A Few Thoughts on the Minnesota Shooting

Unacceptable in Every Way

At 2:30 AM Saturday morning, a person dressed as a polkice officer arrived at Minnesota State Senator’s John Hoffman’s house and shot him and his wife. Actual police responded with life saving procedures. In a pre-emptive police call upon former State Speaker’s Melissa Hortman’s house, they found a “police officer” already there with an SUV in the driveway with emergency lights on. Soon after, that “police officer” fired on actual police responding and escaped through the house. When officers went through the house, they found Hortman and her husband shot dead.

The assailant’s name was Vance Boelter, a security guard with previous military training. In his car they found a right wing political manifesto, demonstrating motivation for the shootings, and stack of sheets related to the Saturday “No Kings” protests set to take place that day. Many of those around the state were quickly cancelled, or greatly diminished in size.

There is only one word that came to mind: unacceptable.

Everything about this is unacceptable. People don’t serve in office because of acclaim or money. The pay is terrible, the work is tiring and long, a large chunk of the public disagrees or outright hates you for your positions. They do it because they want to make a difference, and help their communities. Violence, in any form against public officials is just flat out unacceptable. Not that violence is ever acceptable, but against public officials for political points? Exceptionally so. These are people with families. They are good natured people who are just trying to help. It is appalling that this would occur.

It is not a coincidence that this occurred in a sensationalized political environment with hyperbolic rhetoric being thrown out on both sides. And before I get a lot of grief about “both sidesing” this issue, this isn’t the first time this year it has happened; we need to also talk about this guy:

That’s right, Luigi Mangione, the uber-liberal who shot the CEO of United HealthGroup is cut from the very same cloth as Vance Boelter.

Going into this weekend, I was genuinely concerned something like this would happen. On the right, we saw Trump ramp up his attacks (and attacks is the right word) in Los Angeles, amping up militaristic impressions with his Army parade in D.C., and channelling the persona of a tin pot dictator. On the left, we’ve seen a huge amping up in the volume and degree of rhetoric leading into the No Kings protests this weekend. In this sensationalized atmosphere, where those active on both sides have elevated their radically charged bubbles to the point cars are burning in L.A., Senators are escorted out of press conferences and tackled, and both sides view each other as existential threats, can it be really a shock that such an event occurred? In a way, it was inevitable, the only question being which side would have an assassination attempt on it first.

And again, before I get a lot of hate mail saying “Democrats/Liberals would never…” let me also bring up the Steve Scalise shooting.

To be sure, the root cause of a LOT of this is just Donald Trump; how he talks, what he says, how he says it, what he does. Media sit and point to this and say “It’s what Republicans want, and Democrats want their version of it too.” No, we don’t. The asinine way Trump talks, the stupidity in which he says it, and the id that he is trying to appeal to are the worst elements of human nature. I’m not even talking about Republican policies, I’m talking about the underlying human virtues and weaknesses he is empowering. A democratic version of this isn’t any better, despite the amount of energy on the left it would unleash.¹ Much of those underlying human virtues and weaknesses on the left are already engaged, we certainly don’t need more of it. Yet the more the left steps up to amp heated rhetoric to 11 and be as outlandish and scream as loud as Trump, and to pull out the most sensationalized metaphors to demonstrate the worst impulses of society, the further away from the mainstream they become and the more dichtomous our American culture becomes. Worst of all, these shootings this weekend are likely to make things worse; the tension on social media will only likely escalated because of them, not decrease.

So what do we need? Calmer, smarter, saner minds need to prevail. We need a toning down of all of this bullshit. We need to just pause, catch our breath, and direct energy in a more positive direction. Because if we keep going down the course we’re going, nothing will get better. We’ll just continue to ping pong back and forth from the extremes of one side to the other resolving nothing.

In short…

• Trump’s military parade in D.C. was completely unacceptable.

• The crackdown in L.A. was completely unacceptable.

• The conduct of the protesters and the extent they pushed things was completely unacceptable.

• The rhetoric pushed this past week regarding the No Kings protests were often irresponsible.

• The rhetoric and conduct that all built up to this and resulted in longtime public servants and Minnesota Senators being shot is ENTIRELY unacceptable.

R.I.P. Mr. and Mrs. Hortman. You didn’t deserve this to happen to you. Thank you for your service. God bless. And my prayers go to the Hoffman family— I hope they pull through.

Minnesota Strong

1. Listening to some people being interviewed on the morning of the No Kings Protests, I just shook my head. They were just as smug and self-satisfied, imbecilic, just as unhinged and just as non-sensical as many a MAGA nitwit; the only difference was that they were coming from the opposite direction.