The Bad Writing In Alt Media

🚨 BREAKING: Hundreds just showed up to protest dozens of ICE agents at a Somali strip mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

You can also see Sen. Aric Putnam (D) trying to hold the crowd back.

“Don’t even get close.” pic.twitter.com/JScmXsBj1H

— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) January 12, 2026

The tweet above is one of several covering recent developments in St Cloud, MN, one of many small cities in the US interior targeted by "faith-based NGOs" that import thousands of third-world migrants in sufficient numbers to disrupt ordinary life within the native citizenry. According to this site,

St. Cloud’s population of roughly 69,000 people has become increasingly diverse in recent years. Its Black population grew from about 1,700 in 2000 to nearly 15,000 in 2020, according to an analysis of census data from the APM Research Lab.

The common line fromn legacy media is that "only 4,000 of these claim Somali descent", but it's hard to imagine where else the other 11,000 come from. In any case, what strikes me about the video is that those in the crowd are behaving much more like people in Mogadishu than Minnesota. The problem that won't go away is that the people of St Cloud have suddenly had their civic life upended without, as they tell the press when they have the chance, having ever had the opportunity to debate or vote on the issue.

But for now, what's more important in the public eye is simply the level of overall fraud generated by the Somalis who've migrated to Minnesota. Federal estimates reported by legacy media are in the $9 billion range, with the perpetrators being in the neighborhood of 80-90% Somali. Actual numbers may be far higher.

What we don't have on the alt media side is writers who can capably illustrate the problem. The one most commonly linked at sites like Real Clear Politics or Instapundit has been Victor Davis Hanson, who has recently had a major health problem and has announced that he will be lowering his public profile during his recovery. While I wish him well, I've long thought that his writing is so predictable that it could be produced by an AI bot.

In fact, I've discovered that if I word a request to Chrome AI mode the right way, it will do this, For instance, "Can you write me a first paragraph of an essay that looks like Victor Davis Hanson wrote it?" It replied,

For more than two millennia, the tragic paradox of Western civilization has been its unique capacity for self-critique, a mechanism originally designed to preserve the polis that has now devolved into a suicidal pathology of the elite. From the dusty hoplite lines at Marathon to the chaotic withdrawal from Kabul, the strength of the West has always resided not in the transient dictates of a managerial bureaucracy, but in the rugged, agrarian virtues of the independent citizen and the unapologetic defense of absolute moral truths. Yet today, we witness a frantic retreat from this classical heritage, as a globalized technocracy—insulated by unprecedented luxury and historical amnesia—seeks to dismantle the very foundations of consensual government and meritocracy that once ensured its survival

While I have every good wish for Prof Hanson's recovery, it seems to me that recuperation or no, his handlers should be able to rely on AI to keep up production without any need for his active intervention. But with a sudden shortage fromm the VDH supply chain, Instapundit and Real Clear Politics have had to fall back on Roger Kimball, who is normally seen as a cultural commentator who decries "the politicization and 'dumbing down' of Western culture and the arts". But just this morning, I found him filling the former VDH slot at Real Clear Politics with something pretty dumb itself:

I suspect that Somalis around the country – especially, but not exclusively, in Minneapolis – wish about now that they had spent more time studying the wit and wisdom of Gertrude Stein.

Wait a moment. Gertrude Stein? After looking at the video clip in the X post above, I might expect an appropriate reference might be made to, oh, early Winston Churchill on African colonial issues in The River War, or possibly George Orwell's resignation at the colonial dilemma in "Shooting an Elephant" -- that is, if you need to reach that far back to understand the Minnesota Somalis. There's lots more to say without going back a hundred years.

But Gertrude Stein? I went again to Chrome AI mode, and I asked, "Did Gertrude Stein have anything important to say?" It just shilly-shallied around with an answer: "Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) was a central figure of 20th-century modernism whose 'important' contributions range from revolutionizing literary language to coining era-defining phrases." Those phrases, it explained, included

"Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose": This iconic line from her poem Sacred Emily was intended to restore the power of the word "rose," making it real again rather than just a poetic symbol.

But I searched in vain for le mot juste in her writing that might apply to the question of Somali fraud. But that polymath exponent of Western Civ Roger Kimball seems to think he's found it: "A modicum of fraud among friends often gets a pass. Overdo it, however, and the authorities get waspish." So, are the authorities "waspish"? I don't think so. All they're doing is redirecting federal resources, from IRS auditors to immigration police, to a generally recognized problem. Here's a definition of "waspish":

Irritable, short-tempered, or prone to making cutting or biting remarks. "She unleashed a waspish retort in response to the criticism."

So, are the authorities "waspish"?

The Treasury Department is taking a closer look at financial transactions between Minnesotan residents and businesses and Somalia as the federal government ramps up its immigration crackdown in the state, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters on Friday during a visit to the state.

Bessent said his agency has launched a series of actions to combat fraud in the state and has launched investigations into four businesses that people use to wire money to family members abroad to do more to scrutinize transactions.

There's nothing irritable, short-tempered, or biting here, just a matter-of-fact response to the problem. So why did Kimball even use the Gertrude Stein quote? But other than finding that quote, at best only tangential to the circumstances, Kimball has little else to say. He concludes,

Donald Trump should stop all federal welfare funds to offending venues while a thorough audit – very thorough and very lengthy – is conducted. And as much of the “Somali community” as possible should be repatriated to where it belongs: Somalia. That is why God made Tom Homan.

This guy is nothing but a dollar-store William Buckley, but Buckley would at least have found a better quote from someone like Churchill or Orwell. But let's recognize that Buckley would never have been MAGA in any case. It's a najor problem that we don't have better writers on the populist side to make our points.