On Political Violence in America

The Minnesota murders should be a wake up call. Will they be?

The night I became a folk villain in right-wing America, my husband and I went to sleep with a chair wedged under our front doorknob. We had ordered a camera to augment our security system, but it hadn’t arrived yet, and our aging husky-shepherd was going deaf, so the chair hack seemed like the best option to guard against intruders who might wish us harm. I had learned it in hostile environment training before overseas travel for previous jobs; now I was using it at home, in the United States.

That was more than three years ago—before the Speaker of the House’s husband was attacked with a hammer in the middle of the night, before Governor Josh Shapiro’s home was set ablaze with him and his family in it, before two assasination attempts of a presidential candidate, before the violence in Minnesota in which a man impersonating law enforcement went on a murderous rampage, killing State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband and gravely injuring State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, who shielded their 12 year old daughter from a barrage of bullets.

My ordeal was 15 months after the January 6 insurrection, when rioters brandished “Hang Mike Pence” signs and had hunted for Nancy Pelosi. Those images—that violence—felt fresh in my mind, but some U.S. Government security professionals told me that the people threatening my family—including my unborn child—were “all bark, no bite.” A few months later, one of the men who had advocated violence in response to a post about me went on to shoot up an FBI field office in Ohio.

The writing was on the wall, but some people were in another room entirely.

As we learned the details of this weekend’s horrific attack, my husband and I took stock of our security footprint. It has taken time and money, but we’ve hardened it. We feel as comfortable as we can with the knowledge that I’m on multiple enemies lists—and the recognition that I’d probably have been on this guy’s, if I lived in Minnesota. I know dozens of other public figures who began this process since Trump took office, fearful of what extrajudicial violence they might be subjected to, in addition to harassment from their own government. They’ve figured out burner phones for international travel and invested in services that scrub your online data footprint. They’ve bought security systems. All this, because people who have raised their voices have been made fearful in Trump’s America.

The horrifying reality is that none of these measures would protect us if, in the middle of the night, a man who looked like a police officer showed up at the front door.

Rather than reflect on how the United States has become a place—like Russia or Venezuela—where political violence is the cost of speaking out and doing your job, and what they might do to change that, right-wing political operators have immediately politicized the deaths of Hortman and her husband.

The hypocrisy is astounding. These are the very same lawmakers who are too afraid to oppose President Trump, lest they be subject to the violence they’re now cracking jokes about. Meanwhile, the nation’s paper of record published a chilling essay arguing that we “may be on the brink of an extremely violent era in American politics.” The proposed solution? Gavin Newsom and President Trump should make a joint statement. That’ll do it!

Here’s what should actually happen: the Senate should vote to censure Senator Lee. This will do more than any inauthentic statement from two guys who hate each other’s guts could ever do: show that lies and hateful rhetoric have consequences.

That’s how we got here in the first place: a criminal who spreads lies and hateful rhetoric was rewarded for his rule- and norm-breaking with the highest office in the land. His acolytes—elected and otherwise—face no consequences for replicating it. The horse has left the burning barn. Many elected officials don’t necessarily seem motivated by the good of the republic these days, but perhaps they’re motivated by self-preservation. If they wake up, we might have a chance to start putting out the fire.

And there’s a role for us, too. We don’t have to elect the people who are normalizing political violence. Utah should absolutely reject Mike Lee when his term is up.

The country is coming off a historic weekend of collective action. It’s critical that as Americans continue to rise up, we keep peaceful protest at the heart of the anti-Trump movement. Protests and elections—not murders—are still the way we make change in America. Let’s make sure it stays that way.