Poor MAGA. Things just didn’t go their way on Saturday…flailing…
False counter-narratives signal to other terrorists that MAGA has their back
www.salon.com
Since the tragic events in Minnesota on early Saturday morning that left two dead and two others in critical condition, state authorities have painted a clear picture of what Vance Boelter, 57, is
accused of doing. They say Boelter murdered former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, and also shot State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette. Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., called the shootings "a politically motivated assassination" targeting Democrats. Police recovered a list of around
70 potential targets, including politicians, community leaders and abortion providers. All the listed politicians were Democrats. According to the New York Times, Boelter's roommate and longtime friend says the suspected shooter
voted for Donald Trump. Boelter's online activities show he is a right-wing Christian who opposes abortion and denies that LGBTQ identities are real. While we don't yet have the text of the manifesto Boelter left behind, it's fairly obvious what's likely to be in it.
Despite these facts, it didn't take long for MAGA forces online to snap into action with a false counter-narrative: that Boelter is a left-winger and Republicans are the real victims. Trump's
traveling companion Laura Loomer falsely claimed Boelter "was friends with Walz" and was associated with the
"No Kings" protests. "The organizers of NO KINGS and @GovTimWalz need to be detained by the FBI and interrogated," she demanded. Dating "guru"-turned-MAGA influencer Mike Cernovich
also blamed Walz, claiming the governor had Hortman — who was
actually Walz's friend — "executed" for voting one time with Republicans on a bill. "MORE DEMOCRAT TERR0RISM!"
screamed Nick Sortor, a far right influencer with over a million followers on X. Glenn Beck, Breitbart and other far-right outlets
went to work on Facebook, suggesting to their audiences that Walz was responsible for the shooting, even though he was on the list of Boelter's targets. Charlie Kirk of Turning Points USA
blamed the shooting of Democratic lawmakers and their family members on anyone who objects to rising fascism.
Even by MAGA standards, the justifications for these leaps of logic are based on extremely thin gruel. First, the suspect had fliers for the "No Kings" demonstrations. Common sense tells us that's because he was probably considering an attack on the Democratic crowds turning out to protest Trump. That's also the conclusion the police swiftly arrived at, which is why they
tried and failed to cancel protests in the area. (There was no violence at those protests, but there was
a shooting at the Salt Lake City protest and
car attacks at demonstrations in California and Virginia.) Second, Boelter had served for many years on a 41-member bipartisan business development board, and one of the various Minnesota governors who had rubber-stamped his appointment was Walz. There is no evidence that Walz has even met Boelter, but this tenuous connection was all the conspiracists needed to run with an elaborate story that the two men are co-conspirators in a plot to kill Republicans. The victims, in this telling, were basically Republicans — all because one of them once voted against her party on a single bill.