Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz crossed a line this week when he invoked Anne Frank while denouncing federal immigration enforcement in his state, a comparison the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum rightly called “deeply offensive.” Walz told reporters that children in Minnesota were “hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside,” and suggested “somebody’s going to write that children’s story about Minnesota,” language that equates routine law enforcement with industrialized genocide. The museum’s rebuke was blunt: Anne Frank was murdered solely for being Jewish, and political leaders should not make false historical equivalencies.
This wasn’t a stray rhetorical flourish — Walz’s comments came amid a very real law-and-order crisis in Minneapolis linked to a large federal immigration operation and multiple shootings that have rocked the city. Federal agents’ presence under “Operation Metro Surge” followed the fatal shootings of Renée Good on January 7 and Alex Pretti on January 24, incidents that sparked intense local unrest and demands for answers. Those tragedies deserve sober investigation and accountability, not melodramatic comparisons that cheapen the unique horror of the Holocaust.
Conservatives should be loud in defending the victims and in demanding transparency from federal and local officials, but we should be louder still in rebuking politicians who exploit sacred history for partisan advantage. Walz’s invocation of Anne Frank is not merely tasteless — it is an abdication of leadership, turning a painful national conversation about public safety into a political stunt. Americans of every background know that the Holocaust is a special moral reference point that should never be dragged into a partisan fight over policy.
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s intervention was necessary and appropriate; their reminder that “leaders making false equivalencies…is never acceptable” is a rebuke every decent public official should heed. If Democrats are going to run cover for illegal activity or use human tragedies as props, mainstream institutions must push back, and that is exactly what the museum did. Walz owes the Jewish community — and all Americans who revere historical truth — a clear apology, not defensiveness or more theatrical rhetoric.
Let’s be clear about priorities: law-abiding citizens and lawful immigrants deserve safety and the rule of law, and federal agents who may have used excessive force must be investigated thoroughly and transparently. But defending border security and supporting our law enforcement doesn’t require weaponizing history, nor does it require letting politicians rewrite the moral grammar of the Holocaust to score partisan points. This debate is about proper governance, not about who can manufacture the most devastating analogy.
Governor Walz had a chance to lead — to call for calm, to demand timely investigations, and to focus on concrete solutions to restore safety in Minnesota neighborhoods and schools. Instead he chose spectacle, inviting deserved rebuke and distracting from the very real questions families want answered about why federal operations coincided with deadly encounters. Patriots of every party should insist that grief not be turned into a narrative cudgel for political gain.
Americans who love their country know the difference between righteous anger and rank exploitation. We grieve for the victims and demand justice, but we also reject the cheapening of history for cheap political headlines. If Governor Walz truly cares about Minnesota’s children, he’ll stop playing politics with pain, apologize for invoking the Holocaust, and get to work on the hard, unglamorous work of restoring order and protecting every family in his state.
