Tim Walz hasn’t been heard from much since his failed bid to become Vice President. It’s understandable since Walz and Kamala suffered such a humiliating defeat. The Minnesota governor had his sights set on Washington, but Donald Trump and JD Vance had other ideas.

Walz returned recently to pander politically, but that isn’t going well for him. He posted a message on Thursday praising the 38 Dakota men who were executed by the British in 1862. He praised their “sacrifice”, as a reminder for “recommitment to accountability and healing” for the Dakota people.

162 years ago, 38 Dakota men were hung in the largest mass execution in our nation’s history.

The sacrifice of these riders reminds us to recommit to accountability and healing for the Dakota people.https://t.co/Xa2ZEYvYxh

— Governor Tim Walz (@GovTimWalz) December 26, 2024

Let me begin with a disclaimer because I think that some people oversimplify the wars between Native American tribes in the United States. Over the years, the U.S. Government has betrayed, mistreated, or killed many Native American men women, and children in a completely unjust way. Denying that would be manipulating history to make oneself feel better about objectively heinous actions.

But here’s the problem. It is also false to say that all Native American tribes, or even the majority, were peaceful workers on the land and incapable of immoral acts. In response to those who vilified Thanksgiving as an oppressive holiday, I said that it was the Wampanoag Tribe that declared war against the colonists. Very few wars between the newly established U.S. Government and various Indian tribes fit neatly into modern ideologies of “oppressor vs. “oppressed.”

What’s the connection between Walz’s article and that? He is wrong. The 38 men that he portrays as victims were involved in the massacre at New Ulm. It wasn’t in this case the U.S. Government that declared war. Dakota ambushed and killed over 50 people in a five-mile radius of the town. The Dakota then carried out multiple attacks on the town. The Dakota warriors brutally killed women and children. One account described a Dakota woman chopping out her baby. It gets worse.

Around 2,000 settlers escaped the town, 650 of them were killed in cold blood. The Dakota suffered minimal casualties, and in response, the U.S. government began its war against the tribe.

Returning to the 38 men in question, then-President Abraham Lincoln personally reviewed the convictions of those involved in the attack on New Ulm. He then commuted the sentences of all but 39 who he ascertained had specifically and intentionally murdered civilians. In the end, 38 of those men would be executed on December 26th, 1862.

Can you say that the justice system of the mid-1800s had some flaws and was biased in certain ways? You can argue that they were innocent victims, but you cannot say with certainty that their “sacrifices” should be viewed in a positive light today. If you cannot prove this with certainty, then elevating these men as martyrs would be morally repugnant.

Walz does this with his post because the left-wing DEI cultural environment has a similar effect on the brain. It takes away the ability to understand nuance. If someone is a member of an “oppressed” group, then their actions are irrelevant. This is an immoral, deranged worldview that seeks to eliminate agency and replace it with simplistic, monolithic judgments about collective guilt or innocence. This is not a true representation of history. Treating it that way leads to a society that ignores fairness and equal opportunity.