Political Violence Comes to Minnesota

The good news first: no one has yet been stabbed, shot or guillotined. Although the idea has been raised:

A Minnesota DFL staffer has been suspended from his job after suggesting in a social media post that Republicans face beheading after the Nov. 6 election.

In response to a Facebook post that listed Nov. 6 as the day to “take back your country,” DFL deputy communications director William Davis wrote “11.7-bring them to the guillotines.”

The suspension is for one week.

In an earlier statement, DFL executive director Corey Day said the comment was an inside joke among former co-workers.

Ha ha. Those Democrats are hilarious. Next, the inevitable:

Republicans seized on the comment….

Any time you see “Republicans seized,” you know you are reading an article by a Democratic Party reporter.

Republicans are right to be concerned. Within the last week, two Republican candidates for the legislature have been assaulted for political reasons. The first was Representative Sarah Anderson:

Rep. Sarah Anderson was heading out for a day of campaigning Sunday when she saw a man damaging campaign signs near her Plymouth home.

She saw him kicking at her campaign sign — then others.

Parking her car, Anderson confronted the man.

That may have been a mistake.

Anderson tried unsuccessfully to videotape the encounter as the man backed her into the street, swearing.

“And he charged at me again, and he said, ‘Go kill yourself,’ and I end up stepping here and there’s traffic coming.”

That’s when Anderson got back in her car and saw the man walking on foot toward a gas station.

She drove to the station and captured a cellphone image of the man charging her — again. He tried to stop her from leaving, punching her in the arm.

The man described himself as an anarchist. Theoretically, anarchists should be at least as hostile to Democrats as to Republicans, but you know that isn’t how it works.

The second is Shane Mekeland:

A Republican candidate for the Minnesota House said Monday that he is recovering after suffering a concussion from an attack at a restaurant in St. George Township a few days earlier.

Shane Mekeland is running for the House in District 15B, an open seat that includes parts of Benton and Sherburne County. He said that last Friday night, he was “blindsided” by an assailant as he spoke to patrons at a bar and restaurant he wouldn’t identify.

Benton County Sheriff Troy Heck confirmed Monday that his office is investigating the alleged assault, which Mekeland reported took place between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Friday.

Once again, the attack appears to be politically motivated:

Mekeland said the man gave no immediate indication of political leanings but that remarks the man made as he attacked Mekeland suggested a political motivation.

Similar incidents are taking place across the country. It isn’t just Antifa brownshirts in Portland and New York; low-level political violence by the Left is being mainstreamed. The problem with low-level violence is that it can rapidly escalate. So far, due to the miracles of modern science, no Republican politicians have been murdered by Democrats. Let’s hope that is still true on November 7.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses