Why is Minnesota's MAGA political assassin not being labeled a terrorist?

Vance Boelter, who shot and killed a Democratic lawmaker, was on a Christian nationalist crusade against Democrats, abortion rights supporters and gay and trans people. And there are more like him.

The brutal murders earlier in the week of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in their home by a cold-blooded assassin disguised as a police officer stunned the nation. The alleged killer, 57-year-old Vance Boelter, now faces federal and state murder charges.

Boelter allegedly shot and critically wounded State Senator John A. Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, in the very early hours of Sunday morning in their home, just before he headed to the home of the Hortmans. He also allegedly visited the homes of two other lawmakers in his attempted killing spree. He was apprehended after a two-day manhunt.

Boelter, who was a hardcore MAGA supporter of Donald Trump according to friends, was deeply enmeshed in an extremist Christian nationalist movement associated with violent rhetoric. He had a target list of about 70 individuals he was going to kill, according to the FBI, including Democratic politicians, civic leaders and staffers at Planned Parenthood centers.

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Boelter clearly opposed America’s values, including democracy (the idea of people electing officials to pass laws they favor) and the freedom of individuals over their own bodies to the point in which he allegedly engaged in attempted mass murder to send a chilling message.

If Boelter were a Muslim fundamentalist opposed to those same values who had committed those same murders and attempted murders, the corporate media would, no doubt, call him an “Islamic terrorist.”

This would be true whether a clear motive—for example, evidence in a manifesto, or targets on a list—was yet determined. There certainly would be speculation and leaks about how authorities were discussing the case.

But I've seen no reports that dubbed Boelter a possible “Christianist terrorist” or a “Christian nationalist terrorist”—and certainly not a “MAGA terrorist.”

There’s been a fair amount of reporting on Boelter’s extremist Christian fundamentalist background and the radical Bible college he attended, but the word “terrorist” is nowhere to be found.

And yet, Boelter’s actions display a textbook case of terrorism—trying to instill fear in a group or groups of people—even an entire nation—by targeting members with violence. He was steeped in the type of hatred against groups that certainly gives media wide berth to discuss possible motives. As Kiera Butler reported at Mother Jones:

Among the details about the suspect beginning to emerge is that he reportedly attended a bible college that is a stronghold of the New Apostolic Reformation, the charismatic movement that teaches that Christians are called to take over the US government.

Founded in 1970, Christ for the Nations Institute, located in Dallas, Texas, boasts having graduated more than 40,000 students from over 170 nations. It is also the alma mater of several leaders of the NAR movement, including at least one who was involved in the lead-up to the Capitol insurrection on January 6.

Stephanie McCrummin of the Atlantic, who I interviewed on my SiriusXM program on Thursday, wrote about the motto of the bible college’s founder: “every Christian should pray at least one violent prayer a day.”

Christ for the Nations Institute issued a statement this week claiming that they don’t mean violence by saying “violent prayer.” The school said that the founder’s slogan meant that prayer should be “intense, fervent, and passionate, not passive and lukewarm, considering that spiritual forces of darkness are focused on attacking life, identity in God, purpose, peace, love, joy, truth, health, and other good things.”

Then why use the word violent?

McCrummin reported on what Boelter would have learned at the school:

During his time at the school, Boelter would have been exposed to the beliefs that motivate these movement leaders. He would have been taught to see the world as a great spiritual battleground between God and Satan, and to consider himself a kind of spiritual warrior.

He would have been told that actual demonic forces can take hold of culture, political leaders, and entire territories, and thwart God’s kingdom. He would have been exposed to versions of courses currently offered, such as one that explains how “the World is in an era of serious warfare” and how “the body of Christ must remember that Jesus has already won this war.”

Boelter, who claimed he was “ordained’ in 1993, in recent years traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where videos show him preaching before an audience of what is clearly a church gathering, railing that “America is a bad place,” and then demonizing gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people with hateful rhetoric:

There’s people, especially in America, they don’t know what sex they are. They don’t know their sexual orientation — they’re confused. The enemy has gotten so far into their mind and their soul.

The Christ for the Nations Institute was also attended by others who fomented violence—terrorism—on January 6th, as The Atlantic’s McCrummin reports:

Many prominent [New Apostolic Reformation] leaders have connections to the school. These include Dutch Sheets, a graduate who taught there around the time Boelter was a student, and who went on to become an influential apostle who used his YouTube platform to mobilize many of his hundreds of thousands of followers to the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

More recently, Sheets suggested on his podcast that certain unnamed judges—“including Supreme Court justices,” he said—oppose God and “disrespect your word and ways,” and he prayed for God to “arise and scatter your enemies.”

Cindy Jacobs, an influential prophet who is an adviser and frequent lecturer at the school, was also in D.C. on January 6, praying for rioters climbing the Capitol steps.

According to the Department of Justice, “Law enforcement searched Boelter’s SUV and recovered five firearms, including semi-automatic, assault-style rifles, a large quantity of ammunition, and several notebooks filled with handwritten notations,” besides the lists of targets.

We don’t yet know what is in those notes or a purported manifesto. I certainly don’t trust the Trump Justice Department—which doesn’t refer to Boelter’s extremist background in its press releases—to show us irrefutable evidence that Boelter is a MAGA Christian nationalist terrorist.

But there’s enough here for the media to discuss Boelter as a terrorist intent on instilling fear in many Americans, and to focus on the fact that there are more like him who’ve had the same violent, radical Christian indoctrination. To do otherwise is to whitewash the danger, and play into the extremist Trump agenda.