Utah's Mike Lee is somehow a member of the U.S. Senate

The Republican breaks new ground in depravity with his unhinged posts about the Minnesota shootings

By Sam Bellamy

Somewhere around the time we began to hear about pizza-eating child molesters in the Democratic Party and pet-eating Haitian immigrants in Ohio, it appears our nation reached some sort of depraved, batshit singularity where it’s no longer possible to distinguish a Republican leader from a vile, conscienceless opportunist like Alex Jones or Laura Loomer.

Even so, we should pause to reflect upon the Father’s Day posts by Sen. Mike Lee about the political violence in Minnesota that left a state lawmaker and her husband dead and a second lawmaker and his wife seriously wounded.

Here’s one of Lee’s messages on X:

And here’s another.

To some degree, sadly, we’ve been here many times before.

Donald Trump has long trafficked in conspiracy theories, including recently sharing a message revealing that Joe Biden was executed in 2020 and replaced by robotically engineered “soulless mindless entities.” Even if we view this post as his idea of a “joke,” it’s a deeply disturbing moment in presidential history – albeit, one in a torrent of deeply disturbing moments starring our stable genius.

Mike Lee, who represents Utah in the Senate, is also known to delight in sharing the fever dreams of MAGA supporters on social media, as well as the coldly calculated work of tragedy profiteer Alex Jones, who notoriously taunted the parents of the slain children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

The senator, using his @basedmikelee account on X, has promoted such Jones staples as the Jan. 6 riot was conducted by the FBI and “deep state” and, of course, the 2020 election was pilfered by that soulless, mindless Biden. Lee also routinely shares AI-generated images that supposedly back up his bizarre claims, then declines to delete them after being told they’re fake.

In January, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that Lee posts, on average, one message every 28 minutes.

In a column Monday for Slate, Amanda Marcotte provides a partial rundown of MAGA luminaries like Loomer and Jones who’ve been circulating disgusting claims, including that Gov. Tim Walz – the proper spelling that Sen. Lee couldn’t be bothered to learn – had his friend Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark killed early Saturday morning.

Like many of her compatriots, Loomer has seized on the fact that the alleged gunman, Vance Boelter, had been appointed by Walz and his predecessor to a state workforce development committee and also had “NO KINGS” fliers in his vehicle at the time of the assassination.

Never mind that the committee was composed of 60 people who applied for the volunteer position and never interacted with the governor’s office or that police warned people to avoid the No Kings protests in Minnesota because, based on other documents in the vehicle, it appeared the gunman might attack one or more of those marches.

From this, Loomer – an ad hoc adviser to Trump on national security matters and who knows what else – concluded, "The organizers of NO KINGS and @GovTimWalz need to be detained by the FBI and interrogated."

Mike Cernovich, a right-wing blogger who was an early promoter of the Pizzagate conspiracy and recently recycled lies about South African “white genocide,” claimed that Walz had Hortman “executed” for voting for a budget proposal cutting aid to undocumented immigrants.

Others who pass in and out of Trump’s inner circle, such as Charlie Kirk, also shared conspiracy theories that pointed the blame at left-wing “terrorists.”

The evidence so far suggests otherwise. Police said the gunman had a list of 70 people on a hit list – Democrats, pro-choice advocates and abortion providers. Boelter’s roommate, who’s known him since they were in fourth grade together, said the suspected shooter was a devoted Trump follower and an ardent opponent of women’s choice.

During the 2024 campaign, many of the Trump team – including J.D. Vance – joined the despicable Jones onstage, and Vance hailed the man as a “truth teller.” In the not-distant past, a person like Jones would have been banished from public life after Sandy Hook, if not before, and denounced by any Republican hoping to hold public office. Now he’s a hero.

On Saturday, the day of the shootings, Jones posted this “key analysis” on X: “Tim Walz Appointee Assassinates State Representative Who Threatened to Leave the Democratic Party During Killing Spree Targeting Other Lawmakers.”

The level of the depravity in all of this – including Sunday’s posts by a U.S. senator – cannot be overstated.

At this writing, Republicans in Congress have been publicly silent about Lee’s outrageous messages.

Perhaps they’re busy recruiting Jones to run for a House or Senate seat in next year’s midterms.