The attack on Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., at a Minneapolis town hall Tuesday was both reprehensible and inevitable.

In an age when polarized politics have whipped extremists into a frenzy and disagreeing with someone’s views justifies physical assault among fringe elements, the assault on Omar is a new abysmal milestone of societal degradation.

Video footage shows Omar at the town hall, calling for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and for Homeland Security Kristi Noem to resign when a man jumps in front of her and sprays liquid from a syringe on her shirt.

The suspect was arrested on suspicion of third-degree assault.

Police believe the syringe contained apple cider vinegar, CNN reported, citing a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation.

But right after the attack, who knew what it could be? A toxic substance? A biohazard? You don’t have to agree with Omar’s politics (and we often don’t) to find the assault repugnant.

We should have seen this coming. The calls for “cooling own the rhetoric” in recent years has mostly fallen on deaf ears. The urge to brand those of opposing views as evil and out to destroy the country are too great to resist, sadly.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif. took heat in 2018 for giving a thumbs-up to heckling members of the Trump administration in public.

“If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere,” Waters told supporters.

A few years later, the sentiment had not dissipated. Fox News reported in 2024 on food workers in Washington, D.C., pledging to refuse service and cause other inconveniences for members of the incoming Trump administration.

Resistance, of course.

“You expect the masses to just ignore RFK eating at Le Diplomate on a Sunday morning after a few mimosas and not to throw a drink in his face?,” said Zac Hoffman, a DC restaurant veteran and manager at the National Democratic Club.

The line from a hypothetical drink to a real syringe full of liquid is short.

A man was arrested late last week in Park City, Utah, for allegedly punching Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost in the face at a Sundance Film Festival party.

And talk and acts of violence isn’t reserved for public officials. Ordinary citizens of opposing political views are in the crosshairs. ICE agents are a trending target. As the New York Post reported, Malinda Cook, a nurse anesthetist at Virginia Commonwealth University Health,  encouraged medical professionals to drug ICE agents with paralytic meds in a series of TikTok videos.

“Sabotage tactic, or at least scare tactic. All the medical providers, grab some syringes with needles on the end,” the nurse said on one clip.

“Have them full of saline or succinylcholine, you know, whatever. Whatever. That will probably be a deterrent. Be safe,” she added, referring to the anesthetic that causes temporary paralysis.

She was fired.

This cannot be the new normal. Nor can attacking lawmakers because you don’t like how they vote or what they say. That isn’t America.

At least it shouldn’t be.

Editorial cartoon by Gary Varvel (Creators Syndicate)