By Jon Jeter
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
https://spokesman-recorder.com/
Jon Jeter: Minnesota’s Shift Right Exposes the Limits of White Liberalism
The shocking murders of Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband by an alleged white domestic terrorist are a sobering reflection of America’s deepening racial and political divide. In this excerpt from Black Agenda Report, Jon Jeter traces the historical throughline from white supremacist violence to Minnesota’s rightward political turn—and the failure of liberalism to confront it.
On Monday, interim U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson said 57-year-old Vance Boelter had compiled a hit list of more than 45 elected officials in the state, all Democrats, and was carrying out his attacks early Saturday morning when he was confronted by patrol officers in a suburb north of Minneapolis.
Thompson would not address Boelter’s motives, but a friend, David Carlson, told CNN that Boelter was a conservative who was staunchly opposed to abortion. In texts to his wife and daughters, Boelter seems to acknowledge that he was motivated by the same sense of aggrievement that has animated reactionary white male terrorists dating back to Timothy McVeigh, who was executed for the 1995 bombing of the federal courthouse in Oklahoma City; Dylann Roof who gunned down nine Black worshippers at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. 10 years ago this week; and 18-year-old Payton Gendron who fatally shot 10 African American shoppers at a Buffalo grocery store in 2022.
Wrote Boelter in one text: “Dad went to war last night… I don’t wanna say more because I don’t want to implicate anybody.”
The slain state Representative, Melissa Hortman, and her husband Mark were white, but their killings appear to bear all the hallmarks of an attack carried out by a “lone-wolf” gunman angered by people of color or white liberals whose political values he considers a threat to white America.
Such attacks are sparked by an economic downturn like the Great Recession that began in 2008, and coincide with a surge in state violence targeting African Americans by a ratio of nearly three to one over whites. According to data compiled by the Washington Post, nearly 2,500 Blacks were killed by police nationwide between January 1 2015 and January 1 2025. That includes several high-profile cases in the Twin Cities.
Minnesota’s rightward political shift serves as a validation of Smathers’ riposte to Humphrey’s advocacy for civil rights 65 years ago and a reminder that liberalism is no less a failed political ideology than conservatism.
Jon Jeter is a former foreign correspondent for the Washington Post. This is a portion of “As the State’s Complexion Darkens, Minnesota’s Liberalism Wanes.” For the full article or more information, visit the www.blackagendareport.com.
