E.J. Dionne wrote an outstanding OpEd in the Washington Post entitled “Melissa Hortman’s legacy is a ‘Minnesota Miracle’”:
“Almost exactly two years ago, I had an enlightening interview with [Melissa Hortman] for a column I was writing about what progressives around the country were calling the ‘Minnesota Miracle.’ It was an outpouring of legislation made possible by the Democrats’ narrow control of both houses of the state legislature and the governorship under Tim Walz.”
Former Minnesota Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark (Raleigh, North Carolina native and UNC grad) were murdered in their home on Saturday June 14, 2025. The Hortmans’ children, instead of celebrating Father’s Day with their father on the following day, mourned both parents’ assassination by a deranged gunman, deluding himself that political differences justify disregarding basic civility and eliminating human beings from the earth.
Fannie Lou Hamer, testifying before the Credentials Committee, on August 22, 1964, challenging the seating of the segregated Mississippi delegation to the Democratic National Convention, in Atlantic City, famously commented,
“And if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off of the hooks because our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings, in America?”
Numerous Mississippians were martyred — experiencing a fate worse than keeping telephones off hooks — including George Lee, Lamar Smith, Herbert Lee, Medgar Evers, Louis Allen, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and Vernon Dahmer. Their families never shared another birthday celebration, Father’s Day meal, or holiday season with their beloved, because some psychotic soul thought that “a superior point of view” permitted extinguishing another’s existence.
What is America becoming? To what does the world aspire?
Dionne notes, “These killings should make us think hard about the contrast between what an effective, serious and — I stress, again — democratic-with-a-small-d politics entails, and the profound dangers of movements and individuals so certain of their own righteousness and so convinced of the evil of their political adversaries that they are prepared to overturn all the rules, norms and obligations that undergird political decency. It speaks to their state’s robust civic health that the entire Minnesota congressional delegation quickly issued a joint, bipartisan statement decrying the shootings.
“Many years ago, Lawrence O’Brien, who was a close aide to President John F. Kennedy and later became commissioner of the NBA, wrote a memoir with a wonderful title: ‘No Final Victories.’ He paid tribute to the fact that in a democracy, there are no final victories, which also means that there are no final defeats.
“Hortman used the opening she had to accomplish a lot because she knew the opportunity to do so might not come around again for a while — and she fully accepted the right of her opponents to win the next time. Whatever her killer’s political or personal motivations turn out to be, his actions show that he understood none of these things. We can never allow this approach to politics to prevail.”
It is half past time to assert control over our country: Whether one is a Democrat or a Republican, conservative or liberal, vilifying those with whom one disagrees must cease: now.
Those finding it to be amusing that the President of the United States disrespects other Americans seriatim — most recently calling California Governor Gavin Newsom “Newscum” — need a come to Jesus moment.
Respectful engagement must return to the body politic. It is impermissible to denigrate or murder others on account of one’s sanctimoniousness.
Jay Wiener is a Northsider
