‘This cannot be the norm’

The reverberations of Saturday’s assassination of a Minnesota state representative and her husband swept over Iowa like a chilling north wind.

News broke early Saturday that Democratic former Minnesota House speaker Melissa Hortman was killed along with her husband, Mike. A second lawmaker, state Sen. John A. Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, were wounded but are expected to live.

In each case, a gunman came to their homes impersonating a police officer. In his vehicle was a list of potential targets with dozens of names, including people from Iowa. No names have been disclosed.

Vance Boelter, 57, was arrested and charged with carrying out the shootings. Although an exact motive has not been reported, his friends and former colleagues have told reporters that Boelter is an evangelical Christian, a staunch opponent of abortion, and is anti-LGBTQ.

With the names on his list mainly including Democrats and people associated with abortion providers, abortion has drawn attention as a possible motive.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Hortman helped find compromises in the narrowly divided Legislature “year after year.”

“That’s the embodiment of how things are supposed to work. It’s not about hatred. It’s not about mean tweets. It’s not about demeaning someone,” Walz said.

“This cannot be the norm, it cannot be the way we deal with our political differences,” the governor said.

We agree with Waltz. Violence should not be a part of politics in the United States. But incidents are adding up. Donald Trump survived two assassination attempts. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family escaped an arson attack on the governor’s residence during Passover. The list, unfortunately, goes on.

We believe accountability could be a powerful barrier to violence.

We need to start holding our leaders to account for the incendiary things they say in public. We used to punish politicians who demonized opponents and lied to constituents. Now, our leaders can say whatever they want, no matter how reckless, and expect little or no punishment from the public or their party.

“They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Donald Trump said last year, repeating an online lie about Haitian immigrants in Ohio. He has described immigrants as “animals,” “stone-cold killers,” the “worst people,” and the “enemy from within.”

Trump’s allies cheered, and the rhetoric now is feeding a heavy-handed, unconstitutional wave of deportations being pursued by the president with no regard for due process.

Trump now has targeted Los Angeles protesters of his immigration policies using similar rhetoric.

Facts matter, and taking time to learn the facts is an important step of developing measured responses.

Civility is nice, but respect is more important. When our leaders pursue governance with strong disagreements but also strong respect for their adversaries, we achieve solutions to some of our problems. When adversaries launch a war of words, we get nothing, except more outrage on cable news.

We follow the lead of our leaders. If all they offer is disrespect, vitriol and dishonest accusations, their supporters will follow. When a group or political opponent is dehumanized by rhetoric, violence becomes a larger threat.

But we, the people, are also supposed to keep our leaders in check. We can stop tolerating this sort of politics. Power is in our hands.

(319) 398-8262; editorial@thegazette.com