Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is trying a unique strategy to get remote workers to return downtown: insulting them.

“I don’t know if you saw this study the other day,” Frey told an audience of 1,000 at Minneapolis Downtown Council’s annual meeting on Wednesday. “What this study clearly showed … is that when people who have the ability to come downtown to an office don’t — when they stay home sitting on their couch, with their nasty cat blanket, diddling on their laptop — if they do that for a few months, you become a loser!”

The comment was a “complete joke” and the study was made-up, the Minneapolis mayor’s office told Fortune, but there are serious facts to back up Frey’s worry about the impact of remote work on Minneapolis’ downtown economy.

  • @TropicalDingdong
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    -910 months ago

    Man it sure seems like Democrats don’t want me to vote for them.

    • FaceDeer
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      1410 months ago

      It sure seems like some people insist on making absolutely everything a Republican-vs.-Democrat issue.

      • @TropicalDingdong
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        -510 months ago

        I mean… He’s an elected official in a party that is, well, a branch of the democratic party.

        He’s a politically elected official acting in a political capacity making a political statement about labor and work.

        I’m really not sure what you think your point is.

        • FaceDeer
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          610 months ago

          My point is that this isn’t some kind of broad-based Democratic party platform on display here. He’s just an idiot politician saying something dumb who happens to be a Democrat. He’s not holding this position because he’s a Democrat.

          • @TropicalDingdong
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            10 months ago

            My point is that this isn’t some kind of broad-based Democratic party platform on display here. He’s just an idiot politician saying something dumb who happens to be a Democrat. He’s not holding this position because he’s a Democrat.

            I mean he’s a Democrat and he’s holding the position. I can guarantee you that the DNC will not be siding with me on my stance on labor, work from home, etc, they’ll be siding with this muppet. And guess what? Probably half of the Democrats in office now when pressed, will hold a similar position. About 2/5ths will side with this goon once their corporate donors press the ‘Submit’ button. The last 10th, thats the squad and the progressives. An absolute minority.

            The Democrats suck. They really fucking suck. They represent two generations of policy failure. This guy isn’t an outlier, he’s the main stream. And yet its teaching sheep to speak greek when trying to get Democrats and Liberals to understand whey they struggle sooooo hard when the country is fairly left in many regards.

            • FaceDeer
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              410 months ago

              I can guarantee you that the DNC will not be siding with me on my stance on labor, work from home, etc, they’ll be siding with this muppet.

              How can you guarantee me that? Is there something in their platform about this, a clear pattern of other Democratic politicians taking this position, or is this just a feeling you’ve got?

    • Silverseren
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      1110 months ago

      This guy seems like the type that pretends to be on the left, but will switch to the Republicans at the first sign of trouble. He is absolutely hated by his entire left-leaning constituency. Including by all his city reps you can see in the video, their faces clearly show they think he’s an idiot.