Memorial Day has one job. It exists to honor the Americans who died wearing our uniform, who gave their last breath defending this republic. Not veterans broadly, not civil rights figures, not cultural icons. Just the fallen. The men and women who never came home. It’s the most solemn day on our calendar, and somehow Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey managed to miss the entire point.
On Monday, while Americans visited Arlington and small town cemeteries across the country, while families placed flags on graves and reflected on sacrifice that most of us can barely comprehend, Frey was busy on social media. He posted a lengthy tribute alright. But it wasn’t for a Marine who died in Fallujah or a soldier who didn’t make it out of Afghanistan. It was for George Floyd, because May 25 also marks six years since Floyd’s death during an arrest in Minneapolis.
You know what’s remarkable about this? The sheer audacity of hijacking a day dedicated to military sacrifice to advance a political narrative. Frey called Floyd’s death murder, praised accountability, and promoted the reconstruction of George Floyd Square. He wrote that the moment “forced Minneapolis to confront painful truths about race, policing, inequity, and trust.” The post went on about the weight still carried by the city and the responsibility to move forward together. Stirring stuff, really. Except he posted five separate messages about George Floyd that day. Want to guess how many he posted about Memorial Day? Zero.
Let’s be clear about something the mayor conveniently ignores. The autopsy showed Floyd died from a fentanyl overdose. That’s medical fact, not political opinion. Floyd was a drug addict arrested for using a counterfeit twenty dollar bill. Those are just facts, and facts don’t care about narrative. Yet a jury convicted Derek Chauvin anyway, and politicians like Frey continue calling it murder because the truth doesn’t serve the story they want to tell.
This isn’t surprising if you know anything about Jacob Frey. When Black Lives Matter descended on Minneapolis in the summer of 2020, he let the city burn. Literally. He stood by while rioters torched a police precinct and destroyed neighborhoods. He chose ideology over duty then, just like he’s choosing it now.
There’s something deeply broken in our political culture when a mayor of a major American city can’t distinguish between Memorial Day and a day to advance racial grievance politics. These aren’t interchangeable occasions. They’re not both just “days of remembrance” that can be mixed and matched based on what’s trending. Memorial Day is sacred ground, and treating it like another opportunity for social justice messaging shows contempt for the Americans who actually died protecting this country.
The soldiers we honor on Memorial Day didn’t die for counterfeit bills or fentanyl. They died charging machine gun nests and jumping on grenades to save their brothers. They died in rice paddies and on beaches and in desert convoys. They died so politicians like Frey could have the freedom to disrespect their sacrifice by turning their day into something else entirely.
This is what happens when progressivism becomes a religion. Every day becomes an opportunity for the same sermon, even when basic decency and respect demand silence. Frey couldn’t help himself. The compulsion to virtue signal overpowered any sense of appropriateness or honor.
Americans noticed. The backlash was swift and deserved. But Frey won’t learn from it because learning would require acknowledging that conservative Americans might have a point about priorities and respect and what actually matters. That’s not happening in Minneapolis anytime soon.
Related: Omar Shrugs Off Mace’s Constitutional Amendment Targeting Foreign-Born Members of Congress