After the Cold-Blooded Shootings in Minnesota, Who Will Call Them Out?
We need a new profile in courage who will stand up to Donald Trump as a leader propagator of this polarization and violence.
The cold-blooded shooting of two Minnesota legislators and their spouses in what was, in the words of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, “a politically motivated assassination” elicited the expected condemnations of political polarization and violence, the increasingly uncertain invocations that “this is not who we are.” President Donald Trump condemned the shooting as “horrific,” saying that such violence “will not be tolerated in the United States of America,” while characteristically using the occasion to scorn Governor Walz as a “grossly incompetent person.
The reality, of course, is that this is increasingly “who we are.” Political violence and threats are on the rise, from the failed assassination attempt on Trump during the campaign to the increasing threats to judges and legislators to the fire-bombing of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s residence, to the murders in Minnesota.
Absent from the expressions of dismay and concern is any indictment of a leading propagator of this polarization and violence—Donald Trump, with his poisonous political rhetoric, and his repeated threats of retribution on his political opponents. Absent also is a modern-day Margaret Chase Smith, the Republican senator who at the height of the Red Scare in 1950 had the courage to stand up to fellow Republican Joe McCarthy on the floor of the Senate.
Smith, the sole woman in the Senate at that time, and the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress, was a strong Republican and a harsh critic of the Truman administration, which she considered weak on meeting the Soviet threat. Yet, when McCarthy’s ever more hysterical charges proved to be unfounded while ruining the reputations of more and more officials, she decided someone had to call him out.
Her 15-minute speech on the Senate floor did not mention McCarthy by name but its target was clear. “The nation sorely needs a Republican victory. But I don’t want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the four horsemen of calumny—fear, ignorance, bigotry and smear.” She was joined by six other Republican senators in a “Declaration of Conscience” that reiterated the call for protection of free speech and association. McCarthy’s downfall came four years later, but there is no question that Smith’s courage marked the beginning of his decline.
Now we need another profile in courage. Trump’s divisive rhetoric has been his signature since he rode down his golden escalator 10 years ago to announce that he was running for president and used the occasion to paint Mexican immigrants as murderers and rapists. His vulgar insults, brazen lies, cruel mockery, and juvenile name-calling are central to his spiel and appeal. As Finton O’Toole noted, he uses the vulgar and tawdry to build a “cultlike authority” with his MAGA crowd, saying the unsayable, riling the “woke enemy,” creating the idea that they are united “by being in on the joke.”
But in the 2024 campaign and, more importantly, from the bully pulpit in office, Trump’s rhetoric has a more vicious and dangerous edge. He not only scorns his opponents as fools, incompetents, and corrupt; he charges them with hating the country, paints them as the enemy within, labels them as Marxists and radicals. Consider the tweet—all in CAPS—the president released in commemoration of Memorial Day, the day that pays tribute to those who sacrificed their lives in battle:
HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY THROUGH WARPED RADICAAL LEFT MINDS.
He went on to denounce
USA HATING JUDGES WHO SUFFER FROM AN IDEOLOGY THAT IS SICK AND VERY DANGEROUS FOR OUR COUNTRY…! AGAIN, HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY AND GOD BLESS AMERICA.
As the courts have questioned Trump’s lawless actions, his insults have escalated. In March, he denounced
Radical Left Judges could very well lead to the destruction of our Country! These people are Lunatics, who do not care, even a little bit, about the repercussions from their very dangerous and incorrect Decisions and Rulings…. The danger is unparalleled.
His rantings are not limited to judges. The day after the murders in Minnesota, Trump tweeted a call for expanding deportation efforts in large cities led by Democratic mayors. “These Radical Left Democrats are sick of mind, hate our Country, and actually want to destroy our Inner Cities.”
Trump’s vile charges are echoed and expanded upon by his minions and courtiers. Attorney General Pam Bondi, for example, calls judges who rule against the administration “deranged.”
Not surprisingly, legislators, governors, and federal judges are now facing increasing threats. In April, more than two dozen federal judges received surprise pizza deliveries at their homes, made under the name of Daniel Anderl, son of a federal judge who was murdered in 2020. The message, as reported in The Nation, was clear: “We know where you live.
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“swipe left below to view more authors”Swipe →Add to this the pardoning of those who sacked the Capitol on January 6, including those convicted of assaulting police officers. The masked agents of ICE abducting people on the streets. The dispatch of the Marines to Los Angeles. The White House promising a “hard look” at clemency for the two men convicted of plotting to assassinate Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. We are way beyond “there are good people on both sides,” or mockery of Joe Biden.
Would a modern-day Margaret Chase Smith make a difference? Obviously, our world has changed—with the media no longer centralized, “alternative facts” invented to confuse. Yet clarity and courage have their own authority. Because, as Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski said, “We are all afraid,” fearing both political retribution and retribution meted out to their constituents, the silence—the cowardice—of Republicans in office, with rare exceptions, has been deafening. A clear statement calling out the dangers of Trump’s provocations, backed even by a handful of Republican colleagues, would at least provide a sobriety check on the White House. Trump, no doubt, would double down, just as McCarthy did. But pulling aside the curtain, warning of the dangers ahead may well mark a turning point from a violent and perilous path. Is there a Republican leader in the Senate or in the statehouses?
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Even before February 28, the reasons for Donald Trump’s imploding approval rating were abundantly clear: untrammeled corruption and personal enrichment to the tune of billions of dollars during an affordability crisis, a foreign policy guided only by his own derelict sense of morality, and the deployment of a murderous campaign of occupation, detention, and deportation on American streets.
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As we’ve seen over and over, this administration uses lies, misdirection, and attempts to flood the zone to justify its abuses of power at home and abroad. Just as Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth offer erratic and contradictory rationales for the attacks on Iran, the administration is also spreading the lie that the upcoming midterm elections are under threat from noncitizens on voter rolls. When these lies go unchecked, they become the basis for further authoritarian encroachment and war.
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