This is what Donald Trump and his violent rhetoric has brought

A man dressed in police style gear wearing a badge and face mask shot two Minnesota Democratic Party lawmakers early this morning, killing one of them as well as her husband. It was “an act of targeted political violence,” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said this morning. Police reported finding a “manifesto” and a list of individuals to be killed in the suspect’s car, including the names of the two Democratic lawmakers he had shot and other Democrats and state officials, according to Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley. Brooklyn Park is a suburb of Minneapolis.

State Representative Melissa Hortman, a former speaker of the Minnesota House, and her husband, Mark were shot dead in their house. State Senator John A. Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were shot multiple times in their home. They were taken to a hospital and are said to be out of surgery this morning. Doctors “are cautiously optimistic that they will improve,” according to a hospital spokesman.

As police approached the home of State Representative Hortman last night, the assassin came out of the back door and fired on police. After an exchange of gunfire, the assassin escaped. Police found a car painted and equipped to look like a police vehicle in the driveway of the lawmaker’s house. “This was somebody that clearly had been impersonating a police officer,” said Chief Bruley. “The vehicle looked exactly like an SUV squad car. It was equipped with lights, emergency lights and looked exactly like a police vehicle.”

Police found flyers for No Kings demonstrations on the seat of the suspect’s car and “have reason to believe” the assassin intended to go to the No Kings demonstrations and commit more murders. The Minnesota State Patrol has asked people not to attend the anti-Trump demonstrations “out of an abundance of caution.” Governor Walz also warned people not to attend the anti-Trump rallies until the suspect is apprehended. The suspect in the assassination and attempted assassination of two Democratic lawmakers is still at large.

Donald Trump has regularly called Democrats “radical left lunatics” in his Truth Social posts and in speeches to supporters at rallies. After winning the election last year, Trump called Democrats “the enemy within” and declared they are “more dangerous than China, Russia and all these countries." In an interview on Fox News. Trump accused former President Joe Biden of “purposefully allowing millions of CRIMINALS to enter our Country, totally unvetted and unchecked, through an Open Borders Policy,” in another Truth Social post.

In his speech to soldiers at Fort Bragg this week, Trump goaded them into booing former President Biden, and attacked Governor Newsom of California and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, accusing them of paying “troublemakers, agitators, and insurrectionists…in this willful attempt to nullify federal law and aid the occupation of the city by criminal invaders.”

The targeted killings will have an immediate effect on Minnesota state politics. The state House of Representatives was split 67-67 between the parties before Representative Hortman was killed early this morning. Now the Republican Party will have a one seat majority. The Democratic Farm Labor Party, which functions as the Democratic Party in the state, had a one seat majority in the Senate before Senator Hoffman was shot and seriously wounded. Until he recovers, the state Senate will be split evenly between the two parties.

This is what comes from Trump whipping up MAGA supporters into a cheering frenzy at rallies and in Truth Social posts that go out to millions of his followers. It turns out that there was at least one follower out there who took Trump seriously enough that he kitted himself out as a policeman or ICE agent, armed himself with a weapon readily available at any gun store, and went out to kill two Democratic Party leaders of the state legislature.

This is yet another page out of the playbook of fascist dictators. Whip up followers with violent rhetoric targeting opponents as “thugs” and even “pedophiles.” Then sit back and watch the carnage. Hitler did it in Germany in the 1930’s with his Brownshirts and Hitler Youth. Jews, academics, lawyers, intellectuals, Roma people and others whom Hitler called enemies of the state were murdered before the first concentration camp was built.

Donald Trump isn’t waiting either. Be careful out there today at No Kings protests. Trump has lain the groundwork not just for the defeat of his political enemies, but for their deaths. Democrats were shot and killed early this morning in Minnesota. It can happen anywhere.