This article was curated by It’s That Part, where we highlight the truth in every fact—curated for deeper insight and critical reflection.
The murder last weekend of Minnesota Democratic legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband by a masked shooter who also stalked, shot, and attempted to murder Rep. John Hoffman and his wife, left tens of millions of Americans shaken. Many heard the news of the shooting as they were setting out for a day of protests slated to be held nationwide, that would express outrage and opposition to Trump’s authoritarian excesses.
The more we learned, the more our horror grew. The shooter had planned the attacks from a list of potential targets. The shooter is a Trump supporter and anti-abortion zealot. All of the elected officials on the target list were Democrats. He posed as a police officer, wore a mask, and demanded entry to his victims’ homes in the middle of the night. It was, according to the U.S. Attorney who later announced the indictment of the shooter, “the stuff of nightmares.”[i]
But not all Americans were outraged. At least not enough to constrain their cruelty. Some saw in this horrific event an opportunity to play a round of the sport favored by unhinged right-wingers, incels, and Elon-worshippers – the game of “owning the libs.” U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) was one of them. He posted a set of loathsome tweets on the social media platform, X.[ii]
Think pieces and cable news segments were devoted to exploring how someone like Mike Lee had descended to the MAGA depths.[iii] He had once been a widely respected constitutional lawyer, a former Supreme Court clerk, and the son of a former U.S. Solicitor General. He vocally and passionately opposed Trump’s nomination in 2016.[iv] But by 2020, he was among the coterie of lawyers who worked hard and long to find a nonexistent rationale that would support throwing out the results of the 2020 election.
How did Lee fall, many wondered last week. What happened to this prominent member of Utah’s Mormon Brahmin class?
But what does it mean to ask, “what happened to Mike Lee?” Or to Lindsey Graham? Or Sen. John Kennedy. Or Ted Cruz. Or to Maria Bartiromo. Or to Tim Scott? Or even to Elon?
