Hold on just a minute

I’m going to break up my fun, frivolous summer writing for a week, sorry.

I’ve got some feelings that need writing about.

A lot might change between me submitting this column and you reading it, but the events that saw two of our state legislators and their spouses shot last weekend really got me stirred up. Perhaps you, like me, looked at every news update that came across your phone, hoping the suspect would be caught or checking on the status of Senator John Hoffman and his wife.

This is going to be both political and not political in one fell swoop.

Both Representative Melissa Hortman and Hoffman were Democrats. Hortman and her husband both lost their lives. Hoffman and his wife look like they’ll come through, and the fact that Yvette Hoffman used her body to shield their daughter means we’ll have three survivors of yet another politically-fueled tragedy.

Other names were allegedly on the manifesto found by law enforcement in the vehicle of the suspect. All of them supposedly belong to Democrats, and the news says they are all people who supported abortion rights. But to confuse matters, the vehicle also had many “No Kings” signs, relating to protests that were held last weekend, denouncing President Trump’s activities.

You should not go into public service and have to worry about your safety. You are elected at the whim of those who vote, and even if your choices don’t win, it’s time to let them get to work after an election. (Really, aren’t most of us about 50% on who we vote for winning?)

Angie Craig and Amy Klobuchar have talked about extra security as a matter of course. Despite extra security for a presidential candidate, Donald Trump came within an inch of losing his life while on the campaign trail. There are probably many threats that are snuffed out long before anything happens and that we never hear about.

I have a solution. Stop saying mean things. Stop exaggerating. Stop believing everything you see in your algorithm. And this goes to all our politicians and all our social media mavens.

Governor Tim Walz should be embarrassed by his recent string of using profanity to refer to Republicans. He rips Trump and blames everything wrong with this country on the man who won the 2024 election. This fires up left-wing people.

President Donald Trump should be embarrassed by the things he has been proven to have lied about. He does it to fire people up and prod them to follow his lead, no matter what. 

Both men say (or tweet) things without thinking. And this has led us to where we are today. We can go back to 2011 when U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords survived an assassination attempt. House leader Steve Scalise was shot in 2017. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer avoided a kidnapping plot in 2020. The events of January 6, 2021. And the list goes on and on. What’s the connecting thread here?

Social media. Political figures say things to get hits and likes online. People create memes and GIFs to spread these words and often take them out of context. This spreads worse than the flu in a school that’s run out of soap in the bathrooms.

You don’t get likes if you just talk about yourself. You don’t get shares if you shake the hand of your opponent. 

I talked to someone recently about the fact that 80% of us are probably somewhere in the middle politically. For instance, I consider myself a Democrat, but I do not believe in everything the party stands for. I don’t think every kid needs free meals at school. I don’t think people who are in our country illegally should get free health care when most of us are paying a lot for our own.

But the person with whom I was having the conversation said that politicians who don’t bow to the far side of their party can’t get nominated and eventually elected. They need that 10% on each side that are way off the beaten path that most of us trod. 

So that’s where we head as a country. I could never get elected because I think Republicans are right on some things, and I’d be willing to negotiate and come up with solutions, similar to what our state legislature had to do this year. But I’d want to do it no matter who was in power. After all, I would represent people on both sides of the aisle. If I made everybody mad, that would probably mean I was doing something right.

Melissa Hortman was the lone Democrat to vote for taking away the aforementioned health care. That’s admirable. Get the work done and give a little to get a little. 

Want to stop political violence? Stop saying mean things. Stop exaggerating. Stop believing everything you see in your algorithm. Again, this is for both our politicians and all of us regular folks. 

A world where Tim Walz says that maybe we need to do some cutting of government spending and where Donald Trump says that those teachers are right and we should have an educator leading the Department of Education. Too much to hope for?

Through all this mess, we should be grateful for our law enforcement officials who know they put their lives on the line every day. They understand that going in, just like the police who were fired upon by the suspect. Politicians, and most other professions, should not have to worry about that.

Be kind. Stop being angry. We can change the world one social media post at a time.

Word of the Week: This week’s word is Podsnap, which means a smug, self-satisfied person, as in, “The political Podsnap was excited to see his inflammatory speech had gone viral.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!