I dont think that applies.
Toledo and Detroit joining us didnt cause any backlash. Intervening between Traverse and Grand Rapids didnt. Giving Sandusky Commune and Shawnee Republic mutual defense treaties didnt. Hooking up with St Louis didnt.
What you're not considering is that there is a considerable difference between those situations and the one that is on the table now.
In the case of Toledo and Detroit, those two powers joined us in the aftermath of the war against Victoria, and we both very eager to join (so much so that they were engaging in a game of oneupsmanship to see who would join first!). In that war, we fought to defend Detroit after Victoria declared war on it, honoring the mutual defense pact we'd signed with them when pretty much no one else would have. In that war, we also accepted Toldeo's aid against Victoria, allowing them to seek redemption for their allowing Victoria to use them as a base by throwing themselves into the thickest and hardest parts of the final battle - which they did.
In the case of Traverse and Grand Rapids, the polities were amendable to compromise and accepted our mediation once we found out what the situation was on the ground.
In the case of Sandusky Commune, we guaranteed their independence against likely encroachment by
Victoria, who as you well know, is everyone's bogeyman.
With the Shawnee Republic, no one is going to look at us askance for offering a mutual defense treaty to a polity that may come under threat from a power already hostile to us.
In
this case, there are two claimants to Minnesota, neither of which are inclined to accept a compromise. Further, while
one of the parties involved has asked us to mediate, the other has been very firm in stating that mediation is both unwanted and unnecessary at this point in time, with the option to side with Bemidji explicitly pointing out that Minneapolis is unlikely to take this lying down. If we make that decision anyway, and then end up deploying our troops to enforce it in the face of refusal, then are we not the ones applying coercion to a smaller state, effectively expanding our sphere of influence through military force?
In the worst and not entirely unlikely case, we may find ourselves having to occupy the area, effectively "increasing our size and controlled territory by force of arms," despite any protests to the contrary.
We're just recognizing Bemidji diplomatically, based on checking the opinions of everyone else in the state too far away to have a Minneapolis gun in their face. And making it clear that we are watching, to disincentivize more arm-twisting at the threat of Consequences.
I mean, Bemidji is the faction thats being supported by what seems to be the majority of people and communities.
Thats literally the opposite of triggering Hostile Neighborhood, because it makes it clear that we go with majority opinion, and not try to impose whatever most favors us.
*points at description of Minneapolis*
Though much of the state's old territory does indeed profess loyalty to the state government, it also acknowledges the government at Minneapolis, so the situation is not actually as clear cut, or clean cut, as we might prefer. Bemidji may well be the legitimate government, having continued functions of government insofar as they are able to, despite being displaced, but Minneapolis, not Bemidji, is the
de facto hegemon over Minnesota. Note also that Minneapolis is not as free of Revivalism as you claim - in the very description you cite, its citizens are unfurling American flags and its Commander hearing the call of patriotism once again. Should we move to displace Minneapolis,
destabilizing the hegemony it needs to survive (or at least that its citizens believe it needs to survive), we may very well end up killing that revivalism, since New America will have shown itself to be an existential threat to their existence - especially if we deploy troops to enforce this new state of affairs.
I understand that you believe what we are doing is "just" recognizing Bemidji diplomatically, and that as such, this is the opposite of triggering Hostile Neighborhood, but it is not your belief that matters, but that of the other powers in the region, as we cannot assume that
they will greet us as liberators. It is easy enough to look at old America and its involvement in Iraq to see just what a quagmire that assumption can get a nation into - even when that nation is a global hegemon, which we assuredly are not.
