I’ve spent a lifetime watching people. As a father, a husband, a teacher, an administrator, a farmer, and a retired Navy Lieutenant Commander who investigated real criminal networks for 21 years, one truth hits harder than any briefing I ever wrote: every single one of us is a sinner. We’ve all lied. We’ve all cut corners. We’ve all done something stupid, selfish, or flat-out wrong that hurt ourselves or somebody else. Most of us know it’s wrong. We feel the sting, we regret it, we try to make it right. That’s the normal human operating system.
But there’s a smaller, louder, more dangerous group that doesn’t work that way. For them, lying, cheating, stealing, and covering tracks isn’t a mistake—it’s the default setting. It’s not occasional; it’s constant. It’s not situational; it’s every second of every day, in every deal, every vote, every press conference, every nonprofit grant application. They don’t just break the rules. They rewrite reality so the rules don’t apply to them. And here in Minnesota, that small group has concentrated itself like mold in the walls of public office, the nonprofit grift machine, the bureaucratic swamp, and the corporate enablers who keep the cash flowing.
They don’t hide it anymore. They flaunt it. And the sickest part? They honestly believe you and I operate the exact same way. Tim Walz, Amy Klobuchar, Keith Ellison, Ilhan Omar, Steve Simon, and the handlers, consultants, and nonprofit bagmen who pull their strings—they can’t conceive of a world where people tell the truth, honor their word, or put Minnesota families ahead of their own power. In their minds, everyone is on the take. Everyone rigs the system. Everyone steals from the daycare fraud pot, the COVID “relief” slush funds, the election-integrity black holes, and the endless racketeering networks that loot our state while pretending to “help.”
So they project. They normalize. They gaslight. And worst of all, they’ve spent years building a culture where good people start whispering, “Well… if everyone’s doing it, what does it matter?”
That’s the lie I’m here to rip apart.
Not everyone lies constantly. Not everyone wakes up thinking about the next grift. Not every legislator eyes a state contract like a fox eyes a henhouse. Not every influencer is running a personal ATM disguised as “advocacy.” The vast majority of Minnesotans—farmers, teachers, mechanics, nurses, small business owners—still know right from wrong. We still believe a handshake should mean something. We still teach our kids that character matters more than the next government handout. We still look at the mountains of fraud exposed in Minnesota’s daycare racket, the stolen relief dollars, the rigged processes, and we don’t shrug and say “that’s just how it is.” We get angry. Because it isn’t how it has to be.
Our kids and young adults have grown up watching the opposite. They’ve seen elected officials defend the indefensible, rationalize outright theft, and attack anyone who dares call it what it is. They’ve watched the DFL machine and its nonprofit crime syndicate turn public service into a protection racket. They’ve absorbed the message that cynicism is wisdom and integrity is for suckers. That virus is real. But it’s not inevitable.
Here’s the hope they don’t want you to hear: the pathological liars are still the minority. Loud? Yes. Protected by layers of complicit media, donor cash, and captured institutions? Absolutely. But they are not the norm. They only dominate because too many decent people have been bullied, shamed, or worn down into accepting their rotten worldview. The fence-sitters—the ones who know the grift is wrong but stay quiet because “what’s the point?”—are the ones this article is for. You’re not alone. The majority is still out here living by a different code. We still believe in truth. We still believe in accountability. And we still believe Minnesota can be better than this feudal swamp of connected insiders and their street-level muscle.
I’ve seen the other side of the coin in uniform, investigating networks that thought they were untouchable. The same arrogance I see in St. Paul today. They always believe their own myth right up until the moment the walls close in. That moment is coming for Minnesota’s grift machine, because more and more of us are refusing to play along.
We don’t have to accept a state where thieving is the business model and debauchery is pushed on our children as “progress.” We don’t have to raise the next generation believing honesty is naïve. We can reject the lie that “everyone does it.” We can expose the networks, dismantle the protection rackets, and restore a constitutional republic where public service means serving the public—not looting it.
That’s the Minnesota I’m fighting for in 2026. A place where farmers can farm, parents can raise their kids without the state undermining them, teachers can teach truth instead of ideology, and leaders actually fear the voters more than they fear losing their next grift. A place where integrity isn’t rare—it’s expected. Where our kids look at their leaders and see men and women who, like the rest of us sinners, at least try to do right instead of perfecting the art of doing wrong with a straight face.
The grifters want you hopeless. They want you cynical. They want you to believe their sickness is universal so you stop resisting. Don’t give them the satisfaction.
Not everyone lies constantly. Not everyone steals. Not everyone sells out their neighbor for power or profit.
Most of us don’t. And the day the majority remembers that—and acts on it—is the day this culture of thieving starts to die.
I’m betting on that day. Join me.
Candidate for Governor of Minnesota 2026
Phillip C. Parrish
Campaign Manager: Heidi Wanty – heidi@parrish4mn.com
Phone: 1 (612) 460-1717
Let’s take Minnesota back—one honest fight at a time.
“This article was written in honor of my mother, Sandra Faye Noble-Parrish,” said Parrish. “As an 11-year-old boy, I watched her turned away at the local grocery store because she couldn’t get any more credit until she made a payment. I saw the pain and humiliation in her eyes. But my mother was strong and courageous. She had her own sins and struggles like the rest of us, yet she fought every single day to live as a good and righteous woman. She never gave in to the lie that ‘everybody’s doing it.’”
I know you are an angel watching over us. I love you.
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