By Phillip C Parrish, Candidate for Governor of Minnesota 2026
August 28, 2025
Yesterday, in my article “Facing the Truth: Minnesota’s Leaders Exploit Tragedy to Perpetuate Harm—It’s Time for Real Change,” I called out the failures of leaders like Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Mayor Jacob Frey in exploiting tragedies like the Annunciation Catholic School shooting to push gun control agendas while ignoring root causes such as childhood trauma, mental health crises, and societal denial. Their deflection from personal responsibility—blaming inanimate objects like guns or external political forces—perpetuates a victimhood culture that erodes accountability and deepens social decay. Today, as we continue to mourn the loss of two young lives and support the 17 injured, I want to build on that foundation by tying in additional insights from my 21-year career in intelligence and counter-terrorism, my work as an educator and director at Gerard Treatment Programs, and my personal observations. These experiences reveal patterns of appeasement, unconfronted oppositional defiant behaviors, and negative fixations that manifest in violence. More importantly, I’ll outline evidence-based protocols and methodologies—grounded in proven success—that we can implement in education, treatment, and public policy to address these failures head-on. Minnesotans, it’s not enough to recognize the truth; we must act on it to break the cycles of harm.
Tying It Together: Appeasement, Defiance, and the Power of Fixation
Throughout my professional life, I’ve witnessed how appeasement—yielding to aggressive or dysfunctional behaviors to avoid short-term conflict—enables long-term violence. In psychology, appeasement is a survival strategy in abusive dynamics, where victims emit cues of safety to calm perpetrators, reducing immediate harm but often reinforcing the cycle. This mirrors historical policy failures, like Neville Chamberlain’s 1938 Munich Agreement, where concessions to aggression emboldened Hitler and escalated global conflict. In modern contexts, such as family systems or public policy, appeasement suppresses confrontation of unhappiness and conflict, allowing resentment to fester and leading to explosive outcomes. In my counter-terrorism work, I’ve seen how avoiding direct challenges to radical ideologies permits them to grow, much like how current leaders’ vague calls for “community responsibility” appease political bases without tackling trauma’s roots.
This ties directly to my observations of oppositional defiant behaviors: Individuals predisposed to defiance—angry, argumentative, and vindictive—who aren’t confronted early often escalate to violence. In education and treatment settings at Gerard, I’ve handled countless cases where unaddressed Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) progressed to severe antisocial traits. Research confirms this: Untreated ODD increases the risk of Conduct Disorder and adult criminality by 2-4 times, often co-occurring with mental health issues like depression. In military and intelligence operations, unconfronted defiance disrupted teams and heightened risks, paralleling how societal denial of childhood abuse—physical, sexual, or emotional—fuels sociopathy and narcissism, as I discussed yesterday.
Adding to this, people who fixate on violence and negativity ultimately manifest it, just as athletes or artists rehearse success to achieve it. Cognitive psychology shows that rumination—repeatedly dwelling on negative thoughts—primes aggressive actions through self-fulfilling prophecies and reduced self-control. In my experience analyzing terrorists, ideological fixations scripted real-world attacks, echoing the Annunciation shooter’s anti-Trump inscriptions. Leaders unwilling to recognize these truths—perhaps due to negligence or intent—enable patterns like those in violent perpetrators, including potential links to medical treatments (e.g., SSRIs or hormone therapies) that may exacerbate untreated mental health issues without holistic intervention.
These observations aren’t isolated; they’re interconnected failures in our systems. But hope lies in action: Below, I detail proven protocols to confront them in education, treatment, and public policy.
Proven Protocols in Education: Building Trauma-Informed Schools
In education, where I’ve spent much of my career, we must shift from reactive measures to proactive, trauma-informed methodologies that prevent violence by addressing defiance and fixation early. Evidence-based approaches include:
• Trauma-Informed School Frameworks: Adopt the National Child Traumatic Stress Network’s (NCTSN) systems framework, which emphasizes resilience through social-emotional support and staff training. A systematic review found these approaches improve mental health, academic performance, and behavior in schools. For example, the Incredible Years program integrates trauma-informed strategies to create safe classrooms, reducing aggressive behaviors by fostering emotional regulation.
• Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS): This tiered system, endorsed by the U.S. Department of Education, teaches social skills and confronts defiant behaviors through consistent rules and rewards. Studies show PBIS reduces ODD symptoms and school violence by 20-50% in implementation sites.
• Mindfulness and Rumination-Reduction Programs: Incorporate school-based mindfulness training to break negative fixation cycles. A 2023 study on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for rumination showed it reduces repetitive thoughts and aggression in youth by interrupting triggers. As Governor, I’d mandate these in Minnesota schools to replace appeasement with accountability.
Evidence-Based Treatment Protocols: Healing Through Confrontation and Recovery
In treatment settings like Gerard, I’ve seen the transformative power of direct, evidence-based interventions for trauma, ODD, and rumination. Leaders ignoring these enable generational harm, but proven methods include:
• Parent Management Training (PMT) and Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT): For ODD, these family-based approaches teach parents to confront defiance consistently, reducing symptoms by 50-70% in children aged 3-8. PCIT, in particular, tailors to individual needs, preventing escalation to violence.
• Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT): This gold-standard for abused youth addresses trauma and rumination, reducing PTSD symptoms by 50-70% and breaking victim-to-perpetrator cycles. Combined with Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) for adolescents, it targets impulsive behaviors and negative fixation.
• Rumination-Focused CBT (RFCBT): Specifically for negative thoughts, this reduces depression and relapse in youth by challenging delusions, as shown in adolescent depression studies. In my vision for Minnesota, we’d expand funding for these in programs like Gerard, ensuring no child slips through the cracks.
Successful Public Policy: Statewide Reforms to End Denial and Enabling
Public policy must reject enabling ideologies and prioritize prevention. Successful examples include:
• Universal ACEs Screening and Prevention: California’s ACEs Aware initiative screens for adverse experiences in healthcare, reducing maltreatment risks and long-term costs by over $200,000 per victim. Pennsylvania’s mental health policies integrate trauma support, lowering abuse rates.
• Child Abuse Prevention Laws and Funding: Prevent Child Abuse America’s advocacy has strengthened state laws promoting healthy families and reducing neglect. Federal supports like SAMHSA’s trauma-informed programs have sustained momentum in states addressing intergenerational trauma through affordable mental health and education campaigns.
• Legislation Against Enabling Narratives: Build on critiques of stigma reduction by prioritizing victim-focused laws, as in forensic psychology-based prevention that avoids normalizing harmful behaviors. As Governor, I’d enact policies rejecting MAPs normalization and mandating trauma education.
A Renewed Call to Action: Let’s Implement Change Now
Minnesotans, the truths I’ve shared—from appeasement’s dangers to the manifestation of unchecked defiance—are not abstract; they’re the keys to preventing tragedies like Annunciation. Leaders unwilling to recognize them perpetuate harm, but we can demand better. Join my campaign at parrish4mn.com to advocate for these proven strategies. Vote for real leadership in 2026, but start today: Support local trauma programs, confront family denials, and hold officials accountable. Together, we’ll heal Minnesota and build a future free from generational trauma. The truth demands action—let’s deliver it.
###