We Reap What We Sow

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Saturday’s shooting was always going to happen.  If not Vance Boelter, it would have been someone else.  And none of us should be surprised. 

I have long said the greatest threat against elected officials and candidates for office is the lone wolf.  It is a threat po

litical figures at every level of government face today. Make no mistake though, this is a monster politicians themselves have created. 

In the past decade, there has been a worrisome trend towards violence against political figures.  In my nearly three years working at the Capitol Police, the team I oversaw investigated tens of thousands of threats against members of Congress.  They came from both sides of the aisle.  No public figure, especially the political, is immune from the dangers.

It is a danger sometimes fueled by those very same people who are threatened.  Some political figures seem to be unable to comprehend that their actions and words promote violence against themselves and their colleagues. 

Take for example Rep. Gosar.  He was censured in 2021 after posting an anime video depicting the killing of a Democratic congresswoman.  Though Gosar may have said, “I do not espouse violence towards anyone. I never have. It was not my purpose to make anyone upset,” what then was the purpose of that video? Did he post it just for shits and giggles?  Is it fun to fantasize about your coworkers being killed?

And how about that time Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene called for the execution of Democrats?  Or when Senate candidate (and now Special Advisor to the United States Agency for Global Media) told supporters to “strap on a Glock” to use against those who opposed President Trump.

But as Saturday’s events demonstrated, in many ways local and state elected officials and candidates are even more susceptible to violence than those at the national level.  Sure, those at the national level have higher profiles, but they also have more access to security.  Though the Capitol Police only provides regular protection to ten members of Congress (the Speaker of the House, the president pro tempore, and the majority and minority leaders and whips in both chambers), those facing an imminent threat can be given a protection detail, the sergeant-at-arms provides some funding for security enhancements, any member of Congress can request a threat assessment for public events they will host or attend, and the Capitol Police will provide a security assessment for any member who requests one.  Local and state politicians often don’t have the access or means to similar resources. 

Local and state elected officials have been and continue to be targets of violence.  It was only two months ago that someone tried to burn down Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s home.  In 2020, there was a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.  In 2022, the then-candidate and now mayor of Louisville, Craig Greenberg, was the target of a shooting.

As Reuters reported in 2023, the United States is in the midst of the greatest increase in political violence since the 1970s.  In 2024, the Bridging Divides Initiative, a non-partisan research initiative at Princeton University that tracks political violence, reported a 14% rise over 2023 in threats and harassment targeting local officials and a 74% jump over 2022.  November 2024 had the highest number of threating or harassing incidents since the project began.  Overall, in 2024, the Initiative recorded more than 600 separate instances of threats and harassment against local political figures. 

Saturday’s shooting of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and State Senator John Hoffman and their spouses was just the latest in a long line of political violence and this line will not, unfortunately, end with them.  It won’t because as much as political leaders “call on everyone to take down the temperature,” few actually do after an incident of violence.  It’s the ‘thoughts and prayers’ approach.  Politicians will be upset about the shootings for a hot minute but will then go back to spouting the same violent, political extremist rhetoric that got them to this point in the first place. 

There are politicians directly promoting violence against other politicians and then there is the violent rhetoric they espouse that inspires non-political figures to perpetrate violence against elected officials.  It’s rhetoric that has resulted in death, destruction, and injury and, as the events on Saturday showed, there’s no sign that it’s slowing.

When the president pardons individuals who assaulted the officers that are charged with protecting members of Congress, he is endorsing political violence.  When the governor of Viriginia makes a joke about Nancy Pelosi’s husband being violently attacked in his home, he’s really saying he thinks what happened was acceptable.  When protesters are looting and burning down buildings in the name of social justice and politicians don’t speak out against it, their complicity is a commendation of those destructive actions.  When members of Congress say other members of Congress should be “knocked over the head, like, hard” they are promoting violence.

There are so many instances of politically motivated violence and destruction that many of them get lost in the noise. How many of us heard of the vehicle ramming attack in Hancock, PA, against a Trump supporter in 2024?  What about the New Mexico Republican Party headquarters being torched?  How about that time someone attacked staffers in Rep. Gerry Connolly’s field office with a baseball bat?  What about the two Black teens who were shot in North Carolina because they said they didn’t support Trump?

So long as politicians embrace violence either by perpetuating it themselves, promoting it, endorsing it, or refusing to speak out against it, we will have more political violence.  Politicians need to do more than “take down the temperature.”  They need to change their behavior.  They are leaders within this country and for better or for worse, Americans take their lead on how to behave when it comes to politics from them.  More than anyone else, politicians have themselves to blame for the threats and violence they now face. 

Every time they are quiet in the face of a threat or violent incident, every time they try to justify their colleagues’ improper words or actions, every time they point the finger at the other side of the aisle instead of taking responsibility, every time they do not promptly and clearly articulate right from wrong, they are one step closer to inspiring someone to think and eventually act violently.  

More than all of this, violence intimidates, and it does so by making those who may be considering a run for office think twice about it.  And when people are dissuaded from running for office because they fear threats and violence, that erodes our democracy.  For a democracy to work, it must be of, by, and for the people, but if the people are too fearful to step up, we no longer have a democracy. 

The cost of all this political violence is even greater than the lives it takes.