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Latest updates, now that it's spreading around official media outlets: a suspect is wanted, Vance Boelter. He has ties to Tim Walz and the greater Democratic Party. Still no released motive.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/14/democratic-lawmakers-minnesota-shot
A man masquerading as a police officer is shooting politicians in their homes. The why is debatable; the theories I see floating around have to do with these two Democrat's recent voting records, and breaking from Dem consensus to support the Republicans. I don't know if this is true, I didn't check their records -- I share only because it's what I heard.
The why is also, I think, insignificant. There are so many reasons to be violent in modern society, if you're not intrinsically against violence itself -- punishing defectors, rallying your side with a show of force, intimidating people and politicians on the margins. I don't care what specific social ill or rage drove this would-be assassin.
More interesting, to me, is that we're seeing assassinations and their attempts more and more. It seems that way to me, at least -- I'm going off vibes and a gut reckoning with the numbers, not a reasoned analysis. Maybe I'm entirely wrong! But the vibe I get is the willingness to use violence on one's enemies is becoming significantly more normalized by the day, and eventually, I suspect, we're going to hit a turning point where no one pretends they don't want the other side dead and we get to it.
I don't particularly want that end result, but I find it hard to argue against murderous force on principle. The arguments supporting it seem obviously correct; the protests against it seem sincere, well-meaning, and completely wrong.
It makes me think. We're materially better off than ever. We're spiritually dead. We have more freedom than ever. We're trapped in our heads like anxious prisons. We solved hunger, and crippled ourselves with food.
We don't build. We don't conquer. We prosper, sort of, the numbers on the charts go up and the useless shit is really cheap -- but the precious things are rarer than ever.
I dunno. Nobody died this time, I guess that's nice. And the future, rough beast that it is, continues to slouch toward Bethlehem.
edit: scratch that two died, I guess that's less nice. RIP.
Which makes me think that politicians should say as little as possible in the immediate aftermath of an event like this or any other tragedy or natural disaster, because it only leads to egg on face (as well as shooting off your mouth based on inadequate information).
Walz was quick off the mark with "this is a politically motivated assassination", presumably on the basis that if Democrat politicians were attacked, it must be those dastardly Republicans to blame. Well, turns out that (it's looking like) the guy is one of your own, Tim. So now what is the political motivation, and how is your party to be held accountable?
Particularly if (let's do some wild speculating here) the guy was motivated by the David Hogg approach of "let's go after the moderate Democrats, after all they're to blame for co-operating with Republicans and enabling Trump to be elected"?
The connections to Walz are incredibly tenuous, that he was reappointed six years ago to a large bipartisan workforce advisory board (one of 130 total state boards, advisory councils, task forces, etc) with this including volunteer small business owner representatives from around the state where most of the nominations came from basically just rubber stamping local council choices.
It's a ridiculously weak connection, but that's not really the point now is it? The bigger point is the implications people try to make like you put here
The bigger logic employed here is "bad guy tenuously connected to your side did something wrong? That's proof you're evil!" and this logic means a person using this logic simply can't accept that anyone bad ever exists on their end of the political spectrum or they'd have to contend with the same implications.
And it reminds me of this point from SSC about the Ashley Todd case https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/04/ethnic-tension-and-meaningless-arguments/
And let's be honest, the large majority of the time this logic gets used it's as an isolated demand for rigor.
The other side is accountable for all their bad actions, whereas my side just has a few bad apples. I'm going to assume you're Republican aligned based off previous comments and context so let's ask that question.
Should we be holding Republicans responsible for the recent stories of people trying to kill protestors yesterday?
I think no and I've been consistent with my beliefs. I said it about Charlottesville, Gamergate, BLM, the "stochastic terrorism" accusations against LibsofTiktok, Palestine activists, Israeli activists, January 6th protestors, protestors in France during the pension strikes, etc etc that blaming groups for the actions of a few individuals is just poor reasoning.
So will you be consistent with your argument and agree Republicans should be held accountable for cases like these car attacks or the attempted assassination of Pelosi, the attempted kidnapping of Whitmer, the murder of a cop during Jan 6th, etc?
Now I'm not going to assume bad faith of you, but I will say that I find most people, right and left wingers alike tend to agree with my position that they aren't responsible for a few crazies once they're asked about their side.
What I wanted to point out was that the immediate and reflexive jump to "he must be one a' them bigot pro-lifer zealot Christian MAGAs!" has not been borne out so far by what we know, and that guy appears to be a Democrat or at least involved with the Democratic party on some level.
So there are no immediate convenient just-so stories as to "who did this why" in the aftermath of any event like this, and 'least said soonest mended' is the best advice.
I'm pretty sure I'm the one you're referring to here. I also am a "bigot pro-lifer zealot Christian MAGA". I think this guy came from my side of the aisle because the initial evidence seems to have broken that way. The assassin's connections to the Democratic party appear to be tenuous at best, and reports are citing support for abortion as the through-line of his target list and a history of Conservative Christian involvement in his social media trail. That's genuinely how the evidence looks to me. I have not been attempting to make any comment on Protestants vs Catholics; I am noting that the way the press is talking about him is generally how they talk about people like me.
It would not be surprising in the least if it turned out that the press were lying, but I have no current evidence that they're lying other than that it's the press, and if they're lying, it's at least somewhat about facts they don't control and should be publicly verifiable, so I think that's less likely.
Having observed several iterations of this particular game over the years, I think anyone who argues for ignoring the question of motive is kidding themselves; if this guy is in fact a Red Triber, that fact will, to put it delicately, be relevant to the discourse for some time. If he is not a Red Triber, then I am compelled to point out that the question of his motivations will be actively suppressed. That is the pattern I observe from the last several go-rounds.
I am deeply concerned about escalating extremism. I believe it is better in principle to consistently engage on the motives of extremists such as this and previous assassins, rather than allow our press to play their usual games.
Yeah, but so far the reports seem sketchy - not the actual list but one typed up and given to the police? I don't know how much credence to put in anything, though his sudden turn (if I believe the alleged LinkedIn page on social media claimed to be his) from a history of generally working in the food industry/retail industry to saying he was CEO of Red Lion and working in the Congo sounds very odd - maybe he had some kind of mental breakdown?
So maybe he was shooting or planning to shoot pro-choice people, or maybe he had some other reason, or who knows what exactly was going on. I'm waiting to hear more. He seems to have had a mixed background, to say the least.
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