We Are All Minnesotans
We Don't Have To Live With Political Violence
Is political violence, like school shootings, “becoming almost routine,” as the New York Times headline asks?
Slowly but surely, political violence has moved from the fringes to an inescapable reality. Violent threats and even assassinations, attempted or successful, have become part of the political landscape — a steady undercurrent of American life.
The other day I invoked a counter-culture movie from the sixties, Wild in the Streets, which came out during the time of anti-war protests and confrontations between armed police and demonstrators. How long will it be before we have another Kent State?
Violent threats against lawmakers have hit a record high, from members of Congress to state and local officials—along with federal judges, prosecutors and other court officials.
A report by federal investigators with the U.S. Capitol Police found that the agency’s threat division investigated 9,474 "concerning statements or direct threats" against members of Congress in 2024—three times higher than the number in 2017.
And the U.S. Marshalls Service investigated threats against 197 judges between March 2 and late May, according to The Washington Post—more than double the 80 judges threatened in the previous five months, from Oct. 1 through March 1.
The increase came as Trump and his allies railed against the federal court system, blaming judges for blocking the president’s agenda. Dozens of judges appointed by presidents of both parties have temporarily paused many of Trump’s efforts to slash government spending, remake agencies, speed deportations and change immigration policy while legal challenges to those efforts are pending.
The Post describes the new climate of attacks, grievance and calls for retribution against judges, citing White House Actual President Trump advisor Stephen Miller’s social media posts that
called a federal trade court’s ruling against the president’s tariffs a “judicial coup” and reposted photos of the three-judge panel, saying, “we are living under a judicial tyranny.”
As Harvard political scientist Steve Levitsky, who co-authored the book “How Democracies Die,” said in Politico,
I mean, it’s not rocket science. You condone the January 6 insurrection. You pardon them all, or virtually all of them, including those who physically assaulted police officers, and you treat them as heroes. You send around unmarked cars with masked vigilante like agents, abducting people off the streets.... You’ve created an atmosphere that’s not just permissive of political violence, it encourages political violence.
When the news broke about the shootings in Minnesota, I got called back to my desk from my client, a national organization that works for women’s rights, to work on a statement.
Attacks on lawmakers and their families are attacks on our democracy itself—and on all of our families. Violent extremism is increasingly seen as permissible, justified or needed to punish political opponents and squelch opposition. But this can never be.
Nice words, if I do say so myself. But they’re only words, at best a call to action. How we actually ensure that “this can never be” is the question.
Is this deadly extremism the inevitable result of a culture that glorifies violence, makes airing grievances the point of politics, and devalues the rule of law?
Is there no going back?
Is the best we can hope for that we treat the symptoms instead of looking for a cure?
Elsewhere in The New York Times , Barbara McQuade writes an guest essay op-ed1 and says,
Mr. Trump, himself the target of two assassination attempts, has normalized conduct we once thought of as being confined to developing countries with unstable forms of government. On the first day of his second term, Mr. Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people charged with crimes committed at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including those who were convicted of assaulting police officers in a brutal and bloody attack.
Our nation was founded on the principle that we resolve our disputes through informed debate, at the ballot box and in courts of law. Having failed to achieve their goals through legitimate means, the attackers instead used brute force to try to achieve their political objective when the stakes were at their very highest: while the transfer of presidential power was taking place.
Barbara McQuade quotes a 2022 Joint Counterterrorism Assessment Team bulletin, that warns,
“Violent extremists justify their actions through grievances, such as perceived government and law enforcement overreach, the anticipation of opposing legislative changes and the proliferation of misinformation and conspiracy theories.”
The Minnesota assassin is an anti-abortion activist who had a 70-name target list that also included Planned Parenthood centers, showing how divisive the abortion care issue remains today. Will we also see more clinic bombings?
Before the shooter was apprehended, when Donald Trump was asked if he planned to call Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (who had already heard from Joe Biden and J.D. Vance) he said "Well, it's a terrible thing. I think he's a terrible governor. I think he's a grossly incompetent person. But I may, I may call him, I may call other people too."
It’s hardly worth saying any more that Donald Trump does not behave like a normal president.
“So what?” his fans say—and some of his detractors too. But we can’t let Trump get away with normalizing abnormality.
It is not normal to settle political disputes by pulling a trigger, or by inciting violence the way Trump and his supporters love to do.
I don’t have a handy, Substack-ready answer to how we change the culture, but I do know that culture can play a role. One of my favorite songs is Billy Bragg’s “Levi Stubbs’ Tears,” about how music can make a difference, and even help save us.
In his book, “Fire and Rain,” about the music and politics in the air in the pivotal year 1970, David Browne writes about how Neil Young responded to seeing the eleven-page spread in Life Magazine about the National Guard killing of four students at Kent State:
“Young looked away. He turned back and looked again. As Crosby watched, he walked over, grabbed a nearby guitar and began writing a song. In fifteen minutes, out came an irate chant he simple called “Ohio,” Crosby worked on a harmony part while Young was writing.”
The Minnesota shootings overshadowed the “No Kings” demonstrations, which overshadowed Trump’s ego parade (as they were intended to do—good job!) but every political moment needs a soundtrack. Here’s a few for today.
