The shocking assassination on Saturday of senior Minnesota politician, Melissa Hortman, and her husband, and the wounding of her colleague State Senator John Hoffman, and his wife, are vivid evidence of the deep, and dangerous polarisation of US politics. Although the precise motivation for the attacks is as yet unclear, police have identified right-wing Christian activist Vance Boelter (57), a private security company owner, as chief suspect. Police found a list of 70 potential other targets, overwhelmingly Democrats, in his abandoned car.
Condemnation of the killings has come from across the political spectrum, including from president Trump. But the inflammatory rhetoric of public discourse has seeded a culture which appears to legitimise gun violence by a tiny minority, as Trump discovered to his own cost last summer.
The country’s divisions were also vividly manifest on the streets on Saturday– in Washington DC marching troops celebrated 250 years of the US army’s history (and Trump’s birthday) at a cost of $45 million, supposedly stoking national pride and reminding the world of America’s hard power. “Succour to our allies”, a Fox TV commentator insisted.
Meanwhile, demonstrations in up to 2,000 centres in all 50 states across the US, including a dozen in Indiana alone, reflected popular anger at the president’s immigration crackdown and executive overreach, not least what is seen as political abuse of the self-same US Army and National Guards in policing overwhelmingly peaceful protest. Sporadic violence in LA was easily managed by local law enforcement.
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Trump has said that the “enemy from within” is more dangerous than foreign adversaries, and has conjured up images of insurrection to justify special powers. The sheer number of political confrontations across the country, and the fact that the president, instead of being a force for reconciliation is, as one historian has put it,” fuelling the fires”, makes this a dangerous time for the US. Democracy is being tested.
