A domestic terrorist plot was disrupted two weeks ago, and virtually nobody in the media or government is describing it for what it was: a work of Christian extremism. The plot is another datapoint indicating the nation’s growing problem with Christian nationalist violence, a phenomenon which has been mostly obscured by the mainstream media’s unwillingness to describe it accurately.
Around 3:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 14, a man dressed as a police officer knocked on the door of a home in New Hope, Minnesota. When the inhabitants, a married couple in their 50s, opened the door, he shot them to death. His target was the woman, Democratic Speaker Emerita of the state House of Representatives, Melissa Hortman. An hour earlier, the killer had shot another couple, that time targeting the man, Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman. In the killer’s car, police later found a target list including information on other Democratic lawmakers, abortion rights activists, and a Planned Parenthood clinic.
