Ep. 253: A young Minnesota candidate warns against the failures of communism—and calls for common sense

A young Minnesota woman is in the race to make changes at the state capital,

but after what her family went through in Communist China,

she's also sounding the alarm and fighting backlash to bring civility back to the state

before it's too late. Next.

Jenny Leeing is my guest. Jenny, so good to see you. Thank you for being here.

Thank you for having me, Liz.

You're 21 years old, a graduate of the University of Northwestern,

and a research assistant now for the University of Minnesota Law School.

Your parents are immigrants, and you grew up by knowing a very blue area of the Twin Cities.

However, here you are. You're the GOP endorsed candidate for House District 40A,

which includes Arden Hills, Moundsview, parts of New Brighton and Shoreview.

But this isn't just ambition. When you discovered about your family and what they went through

during the Chinese cultural revolution, seems to play a big part and have a profound

influence on you. Tell us more about all of that, Jenny.

Hey, Liz, so I am Chinese. If I were elected, I would be the first Chinese state legislator.

So take that, Democrats. I'm from Shandong, China, so right by the Korean Peninsula,

the North are the most part of the country. My ancestors were peasant rural farmers that

basically lived off the land during the cultural revolution. We just went through a lot of persecution

and oppression by the government. My great grandfather was really, really smart. He was a leader.

That really cared about his people. He was just a highly respected person in his local village.

And during the cultural revolution in the 20th century, the government viewed him as a threat.

So the Communist Party detained him and they ended up torturing him to death, too.

So it's just really unfortunate how much the government has cracked down on intellectuals as well.

My father was really smart, too. He was one of the brightest in his village.

When he was about college age, his older classmates went to protest in the TN men's square.

Just rice and protests that were happening in college campuses as to students

demanded a more transparent government. That cared about their liberties and cared about

democracy, but they ended up being mowed down. Many ended up just disappearing or being arrested.

And my dad and mom, they remember just wondering where all their older classmates were and nobody

was able to talk about it as well. And a powerful reminder, Jenny, of all we seem to take for granted

in this country, even just the freedom I know to have this very conversation, something that couldn't

happen in China, where practically every move is tracked and many things from the rest of the world

completely shut off, completely banned. Even I understand Winnie the Poo was declared off limits.

What can you tell us about that and political censorship that takes place there?

Yeah, so thank you for mentioning Winnie the Poo. It's really funny. A few years ago on Chinese social

media, a picture went viral showing a Barack Obama and Xi Jinping as just caricatures of Winnie the Poo.

And I believe it was Tigger and the government cracked down on it right away.

And the funny thing is the more they cracked down on it, the more it exploded.

So now basically Winnie the Poo is banned in many areas of China because Xi Jinping views it as like

a threat to just his image as the perfect president. It's really funny how the more something gets

cracked down, the more it often explodes. But in China, Western social media is banned. So many of the

viewers probably don't notice you can't access Facebook, you can't access Google, just anything.

If you try to search it up, if you don't have like a VPN network, you can't view any

thing that isn't just sanctioned by the government. So their main form of communication is we chat.

That is flagged by the government too. So anytime you say something that's against the government,

you say something about communism, about Xi Jinping, your account could get flagged, you could get

detained by the police. You'll probably have some really interesting conversations when the police

catch you. Along with politics, there's also religion. In this case, Christianity specifically was

a target during the Chinese cultural revolution. Back then, crosses and religious symbols were taken

down, replaced with images of Mao and Xi Jinping. I think it's difficult to overlook the growing

number of anti-Christian actions we've seen taking place here. How do politics religion, the lack of

freedom, the lessons from the past seem in a way even more relevant now, would you say, Jenny?

Yeah, so this is something I've been quite concerned about, was just the anti-religious sentiment here

in the West. For China, Christianity and many other religions were banned during the 20th century,

debuted it as a Western threat, and they wanted to foster a Chinese identity that was loyal to

the Communist Party and the Communist Party only. Until recently, right now the government has

state sanctioned religions. Christianity, Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, and just other ones. I believe

there's five, but those religions have to be approved by the government. A lot of times,

they will send officials to check in on to official churches. Their pastors and just religious

leaders have to be approved by the government. Their messages are filtered through to make

sure they're not saying anything that's against the government, and it's a really just a

lukewarm version of the gospel at times. So the underground church is banned, and that's where a

lot of the Christians are. They have just underground church services, they go to people's houses,

they have their own Bible networks, their own missionaries, right now. That is their under

persecution. A lot of pastors were recently arrested. Many of my friends and my community members

come from that tradition. A lot of them tell me that people are being detained to get beaten by

the police every time their services, the police will just come in and just scrap some of them as well.

And children, people under 18 actually aren't allowed to officially be a part of religious

services, so they have to be secretive about that. In getting involved in politics, you've been

paying close attention to what's been going on at the state capital this session. The Democrats

seem to be making this session all about fighting ice. However, you recently testified at the state

capital in favor of a bill that would make illegal aliens ineligible for state financial aid programs.

Want to listen in here to just a bit of your testimony. So for people already facing a lot of that,

this is going to be a bigger blowback. And even though it's really important that we are compassionate

to immigrants, we also have to realize that our American as American citizens are people come first

and that if we're unable to take care of our own citizens, we can't adequately serve the people

who are not citizens. So given your family history and your immigrant parents, what can you tell us

about your political perspective on all of this, Jenny? Yes. So for my testimony at the capital

representative, Isaac Schultz, invited me to speak in favor of House file 1323, which wouldn't

allow illegal immigrants to have access to state funding for college. And I thought that was

a no-brainer, but apparently the Democrats were really hostile. They were actually attacking him

for referring to them as illegal immigrants, which is interesting because they're in this country

illegally. I don't know how else you would define that. I find that as an immigrant, it's really

helpful to speak in favor of this because a lot of my fellow conservatives don't want to be attacked

by the left as being racist. Every other, basically every other nation in this world has immigration

laws. I don't see why our country shouldn't as Americans. We should place our citizens first.

A lot of times we can't even take care of our own veterans on the streets. Our own students

who are facing mental health issues, our own professionals, yet we're spending billions and

billions of dollars on illegal immigrants who are often just causing fraud and taking advantage

of our country. So I spoke in favor of this testimony after the hearing ended. A lady just

went out to all of the testifiers and she just told us shame on you. And I found not really

interesting because it's often the left that is the one that's most hostile, yet they're the ones

like trumping themselves as the party of love and acceptance. So then do you see any similarities

to authoritarian government and what's going on in Minnesota under Governor Tim Walls?

A few. So one of them is just the attack of any opinion that's different to their own

for the left. At any time, my fellow Republicans or I just make a talking point. A lot of times

we get attacked. We get called napsies. We get called a racist. We get called like white

supremacists, which is funny. Someone called Alan a white supremacist and he's not even white.

So a lot of times they're not using their brains and how they're attacking us. And just every time

we want a lot of times dialogue across style is just really looked down upon as well. I

pride myself on being a Republican that wants to talk to Democrats. So they want to

a foster political civility. And yet a lot of times I get shut down, which is really ironic.

Yeah, I want to speak more to that being shut down and all of this hasn't been easy. You've

been doxed online called all kinds of names that we can't even discuss here. I know we share some

similar experiences in all of that so I can relate. But what is your take on the lack of civility

that we've seen in politics? Is there hope for a change in common understanding?

Yeah, I would really hope so Liz. So I think right now our nation were in political echo chambers

where both the left and right were in our little circles. And that's really just harmful to our

nation and having that civility. For me, I tried to be a messenger of that. And when I downloaded

TikTok right after I announced my endorsement as the Republican candidate. A lot of people

just started attacking me. There was this trans individual that just really hated my guts and

didn't want me to live anymore. And as day she, I don't know, it was just encouraged her followers to

attack me and so called torture me, which was just really ironic coming from that party and coming

from that individual as well. But for me, I just hope to keep on going and be that late.

For more information about Jenny Leigh and her campaign, head to jennieforhouse.com.

Jenny, you certainly give us hope. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you. And that will do it for this episode of Liz Collin Reports. We will see you next time.