Can you imagine what the reaction would be if a Muslim Imam carried out a terrorist attack on US soil, targeting a list of elected leaders, killing two and wounding another in two separate attacks, before being stopped?  What if this was all motivated, by the killer’s own words, by his Muslim faith?  This would be running 24/7 on conservative media for days at least, if not weeks, and there could well be national policy changes like banning immigration from Muslim countries or especially if he had a background in another country.  That terrorist attack happened a couple weeks ago, with the only difference was that the terrorist was Christian, radicalized by Christian websites and such – standard stochastic terrorism (see below).  So the story quickly vanished, and even when stories ran on it, they downplayed or *didn’t even mention* his Christian motivation.

In case you hadn’t seen it, I’m referring to the murder of Minnesota State Representative Hortman (and others) by Christian Supremacist Terrorist and Pastor Vance Boelter.  The killer’s wife was attempting to flee with passports, cash, and more to the previous designated hideout (a home of preppers), when she was stopped by police.  The police of course let her go (even with the above mentioned passports, cash, etc.), being a white woman – and now news stories are running to both gain sympathy for her, as well as to provide her a platform to breathlessly pretend to be completely innocent (no link provided – I don’t want to help them exonerate her).  And of course, this isn’t the first time – there have been many past cases, including this one, which I wrote about in detail on this blog.

Here’s a good overview of this recent attack:     

Let’s be clear. This man is a MAGA maniac, no different than the other 99% of domestic terrorists, who in recent years attempted to kidnap the Governor of Michigan, fire bombed the Governor of Pennsylvania, committed scores of mass shootings in state after state, and organized a violent a coup against the US Capitol in an attempt to subvert a democratic election.

The unsettling reality is that this man is a religious psycho and privileged pastor with a big white average family in a big white average house. A ho hum, podunk, anti-abortion male who resorted to violence to instill fear.

The terrorist’s wife appears to have aided her husband in the attack, or at least had foreknowledge, as she was pulled over by MN State Police with a bag of cash, passports, and other questionable material. As with any ongoing terror investigation, naturally she was let go without inquiry. Minnesota’s prisons aren’t filled with white people for a reason.

The term you must familiarize yourself with in this moment is ‘stochastic terrorism’ whereby white supremacist cult leaders like Trump inspire, beckon, and fuel his mentally unstable fans to commit acts of atrocity.

What the corporate media bend over backwards to convey as “lone gunmen” are in reality a rapid sequence of like-minded attacks, with patterned, predictable, overlapping motives, techniques, grievances, and nearly identical political beliefs. They share ideas, tips, and hatreds online. They aren’t isolated gunmen; they are an Army.

We must challenge the right-wing disinformation machine while we confront the realities of corporate media from FOX, NBC, and CBS, intent on delivering a tired and contrived script falsely claiming, “we don’t know his motive.”

Please. The man left a manifesto, just like all the others.

A few of his sermons are online, too.  You can see them here at Friendly Atheist.  They include the killer saying that God would “raise up apostles and prophets in America… to correct his church… And those that are connected to the body… they will come through this mess… and they will be strong again.”  This was part of his preaching on “Spiritual Warfare”.

It’s the old method of Stochastic Terrorism – simply stir up hatred through speeches, tweets and other communication, until someone decides to act on it.  Those causing the hatred then are safe from prosecution because they aren’t the one who pulled the trigger, but they can still effectively make sure the terror keeps happening.  It’s the same thing Hitler used to attack the Jewish people, and plenty of other authoritarian dictators throughout history (including Brazil’s recent authoritarian, Bolsonaro), and now we see it happening again.  We only have to wait a few months or years for the next attack.

Edited to add:
It’s unsurprising that these are the parents of the recent ambush terrorist who started a wildfire to draw firefighters to die in his trap.  From that article:

Not a single lawmaker in DC has stated unequivocally that stopping these acts of terror should be a national priority above all else.

Trump’s political movement has captured the energy of the most unhinged and violent people among us, and sadly there are tens of millions of them. Not every Trump voter is a MAGA terrorist, but near every damn MAGA terrorist is a Trumpster. Those are facts, you can take it up with the FBI if you have a problem with that data.

And yet, the corporate media has spent the last week in agony over the threat—not from right-wing terrorists—but from a NYC Mayoral candidate named Zohran Mamdani who wants to have affordable rent, free buses, and cheaper groceries. This is the threat the corporate media *will actually spend a week or two obsessing about*.

You don’t live in a democracy. You live in a militarized oligarchy where the 40 richest people, who could fit on a bus, have more wealth than the bottom 60%. The government no longer has the consent or legitimacy of the people. It is now held together by masked thugs, some who work for the federal government, while others are free agents. Both are committed to the centuries old cause of expulsion, extermination, and extinction.

Here are some of the Christian supremacy groups that have been identified.  It is unknown how many others exist which are not on this list.  As mentioned above, the historical Christian and scriptural roots of today’s white Christian supremacy are far too deep for a blog post – indeed, many whole books have been written about them.

• Christian Revival Center (Harrison, Arkansas)
• Covenant People’s Ministry (Brooks, Georgia)
• Divine International Church of the Web (Morton, Illinois)
• America’s Promise Ministries (Sandpoint, Idaho)
• Christian America Ministries (Greensburg, Louisiana)
• Christogenea (Panama City, Florida)
• Church of Israel (Schell City, Missouri)
• Euro Folk Radio (Chicago, Illinois)
• Fellowship of God’s Covenant People (Union, Kentucky)
• Kingdom Identity Ministries (Harrison, Arkansas)
• Mission to Israel (Scottsbluff, Nebraska)
• Our Place Fellowship (Colville, Washington)
• Restored Assembly of Elohim (Bainbridge, Ohio)
• Sacred Truth Publishing & Ministries (Mountain City, Tennessee)
• Scriptures for America Worldwide Ministries (Laporte, Colorado)
• Yahushua Dual Seed Christian Identity Ministry (Livingston, Texas)
• Yahweh’s Truth (Linwood, Michigan)

Ironically, it is out of Christian privilege that we cannot even bring ourselves to refer to these groups for what they are- Christian supremacists- and instead of “Christian supremacist” use the euphemism “Christian Identity” instead.  After all, helpful Christians like Martin Luther King Jr. and Mr. Rogers identify as Christian and have a Christian identity – but aren’t supremacists.

Starstuff, Contemplating by Jon Cleland Host

We are assemblages of ancient atoms forged in stars – atoms organized by history to the point of consciousness, now able to contemplate this sacred Universe of which we are a tiny, but wondrous, part.

Dr. Jon Cleland Host is a scientist who earned his PhD in materials science at Northwestern University & has conducted research at Hemlock Semiconductor and Dow Corning since 1997.  He holds eight patents and has authored over three dozen internal scientific papers and eleven papers for peer-reviewed scientific journals, including the journal Nature.  He has taught classes on biology, math, chemistry, physics and general science at Delta College and Saginaw Valley State University.  Jon grew up near Pontiac, and has been building a reality-based spirituality for over 30 years, first as a Catholic and now as a Unitarian Universalist, including collaborating with Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow to spread the awe and wonder of the Great Story of our Universe (see www.thegreatstory.org, and the blog at evolutionarytimes.org).  Jon and his wife have four sons, whom they embrace within a Universe-centered, Pagan, family spirituality.  He currently moderates the yahoo group Naturalistic Paganism.

Heather is a parent and a scientist raising her four children to explore the world through scientific understanding and with spiritual appreciation of the Universe. She has a Master of Science degree in Physics from Michigan State University, a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan, and a Bachelor of the Arts degree in English Literature, also from the University of Michigan. She teaches physics as an adjunct instructor at Delta College, runs the Math Mania program at a local elementary school, has worked at Dow Corning as an engineer and at NASA as an intern, and she has led science outreach workshops for K-12 students through joint programs between NASA and the University of Michigan. She is a naturalistic non-theist, whose faith has been shaped by her childhood within the Episcopal Church, her adult membership in the Unitarian Universalist church, and through Buddhist meditation.  She has a passion for bringing science and spirituality to everyone in a fun way, both for her own family and for the wider community of the Earth.  She is a co-author with Jon Cleland-Host of Elemental Birthdays: How to Bring Science into Every Party.

See Starstuff, Contemplating posts.

See all of Dr. Jon Cleland Host’s posts.