The far right is attempting to smear Governor Tim Walz by claiming that he replaced the old Minnesota state flag with one that is designed to resemble the flag of Somalia.
The Guardian’s Ben Makuch reports that racist and xenophobic attacks against Walz have spread since Vice President Kamala Harris named him as her running mate Tuesday. The claim that Walz deliberately chose a flag design close to Somalia’s national flag has been echoed on X (formerly Twitter) by right-wing accounts including End Wokeness and Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams. Fox News’s Jesse Watters also picked it up on Tuesday.
Watters: This guy changed the flag of the state to look more like Somalia. pic.twitter.com/Zx3pXXuziD
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 6, 2024
But the claim isn’t true. Both the fact-checking website Snopes and The Washington Post have debunked it, showing that the flag went through a long redesign process following complaints that the old flag, which contains the state seal, was offensive to Native Americans. In 2023, the Minnesota state legislature created a commission to redesign the flag and seal and received more than 2,500 new proposals.
The commission narrowed the flag submissions to six, and then three, before selecting a base design created by Andrew Prekker, which received slight modifications. After 10 attempts, the final design passed both the Minnesota House and Senate and was flown for the first time on May 11, 2024. The commission also released a report breaking down the process for the redesign.
The new flag bears very little resemblance to Somalia’s flag, though both use shades of blue and a star. The star on Minnesota’s flag has eight points compared to Somalia’s five-pointed star, and the shades of blue are different.
Glad to see the weirdos are back to claiming the flag of Minnesota is the flag of Somalia. Sure. Totally the same. pic.twitter.com/UymJJ5r3AX
— Darkest Timeline (@darkesttimline) August 6, 2024
The far right seems to think that Walz is kowtowing to Minnesota’s 60,000-strong Somali American community, the largest in the U.S. But a member of the Minnesota Historical Society, which took part in the redesign, told conservative website The Dispatch that the designer isn’t Somali, included the star to represent the North Star, and incorporated the shape of the state into the flag design.
This noncontroversy joins the many weak attacks against Walz and Harris from the right, including shots at his military record, baselessly accusing the campaign of antisemitism, or calling him “far left.” Maybe one day they’ll come up with one with substance.
