“Oh, no! Too much empathy!” (Thank you Edvard Munch, you empathetic Scandinavian nut!)

Chris Rufo, conservative, a former Heritage Foundation fellow, and an opponent of critical race theory, now thinks Scandinavians are an “over-empathizing element,” as he writes in a recent blog, “The Curse of Minneapolis.”

Now, I had thought Scandinavians are mainly discriminated against because we’re big, blond and dumb. I would like to say, “big, blond, and therefore dumb,” so the dumbness stems from hair color, as we all know it does.

But both the dumbness and the blondness may be attributable to events thousands of years ago.

Just to clue you in, the following history is mainly not actual history. One thing about the prehistory of the human race is that no one has a fucking clue what happened back then because it was prehistorical, so I will just make it up.

About 1500 years ago, as the glaciers of the Last Ice Age were receding but the European winter was coming on, two guys in the Alps started talking.

“Lars, it’s getting cold!”

“I know Hans! We need to run from the Great Wheel in the Sky! That’s what makes it so cold!”

So they gathered up a lot of people and convinced them the orange thing in the sky was making it colder.

They ran and they ran and they ran.

In the direction that made the sun get smaller.

Their hair turned white-blond and their skin pale.

When they reached the North Sea, they weren’t very cold anymore, because they were used to it and they had been crashing through the woods all day and feasting on wild boar at night.

And the people said:

“The Great Wheel in the Sky is getting smaller, Lars!” You are now our King! Let’s build a great boat out of these trees and go raping and pillaging!”

And rape and pillage they did.

They waded ashore, swinging clubs, scaring the dickens out of people, conjoining their seed with some fine Pictish ladies in the lands near the Hebrides, in what is now northern Scotland, and with other inhabitants of the northwest coast of Europe, giving birth to my big, blond, dumb ancestors.

So, my ancestors thought running away from the sun would provide relief from the cold.

I am descended from that gene pool.

In other words, the people whose hair and skin lost their color due to the lack of sun, and their offspring, including me, may not be the brightest lights on the Christmas tree.

But we’re strong and brave.

And here in Minnesota, where I live — two hours north of Minneapolis — we’re also helpful and friendly.

However, according to Chris Rufo, we’re way too helpful and friendly.

Over-empathizing, according to Rufo.

I had to get back on Substack in order to partake of this brilliance.

At this point, I find using Substack about as pleasant as having bees in my hair, so I will write you a brief summary of Rufo’s masterpiece. Unlike my history, this is an accurate summary of what he said.

Rufo looks at the Minneapolis surge in community opposition to ICE and its enforcement tactics and sees similarity between that situation and the culture of Seattle. They have “real commonalities” he writes.

They suffer from “a long history of powerful organized labor movements, factions of communist sympathizers, and a tradition of industrial-frontier progressivism.”

Then comes the big “ahha” moment in this essay: “Each city also has a high density of Scandinavians.”

OK, now we’re onto something, even if it happens to be a whopping non-sequitur.

“There’s something about Scandinavian transplant cultures that simultaneously brings an over-empathizing element — bring in as many Somalis as you can, don’t ask any rude questions about what they might be up to — and also a more militant, socialistic, progressive, and activist element.”

We never should have let those people in. They have the dreaded disease of empathy, an evil trait Saint Charlie Kirk taught us is the root of so many problems in our sin-filled world today.

Alex Pretti’s death wasn’t caused by some wannabe security guard shooting him in the back. It was caused by this progressive-socialist element and empathy. That, in case you’re wondering, is “the Curse of Minneapolis.”

“The shooting of Alex Pretti represents the tragic culmination of both elements. He is, in that sense, a victim of the curse of Minneapolis.”

He then leaps to the subject of “a big essay”—with big words, I presume—in  The Atlantic “ by the liberal journalist Jonathan Rauch,” titled ‘Yes, It’s Fascism.’”

“The Left has been trying to pin “fascism” on the Right for the past ten years, and it is pure fantasy. Fascism doesn’t exist anymore; there’s no fascism anywhere in the world. So why are they continuing to play with this idea? I think it has something to do with the intense emotionality associated with the word ‘fascism.’”

Well, hmm. Let’s see.

We are now living under an authoritarian ruler who has undermined the courts, ignores the Constitution, and promotes ultranationalism. He condones violence and especially political violence in achieving his aims, and he scapegoats certain large groups of people, teaching his minions that getting rid of those people will solve our ills.

People do this ruler’s bidding because they’re also evil, crazy and/or stupid, or because they’re afraid of him.

Oh, and he has sent an army of untrained goons, wearing masks and brandishing guns they are not hesitant to use, to haul people — men, women and children — out of their homes and banish them to detention centers.

Is that political violence? Is it sheer terrorism, enacted by “our” government?

I have, believe it or not, known dedicated conservatives whose minds I could respect. This is something I will be writing about soon.

Chris Rufo has a platform, a following and is part of the movement that has brought us economic and social conditions that are crushing us.

I have said elsewhere, on more than one occasion because I repeat myself a lot these days, that moving to Minnesota was the smartest thing I ever did. Not that I have done that many smart things, but it stands head and shoulders over many of my other life decisions.

Yes, the Scandinavian influence is a large part of the reason I like it here. When this largely Lutheran population disembarked from Mississippi riverboats and walked to where they staked claims on land that wasn’t theirs, they made sure that they settled not far from their fellow Europeans, and they watched out for their neighbors.

During the struggles of the next 100 years, these ridiculously tough, fundamentally wary, for the most part racist white people learned to share their resources, follow the teachings in their scripture, and extend their kindness to people who looked different.

Thus, Minnesota has long had some of the most generous social services in the country. You can go hungry or be denied basic medical care here, but there are a lot of people organized to prevent that.

You may even be able to find a union job. Well, a job, anyway.

An argument from authority is one that uses the authority of the writer or speaker as the main buttress for its claims. Men who kowtow to authority have a hard time understanding why arguments from authority do not usually work.

Chris Rufo has made an extraordinary claim. And you know it’s true because Chris Rufo says so.

Laura Marland is a writer living in Duluth. She writes regularly on Medium at https://medium.com/@lauramarland