The statements of shock and condolences streamed in eerily one after another on Saturday after the assassination of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband, and the attempted murder of another lawmaker and his wife.
“Horrible news,” said Representative Steve Scalise, who was shot at a baseball game in 2017. “Paul and I are heartbroken,” said former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose husband was bludgeoned with a hammer in 2022. “My family and I know the horror of a targeted shooting all too well,” said former Representative Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head in 2011.
Still more came from Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania (arson, 2025), Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan (kidnapping plot, 2020) and President Trump (two assassination attempts, 2024).
“Such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America,” the president said.
And yet the expanding club of survivors of political violence seemed to stand as evidence to the contrary.
In the past three months alone, a man set fire to the Pennsylvania governor’s residence while Mr. Shapiro and his family were asleep inside; another man gunned down a pair of workers from the Israeli Embassy outside an event in Washington; protesters calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colo., were set on fire; and the Republican Party headquarters in New Mexico and a Tesla dealership near Albuquerque were firebombed.
And those were just the incidents that resulted in death or destruction.
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