When will the rhetoric quiet down? Apparently not soon enough since the Minnesota Democratic Party suspended a communications staffer due to a joke he made about beheading Republicans.

That joke comes days after two Republican candidates for the state government reported assaults against them during this week. One of them suffered a concussion.

State Representative Sarah Anderson

Anderson said a man charged her after she confronted him as he kicked her campaign signs. The man described himself has an anarchist, told her to kill herself, and punched her in the arm. From FOX 9:

Anderson said the man kicking her campaign sign Sunday afternoon said he was an anarchist and that Anderson should kill herself. She said she drove to a nearby gas station where she tried to get a photo of the man as he walked down the road. That’s when Anderson said he charged and prevented her from shutting her car door. “That’s when he just hauled off and punched me in the arm,” she said. “Then I put the car in reverse to just get out of there.” Plymouth Police confirmed they were investigating but declined further comment. Anderson said police would be interviewing her attacker on Tuesday.

Anderson told the Washington Free Beacon that “[T]o have someone physically coming after you and attacking you is disheartening.”

The investigation is still going on and identified a suspect.

GOP Candidate Shane Mekeland

A man attacked first-time candidate Mekeland at a restaurant. Fox 9 reported:

Mekeland said he had stopped at a restaurant Friday to ask if he could hold a campaign event there. He was talking to a few people around a high-top table when a man in the group punched him “out of nowhere.” Mekeland said he fell backward and blacked out when he hit the floor. He said he’d been discussing health care and taxes with the man, who at first seemed to agree with his positions. “The last thing I heard is him say – I’ll keep out the colorful language – ‘You bleepin’ people don’t give a bleep about the middle class,’” Mekeland recalled. Benton County Sheriff Troy Heck said he expected his office to take 7-10 days to do an investigation. Mekeland said police had already interviewed his assailant. He showed Fox 9 a medical document that confirmed his concussion diagnosis.

Mekeland told the Washington Free Beacon he has a “four-to-six week recovery time ahead of him” and “has suffered memory loss.” He even forgot Anderson’s name during the interview with the publication.

The police said they “interviewed the alleged assailant” and will hand the case to the district attorney once they receive “medical records about the extent of Mekeland’s injuries.”

Suspension

As I said before, the Minnesota Democratic Party communications staffer William Davis received a one week suspension after he posted a joke on Facebook “that Democrats would ‘bring [Republicans] to the guillotine’ on Nov. 7, the day after the midterm elections.”

Minnesota Republican Party Chairman Jennifer Carnahan criticized the suspension and wants him fired due to the alleged assaults on Anderson and Mekeland.

Carnahan also said that she has faced “numerous death threats during her tenure as the state party leader and that death threats are no laughing matter.”

Mekeland said no one from the Democratic Party has condemned the attack on him. Both Mekeland and Anderson lashed out at the party’s small punishment on Davis:

Mekeland said he was disappointed that he had not seen Democrats condemn the attack against him, but was floored to see the party take such a light approach to Davis’s comments. “He’s a political staffer so you’d think if anybody should know boundaries, I think that’d be it,” he said. Anderson was equally harsh about the DFL’s response, calling it “incredibly irresponsible.” “This is exactly what incites people to violence. … It’s why you have somebody who goes and attacks me on Sunday just because we have different political beliefs,” she said.

[Featured image via ShaneMekeland.com and Minnesota House of Representatives]



