Vance Boelter's Appeal to Heaven

The Right rushed to label the killer a "Marxist." But the Minnesota suspect, Vance Boelter, was a devout Christian -- and likely a Dominionist. More will follow.

Before Vance Boelter, the prime suspect in the murders of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, had been apprehended by police – but long after his manifesto and hit-list of Democratic lawmakers had been discovered – Donald Trump Jr. had already guessed the identity of the “real killers.”

“It’s like the radical transgender movement is per capita the most violent domestic terror threat, if not in America, probably the entire world … because you have all these shooters and murderers or attempted murderers in such a tiny population," Trump Jr. said.

The Gun Violence Archive has helpfully pointed out that since 2014, at most 6 out of 4,684 involved trans people. That’s roughly 0.128 percent of all mass shooters. So I won’t waste any more sentences here explaining why Don. Jr. is utterly full of shit.

But Don Jr. is simply running the GOP’s go-to playbook for what to do when political violence occurs in America:

1. It wasn’t us.
2. It was the other guys.
3. A) O.K., it was us, but it’s not that bad.
3. B) O.K. it is quite bad, but it doesn’t count – that guy was just crazy. There’s a mental health crisis in this country!

It’s a familiar play by now, not only for anyone who has been paying attention to politics, but for anyone with any Republican or MAGA friends at all. Before the bodies of the murdered have begun to cool, rush to blame a Democrat. Or a transgender person. Or a Marxist. Or all three!

So of course, it wasn’t only Don. Jr. Within just hours of the shootings in Minnesota, rightwing politicians and social media accounts leapt to pump out all kinds of conspiracies about Boelter and what motivated him: The shooter was far left. Governor Walz ordered the hit on the Hortmans. The attacks were part of the “No Kings” protests. It was the Deep State.

Alex Jones, Elon Musk, and Senator Mike Lee of Utah were among the most notable figures to attempt to saddle the left with blame for the rightwing violence in Minnesota. Sen. Lee didn’t hesitate to tweet puns and misinformation – metaphorically standing atop the corpses of murdered Democratic lawmakers to elevate his message.

The reality is that Boelter was a rightwing evangelical Republican. Helpfully, there is plenty of footage of him giving sermons on his extreme views, particularly on abortion and gay people. And the “hit list” discovered in his car contained multiple pro-choice targets. Those who knew him say he was deeply conservative and a “strong supporter” of President Trump.

Melissa Gira Grant at The New Republic has done phenomenal work outlining what we know about Boelter’s ideology: he graduated from Christ for the Nations, a bible college in Texas linked to the charismatic movement. Charismatics place a great deal of importance on supernatural experiences and the “gifts of the Holy Spirit,” such as speaking in tongues. There are several influential ones in Trump’s orbit, including Lance Wallnau (a key J6 organizer) and Paula White-Cain, who delivered the invocation at the Inauguration of his first term.

Dominionism is a theology that promotes the idea of Christians taking over every aspect of culture and society. It’s why you’ve seen so many nutters on school boards in recent years. Christ for the Nations, while not explicitly dominionist, is a precursor to the New Apostolic Reformation — which has stronger links to the movement. But in early 2024, a mural displayed in the Christ for the Nations Institute lobby asked followers to “pray at least one violent prayer each day.”

The unaccredited college’s most famous graduate, Dutch Sheets, is the man who popularized the “Appeal to Heaven” flag. Grant writes that Sheets “popularized the flag as a kind of Christian battle flag, and in the following decade, it would be carried by dozens of rioters on January 6, flown at the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, and erected outside the Capitol Hill office of House Speaker Mike Johnson.”

We will learn more about Boelter’s personal theology in the coming weeks. And my money is we will discover he is a Seven Mountain Mandate man — one who believes the faithful must rise up and take control of the seven “mountains”: government, media, religion, family, education, arts & entertainment, and business. We will learn that Boelter was a Christian terrorist.

My own experience tells me, however, that knowing all this will change nothing.

I vividly recall texting with a friend on January 6th – a Republican, yes, but one who didn’t vote for Trump in 2016, 2020, or 2024. Still, that would never stop him from continually rushing to defend both the man and the party at a moment’s notice.

“Don’t try and blow this out of proportion – no one has died.”
“Um, it’s only 2 p.m. ? We don’t know that yet.”

Spoiler, people DID die. The same guy had told me in the week preceding January 6th that I was “being silly” for expecting violence.

A week or two later, in a group chat with one of my ever-dwindling supply of Trump-voting MAGA friends, he expressed certainty that this mob was fake news: It wasn’t MAGA. It was the other guys.

“But they have Confederate flags, and Trump flags. They showed up right after he made a speech, asking them to go fight at the Capitol. If they’re not MAGA, who are they?” I asked.

His response was to send a close-up image of a tattoo on one of the insurrectionist’s hands. This, he claimed, was an Antifa tattoo – evidence that the radical left was the real culprit on that day.

“See? Antifa soyboys are always up for a good time.”

Of course – Antifa Soyboys, why didn’t I think of that? It turned out the tattoo was from a video game: Dishonored, from Bethesda Studios. And the J6 mob turned out to be exactly who we thought they were, too.

One of these men voted for Trump, and the other for Harris – but neither of them ever revisited or reexamined either of these topics. There was no reckoning, no “wow I was very wrong about that” because being on the right – MAGA or not – currently means never admitting you were wrong. And when the evidence of your wrongness rises to the top, you just pivot – oh, those were my MAGA guys? Then the violence was exaggerated. Oh, police were severely beaten and people DID die? Well, I think I remember people dying in the George Floyd protests, too. What about that, eh?

Lacking in either one of their arguments was the million-ruble question of self reflection: Wait a minute, are we the bad guys?

The militant wing of the far-right has never been more emboldened. While much of the rank-and-file still feign total ignorance of the white supremacists among them, those willing to embrace violence are a lot less confused. Right now, we should all be preparing for more targeted political assassinations, and more terrorism.

Because pardoning 1500+ violent rightwing terrorists will have that effect. The same people who built a gallows to hang Mike Pence and smeared their own shit in the halls of the Capitol are out of jail now, and back living among us. And they’ve all been given a cookie for being such loyal boys and girls. Of course some of them will choose violence again.

He hasn’t done it yet, but I believe the President when he says he is considering pardoning the men who plotted to kidnap and murder Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. But that’s a good card to keep in his suit pocket – if the governor knows the President is considering freeing these men, men who were determined to abduct and kill her – she may think twice about speaking out against Trump’s next constitutional atrocity, even if only subconsciously. Pardoning them now would be the equivalent of sending a squad of assassins to eliminate Whitmer. The pardons for the violent mob of January 6th send the message: do it. We’ve got your back.

And not even six months into the second Trump presidency, there are suddenly far fewer people and resources devoted to combating terror. The DHS has been gutted, with over 400 employees fired and those remaining redirected to the issue of border control. The Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI haven’t escaped the ax, either, as competent people have been turned out in favor of the blindly loyal. The federal government is largely leaving states to fend for themselves on terror, leaving Americans vulnerable to attack in order to focus on deportation – and at the very moment we need to channel resources and manpower to address the issue.

Thomas Fugate, a 22-year old fresh out of college with no expertise whatsoever, now oversees the DHS’s central hub for preventing terrorism, including an $18 million grant program intended to help our communities fight violent extremist movements. Linked-In tells us he DID serve as secretary general of a Model United Nations club, though, and was a model employee at his last job – which was at a grocery store. He wouldn’t have qualified to be an intern at the DHS in the past, but nothing sends the message “we don’t care about this at all” than elevating him to Director of CP3.

At the same time, the deteriorating situation in Gaza as managed by Netanyahu’s government in Israel is likely the world’s single greatest incubator for future terrorists. Likewise, Trump’s decision to bomb Iran may set back their uranium enrichment, but it is a gift to the fundamentalist clerics who dominate the country, and endlessly advocate “death to America.”

They’re striking out at U.S. troops in Qatar today, but Trump’s bombing of their nuclear facilities lit a fuse that will burn slowly, and potentially for decades. When that fuse reaches its endpoint, a busload of American tourists could explode. A dirty bomb could detonate in a major urban area. This could happen in months. Or it could happen a decade from now.

And as Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, moves to politicize intelligence — even firing staff who refuse to change their intelligence findings to match Trump — the nation is further endangered.

It’s also not hard to see that in a nation fearful every police officer it sees may be a murderer in disguise, masked secret police abducting people off the street in plainclothes without badges could eventually provoke a violent response.

Breaking news: the hen house becomes more vulnerable when you shoot all the watch dogs, and simultaneously run multiple wolf-breeding programs.

Before we even knew Boelter’s name, Alex Jones and the rest of the Zoo Crew were running to label him as a far-left terrorist.

So why the Zerg Rush to characterize the suspects as Democrats/Marxists/transgender people/immigrants/Deep Staters? First of all, if they can get it out fast, MAGA will simply accept it as truth. “Flood the zone” with horseshit quickly enough, and the shit will harden.

But also: it’s because they know. They know it’s one of their guys. It’s a scramble to wash the blood from their claws before anyone can even process or analyze what the fuck actually happened.

That Boelter had been appointed to a nonpartisan advisory board by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz means nothing, and Sen. Lee knows that. Gov. Walz didn’t even know who Boelter was. Boelter’s role wasn’t political, and this is a common situation. All governors have these boards: on water, on mental health, public safety, opiate abuse – any issue you can imagine.

The strategy is similar to how the right often lies about climate: take a scientists’ email, or a surprising tidbit of counter-intuitive information, remove all context, and make it the WHOLE story.

Why were Jones, Musk, Don Jr. and their cheerleading squad of trolls and influencers so prepared? Why did they “know” Boelter was a Marxist within hours of the shootings?

Because they’re projecting. When Don. Jr. says the transgender movement is the most violent group of activists in the world – that’s projection. It’s plain old guilt, dressed up in an ill-fitting suit and masquerading as certainty. They need to believe it, or things could become difficult. Things like sleeping at night.

More fundamentalist Christian terror attacks are in the pipeline – of that, we can be sure. There will be another Club Q (Colorado Springs), another Tree of Life Synagogue (Pittsburgh), another Allen Premium Outlets (Allen, TX), another Tops Friendly Market (Buffalo), another Pulse (Orlando) and very likely, another Minnesota. Some of these will come from foreign lands, and yes, some of it will come from the left — there will be another Luigi, too. But I believe we are entering a Golden Age of rightwing Christian domestic terrorism. The vast majority of the terror attacks on our horizon will come from the right, and they will be more frequent, and deadlier. They already are. And our tax dollars will be very busy elsewhere, beating and deporting Hispanic agricultural workers.

But don’t take it from me. Take it from Grok, Elon’s AI:

Stephen K. Hirst