Trump Orders Flags Lowered for Kirk, but Didn’t for Melissa Hortman

He notably failed to mention acts of political violence perpetrated by right wingers against the left—e.g., the June shootings of two Minnesota Democratic lawmakers and their spouses, which killed State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband; the 2022 attack on Paul Pelosi, in an attempted kidnapping of Nancy Pelosi (which Trump mocked); the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, stoked by Trump; and the thwarted kidnapping of Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor of Michigan.

Despite his condemnation of “demonizing” rhetoric, Trump has done more than perhaps any other singular figure tostoke partisan tensions.

In 2024, Trump repeatedly called Kamala Harris a “fascist.” In May 2024, he said Biden had turned America into “a fascist state.” In November 2023, he vowed to “root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” And back in 2020, he raised the specter of “left-wing fascism” gripping the Democratic Party, saying, “Fascists! They are fascists. Some of them, not all of them. But some of them.”