Divisive rhetoric after Minnesota shootings add wrinkle to No Kings rallies

Several thousand people — near 10,000 maybe? — attended the No Kings rally in Des Moines, Iowa, Saturday, June 14, 2025. (Photo by Lyle Muller)

If you were upset about Gabby Giffords being shot.

If you were upset about Steve Scalise being shot.

If you were upset about Clements Pickney and a host of Black worshippers at a Charleston, South Carolina, Bible study being murdered.

If you were upset about Harry Milk being shot dead. George Moscone, too.

If you were upset about Ronald Reagan being shot and seriously wounded.

If you were upset about Donald Trump bring shot and wounded and a bystander dying in the attack.

If you still are upset about the Kennedys and Medgar Evans and Malcom X and Martin Luther King Junior being shot dead.

If you were upset about all of the other politicians who were shot or, as in the case of Paul Pelosi being pounded on the top of the head with a hammer.

Then you are upset about what happened in Minnesota over the weekend, when state Rep. Melissa Hortman of the Democratic-Farm-Labor Party (DFL, or the state’s Democratic Party and her husband were assassinated and state Sen. John Hoffman, also of the DFL, and his wife were seriously injured after being shot on June 14.

You also felt compelled to do something. In the case of many Iowans, that meant clinching any decision on whether to gather in their towns and cities for the No Kings protest. A lot of them showed up at the state capital in Des Moines. It was hot and muggy and hard to hear the speakers because of the poor sound system but there was a sense of purpose, escalated because of the Minnesota shootings that happened on a day when the president of the United States wanted to show so military might in a parade.

To be clear, the shootings were not the reason for the demonstrations. The demonstrations had a clear purpose: to show the massive opposition to the myriad of policies spewing out of Washington DC, but also insensitive anti-gay, anti-immigration and anti-whatever-else-drove-you-nuts coming out of the Statehouse in Des Moines, where Saturday’s gathering in that city was held.

The shootings merely produced a new sense urgency. If you have trouble following that line of reasoning, consider the rhetoric that was used after the shootings, consider the rhetoric used after the shootings. To be more specific, consider the bullshit. It showed that this country remains divided in incredible ways that give life to hate and cruelty. The cesspool formally known as Twitter was especially active in growing little germs that could grow, with its leader fully charged.

Listening to Fox News, for example, the shootings were decried, but the conversation then shifted quickly to that, while we all have to tune down the rhetoric, you see the results of Democrats like Tim Walz and all of their attacks and how it forces outlying conservatives or opponents is in the case of the Minnesota shooting to fight back with their own harsh rhetoric.

Yes, you heard that: the shootings roots are embedded in the hate that Democrats or the left spew, forcing reactions, the Fox News line went. Even worse, it forces Democrats to do crime against Democrats, that appeared to be the case here, Fox speakers suggested, leading to PolitiFact to debunk the statements. Nevermind, though, for the Fox audience and X platform wizards because they never will see the story, or if they do, they won’t believe it.

But, Fox continued Saturday afternoon as investigators tried to determine what happened in Minnesota, remember what happened to Republican Scalise, a speaker said in one of the newscasts that I listened to. No mention of Democrat Giffords because that after all would be anathema to the narrative of the audience wanted to hear.

None of this craziness can be eliminated by a big bold military parade that shows off our fighting hardware or gatherings by millions of people across the country to say enough is enough of the madness coming out of Washington D.C. and in Iowa, its Statehouse. But you can at least feel lucky that the video from Washington D.C. on Saturday, June 14, the same day of the Minnesota assassination, was not on black and white film. You would be stunned by how much it resembles what you see in history films from totalitarian regime.

At times like this, you just want to pray out: God help us. The fear in doing that, however, is that God will respond: I know I’ve said I am with you always, dammit, it’s getting harder and harder to do. How about you take some responsibility?

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Lyle Muller is a retired Iowa journalist who still works as an independent contractor and professional adviser for Grinnell College’s Scarlet & Black newspaper. He is board member of the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and Iowa High School Press Association, a trustee of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, former executive director/editor of the Iowa Center for Public Journalism that became part of the Midwest Center, and former editor of The Gazette (Cedar Rapids). He is a recipient of the Iowa Newspaper Association’s Distinguished Service Award, Iowa College Media’s Association’s Eighmey Award, and Iowa Newspaper Association’s Stratton Award.