint rounds at citizens standing on a residential porch during an emergency curfew. Whatever one’s political perspective, it was an image that few would have associated with the Minnesota of Mary Tyler Moore and “Minnesota Nice.”
Today, another debate is unfolding. The City of Oak Grove is challenging the Minnesota Secretary of State over whether local officials should have the authority to return to traditional paper voter rosters rather than electronic poll pads.
To some, this is simply a question of election administration.
To others, it represents something larger: the ongoing debate over local control, public trust, personal responsibility, and the growing concentration of authority.
One of the voices in the documentary Minnesota Mao describes Minnesota as a “Petri dish” for the nation.
That description may strike some as provocative. But it raises an important question:
Did Minnesota simply change with the times?
Or did it become a testing ground for ideas that are now spreading across America?
Those questions deserve more than social media memes and partisan talking points. They deserve history, evidence, and honest conversation.
That is the conversation Minnesota Mao invites.
Join us Sunday, July 12, at 5:00 p.m. at the Angelika Film Center in Dallas for a screening of Minnesota Mao. Following the film, meet Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist Liz Collin and Dr. JC Chaix, media expert and filmmaker, for a conversation about the documentary, its research, and why Minnesota’s story may matter far beyond Minnesota.
A reception follows, featuring your choice of an American-inspired or Chinese-inspired fortune cookie.
More information is available at MinistryofTruthFilmFest.com.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Dallas Express.