In the early hours of June 14, America crossed another line — this time, quietly, in the suburbs of Minnesota.
State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were shot in their home. Former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were murdered — executed, really — for the crime of public service. The gunman wore a police uniform and carried a hit list naming dozens of Democratic officials and abortion providers. It wasn’t random. It was methodical. It was political. And it was premeditated.
This wasn’t just a massacre — it was a message.
The assassin didn’t act in a vacuum. He came from a culture where elected officials are called “traitors,” abortion providers are “baby killers,” and LGBTQ+ Americans are “groomers.” A culture where disagreement is treason and empathy is weakness. A culture where conspiracy is currency and rage is rewarded.
This is the logical endpoint of a movement built on grievance. When public figures refer to journalists as “the enemy of the people,” call immigrants “poison,” or brand their opponents as “vermin,” they are not being provocative. They are laying the groundwork for dehumanization.
Because once you make someone less than human — once you label them not as a neighbor, a citizen or even a fellow American, but as a threat to be eradicated — then violence isn’t just possible. It’s inevitable.
Genocide, systemic oppression and state-sanctioned cruelty have all followed the same linguistic blueprint. In Rwanda, radio broadcasts compared Tutsis to cockroaches before the killing began. In Nazi Germany, Jews were depicted as rats and disease before being exterminated. In the Jim Crow South, Black Americans were portrayed as brutes and savages to justify lynching. The method is as ancient as humanity itself, but its power remains dangerously modern.
The tragedy in Minnesota did not just reveal the consequences of political radicalization — it exposed the moral rot in our response to it. Shortly after the news broke that State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife had been shot, and that former Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband had been murdered in their home, Senator Mike Lee of Utah took to social media — not to mourn, not to condemn, but to mock. Using his “Based Mike Lee” account, the senator posted: “This is what happens When Marxists don’t get their way,” and followed it up with a juvenile jab at Minnesota’s governor: “Nightmare on Waltz Street.” Both statements were baseless, inflammatory and factually incorrect — the alleged assassin was not a Marxist, but a conservative. After bipartisan backlash and a private confrontation from Senator Tina Smith, Lee quietly deleted the posts, but never apologized. He left up one sterile, official statement about condemning violence, as if that might somehow cleanse the stain of his earlier glee.
President Donald Trump issued a perfunctory condemnation, calling the murders a “terrible shooting” and a “targeted attack,” but quickly turned dismissive when asked whether he had reached out to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. “Why would I call him? … He’s a mess. So I could be nice and call, but why waste time?” It was a telling moment — not just of pettiness, but of a deeper contempt for unity, empathy or the basic decency once expected of our leaders. In a moment that called for moral clarity and national comfort, they chose cruelty over compassion, snark over statesmanship.
This behavior is not just unbecoming — it’s dangerous. When leaders respond to political murder with mockery, when they twist tragedy into partisan theater or refuse even the simplest gesture of shared humanity, they send a message: that violence is permissible if it targets the right people. That some lives matter less. That hatred can be laughed off. And in doing so, they feed the very fire that took two more Americans from us in the dead of night.
Here in America, in 2025, elected officials must now weigh not just the politics of a vote, but the possibility of assassination. School board members need protection. Libraries are threatened. Hate doesn’t sleep — it just changes masks.
And still, many lawmakers say nothing. Or worse, they wink at the mob and issue statements drenched in bothsidesism while fundraising off fear. The rhetoric isn’t cooling — it’s calcifying. And some in power see that not as a problem to solve, but a tool to wield.
This isn’t simply a crisis of civility. It’s a collapse of democratic norms. A nation cannot endure when political disagreement morphs into mortal danger. Democracy dies when fear wins. When silence from leaders is louder than the screams of the wounded.
Melissa Hortman and her husband are dead. John Hoffman and his wife are recovering from gunshot wounds. And if we pretend this is just another tragedy in a country numb to violence, we will see more names added to the roll of the fallen.
We cannot afford to treat this as politics as usual. Not when blood is being spilled in the name of ideology. Not when lawmakers mock the dead and embolden the unstable with a wink and a microphone.
It’s time for the public to demand better — not just better laws, but better leaders. Leaders who speak with clarity and conscience. Leaders who do not dehumanize their neighbors for applause. Leaders who understand that words are not harmless — they are matches in a house already soaked in gasoline.
If you hear a politician call their opponents animals, threats, vermin or monsters — call them out. If they demonize immigrants, mock the disabled, or smear transgender people with slurs — hold them accountable. Not with violence, but with the one power they fear most: your vote.
The survival of our democracy doesn’t hinge on a single election — it rests on whether we are still brave enough to say that every human being has dignity. That disagreement is not treason. That public service should not come with a death sentence.
This country cannot be saved by silence. It never has been.
