Massachusetts Democrats Condemn ‘Inflammatory Rhetoric’

A violent attack that killed a member of the Minnesota State Legislature and injured another has prompted calls from some Massachusetts Democratic lawmakers to tone down the often outrageous political rhetoric so common these days.

Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were shot and killed early Saturday morning in what Governor Tim Walz characterized as a "politically motivated" killing. State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were also shot but survived.

Hortman and Hoffman, both Democrats, had recently crossed party lines to vote with Republicans to kill a provision to give taxpayer-funded health care benefits to illegal aliens.

Vance Boelter, a former Walz appointee, has been charged with the shootings.

Get our free mobile app

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey issued a statement in which she said she was "horrified" to hear of the shootings.

"Lawmakers and their loved ones getting shot for their beliefs is yet another sickening act of political violence in a country where it's become all too common," Healey stated.

In fairness to Healey, State House News Service reported that the governor "condemned the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a presidential campaign rally" last July. That's after calling him "un-American" while in Mexico in 2019.

Massachusetts House Speaker Ron Mariano released a statement in response to the Minnesota shootings, saying, "Political violence of any kind has no place in America, nor does the kind of inflammatory rhetoric that can often incite that violence."

Those are kind sentiments, but some of the harshest political rhetoric has come from Massachusetts Democrats.

U.S. Sen. Ed Markey has recently called President Trump "an authoritarian," a "king" and a "bully," while Sen. Elizabeth Warren has accused Trump of being a white supremacist.

"He's a man who cozies up to the white supremacists," Warren reportedly said. "He's talked about trying to get brown people and black people out of this country."

Warren and Markey have condemned the Minnesota shootings.

Massachusetts State Senate President Karen Spilka recently compared Trump's crackdown on criminal illegal aliens in Massachusetts to the "1930s in Europe, when Hitler's rise – I hate to make this comparison – but, rise to power, when people were just being arrested without warrants."

Spilka said ICE agents are "kidnapping people."

Spilka has condemned the Minnesota shootings.

Boston.com reports Boston Mayor Michele Wu likened ICE to the neo-Nazio group NSC 131. "I don't know of any police department that routinely wears masks," Wu reportedly said.

"We know that there are other groups that routinely wear masks, NSC 131 routinely wears masks," Wu said, according to Boston.com.