The stench rising behind my hedge

My house is on the edge of my town, New Brighton. The land directly west of my house is part of a townhome development that is in St. Anthony Village. A hedge separates my yard from the townhomes and there are a lot of real borders represented by that hedge. On my side of the hedge you are in:

City of New Brighton
Mounds View School District
4th Congressional District
651 area code
Zip Code 55112

On the other side of the hedge, you are in:

Village of St. Anthony
St. Anthony School District
5th Congressional District
612 area code
Zip Code 55421

That's a lot of borders for one hedge to maintain. And like most borders, it is arbitrary in many ways. The land behind the hedge is essentially identical to my property. Based on what happened yesterday, it appears that my neighbors behind the hedge will soon have Keith Ellison as their congressman. Ellison won a plurality of the votes in the 5th CD primary yesterday, defeating former DFL chair Mike Erlandson and longtime DFL figure Ember Reichgott Junge. This is an amazing thing.

Ellison, for what it is worth, is a Muslim. He purportedly will be the first Muslim elected to Congress. He has also been a supporter/apologist of Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam. Ellison claims that he no longer supports Farrakhan, but his claims are unconvincing. He also claims to be a progressive, whatever the hell that means these days.

There is little question that the Nation of Islam has long been a repository for anti-Semitism and it is nothing short of amazing that someone whose political career began in that particular miasma could somehow consider himself a force for progressive values. Somehow, Mr. Ellison was able to garner the DFL endorsement earlier in the year and that endorsement apparently was sufficient to boost his candidacy over his opponents. It must be said that Erlandson and Reichgott Junge both ran lackluster campaigns, with Reichgott Junge's campaign bordering on the bizarre (her message, as far as I could tell, was that she was running for Congress as some sort of therapy to make up for the untimely demise of various kin, who apparently all died because they did not enjoy nationalized health care).

Over on my side of the hedge, my representative is Betty McCollum, a shrill leftist whose primary claim to fame is her ability to parrot the deep thoughts of Nancy Pelosi. In a better world, she would only be able to get into Congress with a visitor's pass, but alas she will have her seat for as long as she wishes, because she has the letters DFL after her name. But as odious as I find Ms. McCollum, she has not flown under the colors of anti-Semitism in her career. I cannot imagine that someone like Keith Ellison will represent my neighbors. But that's what seems to be happening.