#117. Politically motivated murder

Just a quick check-in after the assassination of a Minnesota politician roughly 25 miles from my house

Rest in power, Melissa Hortman

Yesterday morning I sat down to finish the essay I’ve been working on for Friday’s issue, but the only thing I could think about was how a Democratic politician and her husband were assassinated roughly 25 miles from my house. (Another politician and his wife were shot 17 times combined but both miraculously survived.) Honestly, I’ve been avoiding the news like a toxic ex recently because the state of the world right now feels like too fucking much – how many times can I use the phrase “dumpster fire” before it begins to lose its meaning? – but when a politically motivated murder happens in your city, it’s impossible not to pay attention.

My husband (a realtor) was holding an open house in Blaine on Saturday morning, which is roughly 10 miles from Brooklyn Park, where Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed in their home. I texted him in a panic with as much information as I could find – in my anxiety-rattled brain, an open house one city over would be a great place to hide from the cops – and he immediately texted his (our) friends who live in the immediate neighborhood where it happened who have a newborn at home. We’re supposed to go to a party at their house on Saturday that was planned over a month ago. I assume we’re still going to go and try to act like two of their neighbors weren’t just murdered for their political beliefs. Should I bring a rosé?

Melissa Hortman, 55, was described by Minnesota governor Tim Walz as “the most consequential speaker in state history.” One of her colleagues said this about her, too:

“She was steely and strategic and savvy and yet so likable as a person because she always remembered people’s humanity, even and especially if they were on the other side of the aisle.”

Like all politicians, Melissa Hortman faced plenty of criticism in the more than 20 years she was in office, but:

Ms. Hortman said that she took pride in her ability to find common ground with Republicans, even as doing so became harder, she said, as deepening polarization made “people calcified in their party identification.”

Maybe this will surprise you, but I admire this quality deeply. We need more of it, not less.

It took almost two days to catch the guy who killed her, Vance Boelter (surprise, he’s white, Republican, religious, homophobic, etc.) Apparently he was dressed as a policeman, and later was seen wearing a cowboy hat. We all went to bed on Saturday night just hoping, I guess, that he wasn’t going to go after anyone else on his list or, I don’t know, try to hide out in our backyard while he was on the run. On Saturday afternoon, I walked our dog around the lake while Paul played pickleball with some friendly strangers in Nokomis. On Sunday, we had an early dinner in Southwest Minneapolis with my parents who just flew into town. The whole time, I couldn’t help but feel a little weirded out by how disturbingly normal it all felt. Like nothing was even happening in the Twin Cities at all. All weekend long I got “breaking news” emails about the assassination in my inbox next to ones about the best wedding guest dresses and ‘how to look cool in the summer’ and oooo, a 25% off sale at Reformation! (Didn’t buy anything.) The whiplash of modern life is feeling increasingly dystopian and I hate it.

Roughly 25,000 people (possibly more like 80,000, seen above) still showed up to the ‘No Kings’ protest in St. Paul (my part of town) on Saturday afternoon, despite the fact that the gunman had flyers in his car for the protest, likely signaling that’s where he had planned to go next. It scared the shit out of me and a lot of my friends, to be honest. The only person I know who ended up going was my friend’s dad, who said: “No, this is when you show up. We have to show them we’re not afraid.”

I wish I was that brave.

Because the truth is – I am afraid. There was a gunman at the ‘No Kings’ protest in Salt Lake City (a bystander was accidentally killed when security successfully took down the attempted shooter). I’m afraid the United States is becoming so politically polarized and gun happy that this kind of thing is only going to keep happening. And worse? That it’s going to feel normal. I don’t want to walk around the lake with my dog 18 miles from where an active shooter was last seen and pretend like nothing is happening. I don’t want that to feel normal, because it isn’t, and it never will be. Little kids were playing on the playground blissfully unaware that their quiet Minnesota neighborhood was actually adjacent to a crime scene that was being live-updated by The New York Times. We went about our weekends while the largest manhunt in Minnesota’s history was going on right outside our doors. I went home and fixated on Mr. Darcy’s hand flex in Pride and Prejudice on Saturday night to help soothe my frayed nerve endings. (It helped a little.)

Sure, you could argue that the gunman’s victims were targeted, so “regular people” were probably safe to go about their day. The killing wasn’t random. But this man was specifically going after Democratic lawmakers and abortion providers, so it’s not a massive jump in logic to assume his goal was to eliminate people who are very active and loud about a woman’s right to have an abortion. If he knew what I believe, he’d try to kill me, too.

I wish I was brave, but I am actually fucking terrified. What’s to stop this from happening again?

Nothing is going to be done about this. We’re all just going to move on and eventually forget about it. Situation normal, nothing to see here. I don’t have any solutions to offer and it wouldn’t even matter if I did because I’m not a politician. And if I was, I would have been on this guy’s kill list. I miss when politics were boring. I would give anything to make America boring again.

For now, I’m going to go back to doing what I do and also finish planning our (much delayed) honeymoon in London, which is one very good thing happening right now that I’m trying to hold on to for my sanity. There’s definitely a chance we’ll just never come back. If you have any tips for how to “keep calm and carry on” while the U.S. burns down, I’d be very much obliged.