The massacre at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis is one of those moments that should stop us in our tracks. Six children gunned down while at prayer. An attack fueled by hatred of Christians, contempt for faith, and radical ideology. And yet, once again, the same tired political script is playing out.
Democrat leaders in Minnesota—Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey—did not pause to reflect on how their own policies and rhetoric might have enabled this horror. They did not examine why their city, their state, has become ground zero for social disorder. Instead, they reached reflexively for the familiar scapegoat: guns.
But Minnesota already has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. The question isn’t whether another law would have stopped Robin Westman. The real question is: why was Westman radicalized, and why was this individual able to fester in an environment that excuses extremism when it comes draped in the language of identity politics?
Westman was not simply a troubled soul. He was a radicalized actor who left behind a manifesto full of anti-Christian and anti-Jewish venom. His weapons were adorned with the slogans of the activist left—“Kill Trump,” “Down with Israel,” and adorned with pride flags. The FBI itself called the massacre what it truly was: domestic terrorism and a hate crime.
And yet, the response from state leaders has been almost surreal. The focus has shifted to protecting the “trans community” from backlash, rather than confronting the ideology that produced a terrorist who murdered Catholic children in their classroom. Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan once proudly wore a “Protect Trans Kids” shirt with a hunting knife emblazoned on it. Mayor Frey, in the wake of children dying while they prayed, mocked the idea of offering prayers. And Keith Ellison, just days before the shooting, was bragging at the DNC about suing the Trump administration for trying to protect children from irreversible gender procedures.
This is not leadership. This is willful blindness.
And the truth is, we’ve been here before. The Covenant School shooting in Nashville. The Abundant Life Christian School in Madison. Again and again, the victims are Christian children, and again and again, the ideology fueling the killers is conveniently brushed aside. We are told to blame the weapon, but never the worldview.
Now contrast all of this with what is happening in Washington, D.C. For years, the nation’s capital was drowning in violent crime—murders, carjackings, robberies. Leaders wrung their hands and offered the same empty slogans about “equity” and “community investment.” Nothing changed. In fact, it only got worse.
But President Trump’s return to power has changed the equation. His law-and-order crackdown in D.C. has brought results. Officers are back on the street. Criminals are being prosecuted. Accountability has been restored. And the outcome is undeniable: Washington, D.C., just experienced a nearly two-week stretch without a single homicide.
That hasn’t happened in decades. And it wasn’t achieved with slogans, or with “violence interrupters,” or with the idea that social workers could replace police. It happened because Trump reestablished order. And here’s the kicker—even D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat who once bristled at Trump’s involvement in her city, is admitting that the results are good and necessary.
That’s the difference. When you put politics above public safety, children die. When you restore law and order, lives—especially the lives of the most vulnerable—are saved.
Minnesota’s Democrat leaders have lost the plot. They presided over the BLM and Antifa riots of 2020, when entire neighborhoods burned, when the Third Police Precinct was surrendered, when the National Guard was delayed. They scapegoated police, gutted their ranks, and then feigned shock when crime exploded. Today, the Minneapolis police force is down to barely a third of its former strength, while shootings—like this school massacre—have become tragically routine.
And yet, they double down on failure. They refuse to confront the role of radical ideology, the consequences of undermining law enforcement, or the toll their rhetoric has taken. The result is that innocent people, often children, pay the ultimate price.
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., we see the proof of what works. Leadership, accountability, and the courage to enforce the law. The American people are not blind to the contrast. They can see which policies save lives and which ones put their children at risk.
So here’s the bottom line: public safety is not an abstraction. It’s not a talking point. It is the difference between life and death. If Democrats truly cared about protecting children, about protecting communities, they would admit their failures and change course. Until then, the rest of us must continue to demand leadership that values lives over slogans, truth over ideology, and safety over political expediency.
Because when leaders lose the plot, it’s always the innocents who pay the price.