As a police officer I investigated, as the primary responder, about one or two homicides per year. Experience taught me that death is the great equalizer. It comes for us all, great or small, wealthy or poor, powerful or powerless, Republican or Democrat, Liberal or Conservative.
If politics makes for strange bedfellows, it is equally strange that it has become death’s companion. Leading by hand, the mysterious harbinger of destruction politics has now become the scythe by which the untimely demise of our ideological foes are cut down.
With the insensible murder of a Minnesota state legislator and her husband, and the grave wounding of another legislator and his wife, I fear we’ve turned a dark corner from which we may never return.
With each politically motivated act of violence from the congressional baseball shootings to the two attempts on President Trump’s life, the populace watches in horror, all hoping their side isn’t responsible for the reprehensible brutality.
Instead of hoping for peace, we instead hope our side had no piece in the slaughter and mayhem.
Instead of absolutely condemning the savagery, too many prefer to “understand” the motives of the monster. Luigi Mangione kills a healthcare CEO, husband, and father in cold blood. Despite the bloodshed, protestors appear on the streets of NYC blaming the victim. Because of their politics, these demonstrators believe the victim’s death was necessary to make a point about the reputedly soulless actions of the insurance industry.
Industries do not have souls, people do. At least they used to.
Politicians and talking heads on endless cable news programs throw around words and phrases such as “Nazi”, “gestapo”, “existential threat to democracy,” “thug,” and even tell Americans this candidate or that one will put them in “internment camps”. They do so without ever showing any concern for the false nature of the claims nor their violent implications.
Politics has always been a haven for liars, charlatans, and self-promoters. Hyperbole in politics is the rule, not the exception. It isn’t hyperbolic to use words that are hateful, divisive, and inspire violence. Using these words is clearly wrong and immoral.
Demonizing our political foes only stokes fear in the minds of us all, and in those minds whose grasp on reality is tenuous, it pushes them to act in terrible ways.
To be clear, it is neither hateful nor divisive to seek legal immigration, the deportation of illegal immigrants, to want boys out of girl’s sports, or to reduce the waste and fraud in government. Supporting any of these law and policy statements shouldn’t be cause for wishing death on their adherents.
It is also true that being for open borders, the non-deportation of illegal migrants, wanting boys competing with girls, and being against decreasing the size and scope of government should also be no cause for hate, just disagreement.
As with death, disagreement is a certain fact of life amongst us humans.
Death is the one absolute unavoidable outcome which grasps us all without regard to any of the superficial or intellectual distinctions that we believe define us and our enemies. Those constructs to which we so adamantly swear allegiance to makes no difference to death. It comes for one and all, good or bad, happy or sad.
The motives of the killer in Minnesota have yet to be made clear. But to be clear, that killer is responsible for his actions. His hate drove him to this cowardly crime, and no one should be trying to excuse him or the act.
By extension, his blame should not become that of political policies or people with which he may have agreed. Who he voted for does not explain or justify his actions.
We can be better to one another; we can seek understanding and common ground. Hate one another if you like, but hate kills hope, and where there is no hope there is only death.
Stephen Piccirillo 2025
