(RNS) — For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, it is evident that Vance Boelter, the alleged killer of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, is a conservative evangelical.
He attended Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas, a charismatic “Spirit-filled Bible School,” and calls himself an ordained minister. Watch this video of him preaching in Africa a couple of years ago. He knows how to do the thing.
It has been surmised that Boelter was motivated to do what he’s been charged with doing because of his opposition to abortion. An old friend recalled that he’d “really hated” abortion in the 1990s, and he’s preached against it in Africa. The list of targets found in his car was composed of pro-choice Democrats. Let’s just say that if this was his motivation, it wouldn’t be the first time the belief that “abortion is murder” led an anti-abortion zealot to take matters into his own hands.
For all this, the conspiracy-mongering right has been portraying him as a left-wing zealot. And I’m not just referring to the inhabitants of the media fever-swamp.
Over a photo of Boelter, U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) posted on X, “This is what happens / When Marxists don’t get their way.” And X proprietor Elon Musk posted, “The far left is murderously violent.”
I presume that Musk and Lee actually know better — that is, they know Boelter is exactly what the evidence suggests. It makes their behavior all the more loathsome, designed to keep conservative normies from any kind of self-examination or reflection. God forbid that they should, as Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar urged, look in the mirror.
To be sure, there have been expressions of distress from the Republican side of the aisle. GOP members of Congress from Minnesota joined their Democratic colleagues in condemning the attack. Vice President Vance spoke with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, and Walz expressed his appreciation.
Which brings us to the president of the United States.
He issued a statement Saturday saying he’d been briefed on this “terrible shooting” and said, “Such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America.” But on Sunday morning, when asked by ABC’s Rachel Scott whether he planned to call Walz himself, 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.”
From a halfway normal person in Trump’s shoes, you would expect something along the lines of: “As someone who has himself been shot and wounded by a would-be assassin, I am acutely aware of the dangers of political violence in America today. My heart goes out to the family of Speaker Hortman.”
But no. This was the usual Trumpian two-step performed in the manner of his holiday greetings: the appropriate formal statement written for him (“As president of the United States, it’s finally my tremendous honor to wish America and the world a very Merry Christmas”) and the inappropriate insult expressed by the man himself (“Merry Christmas to the Radical Left Lunatics who are always going after the Great Citizens and Patriots of the United States but, in particular, their Political Opponent, ME”).
It’s why, among the many signs displayed at the “No Kings” rallies across the country when Trump turned 79 on Saturday, the least surprising was, “Happy Birthday, A-Hole.”
