America at a Boiling Point: Deaths, Threats, Protests and a Town Hall Attack

I would have never guessed that Minneapolis would be a flashpoint but here we are.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/28/...e_code=1.IFA.wElX.VGaOXVc8YSTH&smid=url-share

America at a Boiling Point: Deaths, Threats, Protests and a Town Hall Attack
An attack at a town hall in Minneapolis, amid a surge in threats against lawmakers, was the latest sign of the fraying of the nation’s political fabric.

The battle for Minneapolis and the killings of two American citizens by federal agents have freshly exposed the dangerous degree to which the nation’s social fabric has frayed, the latest smudging of an already thin line between politics and violence in America.

Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, became the latest target of violence directed at lawmakers on Tuesday evening, when a man charged her at a town hall and used a syringe to spray her with a liquid that smelled like vinegar before he was tackled by security.

That same night the United States Capitol Police released a disturbing report showing a surge in threat cases against lawmakers, their families and staff members: They spiked to a staggering 14,938 last year, up from 9,474 in 2024.

Earlier in the day, President Trump had traveled to neighboring Iowa, talking up efforts to “de-escalate a little bit” on Fox News. But he targeted Ms. Omar just hours before she was attacked and stoked the darkest fears about immigrants, warning a crowd of supporters they would “blow up our shopping centers, blow up our farms, kill people.”

“Hardened, vicious, horrible criminals,” Mr. Trump said, vilifying those who have been arrested.

There is a new normalcy to political violence in America, a numbing rhythm to the repeated denunciations after whatever happens to be the latest incident: the assassination of Charlie Kirk; the firebombing of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home in Pennsylvania; the attack on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband; the shooting of Representative Steve Scalise at a congressional baseball practice.

Representative Jared Golden of Maine, a Democrat, announced he was retiring from Congress last year in part because of rising threats to his family. He is 43 and a former Marine.

After the incident at Ms. Omar’s town hall, Mr. Trump, who survived two assassination attempts in 2024, did not offer empathy. Instead he questioned whether it had been staged, even before he said he had seen video of it. “She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her,” he told ABC News.

Minneapolis has become the most recent flashpoint in a darkening political struggle that increasingly blended the rhetoric and reality of violence.

The city was not just home to the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti this month by federal officers taking part in Mr. Trump’s deportation operation. It is where George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by a white police officer in 2020, a death that sparked widespread protests and a racial reckoning — and then a backlash. And it was in a nearby suburb that Melissa Hortman, a Democratic state legislator, was assassinated by a gunman last year with her husband, Mark, in their home.

On Tuesday night, Ms. Omar did not retreat as she was confronted. She moved forward toward the assailant, raising an arm before security tackled him.

“I’ve survived war,” Ms. Omar told CNN shortly after the attack. “And I’m definitely going to survive intimidation.”